Photography and Journalism

Should photography be a core course for digital journalism education?

Mu Lin asks this question on his digital journalism blog.  He makes multiple points about the increasingly visual world we live in, which I fully agree with.  Photos drive stories, especially stories read on a computer on phone, where most people are easily bored with a long, text-ridden article.
I agree that it might be easier to merge the two tasks of journalism and photography.  However, as a photographer, I don't think that this easy route is necessarily the best.

One or two photography classes for journalists is not enough to provide the training and skills necessary to produce good-quality, well thought out photos.  I believe that this should be a separate job entirely, performed by someone with adequate training and experience.

When a story hits, a journalism or two and a photographer should always be present.  The photographer is responsible for getting the first, most essential photos that a journalist could not get while also trying to report the story.

Since the world is increasingly digital and visual, this means that photos will be seen large and in color on a screen rather than printed in black and white on a small section of a newspaper.  Along with this change should come a change in quality. Most people expect to see high quality images on their computers, not blurry or grainy mis-shots.

Overall, I think that photography is a job on its own, and it should be treated like own.