[jbob2000]

Eh, I think he's mistaken. Journalists aren't good at writing because they took a course, they're good at writing because they write. A lot. You want better memos, hold memo-writing practice sessions every week and give constant feedback. Ripping a memo up and saying "take a course" is ignorant.

[superuser2]

A writing course mostly is writing a lot and getting feedback.

[tlb]

People learn from combined practice and feedback. Most people have 1000s of hours of practice, but precious little feedback. Writing courses, or working closely with an editor, is the best way to get the feedback needed to improve.

[comrh]

Partly, there are a lot of foundationals you could teach someone that would make a good improvement upfront though. Paragraph structure, how to formulate an argument, how to use quotes or data to support your thesis and the most important... REREAD WHAT YOU WROTE. Too many people hit send after vomiting on a page and thinking that is that.

[n0us]

Its the same as coding. People are good at writing code because they write a lot, however a person who is at the top of their game still might be benefited by taking a computer science course or two.

[walshemj]

Actually the subs rewrite most of the journalists copy and fix all the grammar and spelling

[kwhitefoot]

I suspect confirmation bias here. Most journalists don't write well at all.