Of all the schools I know about, the grads with whom I've worked from Syracuse, Northwestern and Missouri stick out in my mind. All three schools seem to prepare their grads pretty well. One of my favorite reporters was a very recent Northwestern grad, and I haven't observed any serious attitude problems from either Northwestern or Syracuse.
However, there IS a Missouri attitude that some grads adopt that doesn't seem to be common to the other schools. It's the only school I've heard people actually brag about attending. I've heard them brag about it to people out in the field who have little knowledge of television journalism, as if knowing they went to Mizzou should instantly command respect.
From my conversations with a particularly obnoxious Mizzou reporter, I gather that the attitude originates with the instructors, who in some respects inflate the students' egos while in other respects filling them with tremendous anxiety over living up to the school's expectations for its graduates. I think a lot of the kids coming from there are afraid that they don't really measure up, so they tell everyone they meet about the Mizzou experience in order to bolster their failing self-confidence. Perhaps when they realize they're working as equals with other people from colleges without the same reputation, for the same low salary and long hours, it helps to convince themselves they are somehow "better than all this" because they went to Missouri.
Don't get me wrong. Not every Missouri grad I encountered had that attitude, and probably not even the majority. However, the ones who do have the attitude are obnoxious enough to blacken the image of the school despite the skill or demeanor of the rest of them. And let me tell you this, too: One of the WORST producers and one of the WORST reporters with whom I ever worked came from Mizzou, and they were probably the loudest about their royal Missouri lineage.
