A problem that we all know about: most mainstream media outlets are currently worried about their futures, facing a dangerous mix of declining revenue, audience fragmentation and eroding public trust.
A problem we discuss less often: the education we offer aspiring journalists hasn't fully caught up to these developments.
Most journalism schools still offer the sort of training they did 10 or 20 years ago: the basics of composition, interviewing, fact-checking and so forth. They've added some instruction to accomodate changes in technology—students can now learn about best practices in social media, for instance—but they haven't adapted to one of the most basic shifts in the industry: newsrooms are relying more on freelancers, ess on staff reporters, to fill their pages and broadcasts. Thus, while graduates of these traditional programs may be able to produce good stories, they haven't been trained to market or sell them to editors—which many, lacking a permanent full-time job, quickly discover is a necessity.
A new fellowship program at U of T is hoping to reverse the traditional order of operations (learn to be a journalist, then acquire a beat and develop subject-specific knowledge): begin with professionals who already have subject-matter expertise, and teach them how to use that knowledge to launch careers or side-businesses in journalism. Because participants already have some professional experience and standing, says program director Robert Steiner, the goal is to "make it about the work, not the degree." This means that participants are focusing on learning how to generate story ideas, pitch them to outlets, and make the most of their expertise by actually doing all of those things (with the help of expert guidance)—not at a university newspaper or through internships, but by pitching major media outlets just a few weeks after starting the program. Early signs are promising: so far one participant has written what became the lead story in the
Star's GTA section last week; several others have been published in national newspapers as well.
Steiner freely admits this program won't save journalism as an industry—nor is that his goal ("one of my most liberating moments in this whole experience is when I realized that I wasn't out to save newspapers") but he does hope it will attract some interesting new talent to the field at a time when traditional training methods may not quite be doing the trick.
Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Robert Steiner, Director of the Fellowship in Glorbal Journalism at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto