What We Know About the Business of Digital Journalism

via Columbia Journalism Review

Few news organizations can match the setting of The Miami Herald.

The paper’s headquarters is perched on the edge of Biscayne Bay, offering sweeping views of the islands that buffer the city of Miami from the Atlantic Ocean. Pelicans and gulls float near the building; colorful cruise ships ply the waters a few miles away.

And Miami Herald executives long held some of the best views in the city, from the fifth floor of the company’s headquarters.
Not any longer.

The Herald, like most U.S. daily newspapers, has faced severe financial troubles in recent years, suffering deep cuts in the newsroom and other departments. So, in one of many efforts to raise revenue, executives attached a billboard to the east side of the Herald building, completely obscuring the bay views of many newspaper employees, including the publisher.

The benefits of the billboard are obvious: the low six figures in annual revenue, according to a Herald executive, or enough to pay the salaries of a few junior reporters.

The irony is obvious as well, for the advertiser buying the space is Apple—the company that now controls a commerce and publishing system crucial to the future of the news business. And the product being advertised on the Herald’s wall is the iPad, a device that is both disruptive and helpful to media economics.

Indeed, the two companies provide a way to see the destruction and creation in the media business over the past decade. At the end of March 2001, the stock market valued the Herald’s parent company, Knight-Ridder, at almost precisely the same amount as Apple: $3.8 billion.

Read the full report from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism

Structure of the UWI Certificate in Journalism

The UWI Certificate in Journalism was structured with REAL LIFE in mind.

 

Semester 1 begins in early September, and goes till December. In that semester, you’ll be introduced to what you might call the contextualization courses. These are intended to help you learn about the conditions under which you will be working. There’s a Fundamentals of Journalism course that will introduce you to the principles and concepts that all journalists must know and by which journalists are  (or should be)  guided on the job. A course on Caribbean Media and Society will help you to understand the social and cultural contexts within which events happen, the expectations members of the society have of journalists, and how what you do impacts upon society. Our Law and Ethics course will inform you about your legal rights and responsibilities, and the regulations governing your work as a journalist. As you study this course, you’ll also be encouraged to think about the sorts of ethical dilemmas that you will face on the job, and about how you might want to respond. And finally, your reporting course will introduce you to the skills and strategies journalists need to follow and report on a good story. And each of the other courses will feed into what you’re learning about how to tell a good story.

Semester 2 begins in January and goes till early May. In semester 2, you’ll be doing four courses that are all intensely practical. In addition to the follow-up course on Telling the Story, part of which is an internship experience, you will be enrolled in an interviewing course; in a course that introduces you to Investigative Reporting; and another course on presenting the news story for different media.

In May, our third session begins, and at that time, you will be doing an independent project in investigative reporting, following a story that you have identified and successfully pitched. You will also be enrolled in one of two elective courses that will allow you to focus on an area of study you feel will be useful to you – either a course providing a more in-depth introduction to new media technologies, or a course that focuses on Journalism and Business.

So that by the time the programme ends in early July, once you’ve participated fully in all the programme’s academic activities you should be a competent and ethical reporter, capable of working effectively as part of a team, OR of taking initiative and working independently if required. In fact, you should be an asset to ANY newsroom.

Who owns what?

CJR's guide to what the major media companies own: http://www.cjr.org/resources/index.php

Introducing...the UWI Certificate in Journalism

The Certificate in Journalism programme has been structured with 2 main ideas in mind:

In the first place, we want to be sure that each of you will have the most enjoyable and effective learning experience possible. We’ve done that by providing lots of opportunities for you to integrate the theories you’re encountering with practical experiences that will make the theory more concrete. 

This programme will certainly include attendance at lectures. But it also provides ample opportunities for workshops on campus, field practice, some work experience, and always, reflection. So when you  discuss some topic during a class lecture, there’ll be lots of opportunity for you to see and experience how it feels in a journalist’s real world, and then to pull together what you’ve learned by reflecting on what it all means for your journalistic practice, when you’re out there working after you graduate. 

Also, in this programme, only 2 of the 10 courses require an end-of-semester exam. Assessment is primarily by coursework, because from our perspective, the proof of what our students can do, is  always going to be, primarily, that you can do these things in real-life working contexts.

In the second place, we’re committed to turning out people who can hit the ground running when they enter media organisations. So this programme is structured to give you more and more independence as time goes by. When you begin the programme in the first semester, you’ll have a somewhat structured learning experience. We understand that for many of you, this will be your first introduction to tertiary education. So you’ll find that there’ll be more in-class or directed course activity. But by the middle of that first semester, we’ll be expecting you to go out and find stories on your own, on-campus or off. By the second semester, most of your courses will have you out in the field, practising what you’ve been taught, even if you’re then asked to bring your work in to your supervisor, or to your lecturers and colleagues on campus for comment and guidance.

 In the last part of the programme, you’ll be doing most of your work independently, as you carry out independent projects, or assigned projects with fairly simple supervision.

Quality Journalism

via FreePress
The headlines are bleak. Tens of thousands of journalists have lost their jobs in just the past few years. Major dailies throughout the country have been shuttered or gone bankrupt, and it seems only a matter of time before a major American city wakes up without a newspaper on anyone’s doorstep.

Teaching Copyright

via The Electronic Frontier Foundation

As today's tech-savvy teens become increasingly involved with technology and the Internet for learning, work, civic engagement, and entertainment, it is vital to ensure that they understand their legal rights and responsibilities under copyright law and also how the law affects creativity and innovation.
This curriculum is designed to give teachers a comprehensive set of tools to educate students about copyright while incorporating activities that exercise a variety of learning skills. Lesson topics include: the history of copyright law; the relationship between copyright and innovation; fair use and its relationship to remix culture; peer-to-peer file sharing; and the interests of the stakeholders that ultimately affect how copyright is interpreted by copyright owners, consumers, courts, lawmakers, and technology innovators.
The lesson plan concludes with a mock trial that tests the students' understanding of copyright and its limitations and encourages them to consider the positions of each party involved.

Unit Goals

• Educate students about copyright law, including the concepts of fair use, free speech, and the public domain.
• Explore the relationship between copyright law and innovation, showing how the courts and lawmakers have struggled to build a legal framework to both compensate artists and encourage innovative uses of creative works and new technologies.
• Help students understand their legal rights and responsibilities with respect to copyright and technology use.

Objectives for Students

• Critical and creative thinking: brainstorming, analyzing historical and contemporary sources, and questioning group and individual assumptions.
• Social skills: collaborating with peers.
• Communication: participating in group discussions, debates, class projects, and role-play; demonstrating comprehension by commenting (orally and in writing) on the material clearly and effectively.
• Research: collecting, organizing, and synthesizing data from various sources (scholastic articles, commercial news sources, Internet, video/film, music, art, and literature).

How to Read the Curriculum

Each lesson plan begins with an overview and Notes for the Educator. These sections provide background information about the lesson topic; additional context about related issues, events, and controversies; and additional information about the activities outlined later in the lesson plan.
The Resources section gives a list of the materials and Teaching Copyright handouts relevant to each lesson. The list is divided into three sections: resources for the educator; resources used by students in class; and resources used by the students for homework. The Resources section also lists web-accessible readings.
Finally, the Lesson Activities section outlines each lesson's combination of games, discussions, worksheets, and homework designed to advance the students' understanding of the lesson topic and engage students' critical thinking and research skills. Some lessons feature extension ideas that can be used by educators interested in deepening the students' involvement with a particular lesson.

Lesson List (60 minutes each)

• Definitions of Copyright: What Do They Know?
• A Brief History of Copyright and Innovation
• Fair Use: Remix Culture, Mashups, and Copyright
• Peer-to-Peer (P2P) File Sharing
• Fair Use – You Be the Judge!

Teaching Copyright Handouts and Support Documents

• Copy Quiz
• Copyright History Worksheet
• Law and Technology Timeline
• Technology History Worksheet
• Stakeholders Worksheet
• Trial Guide
• Trial Guide for the Educator
• Copyright FAQ
• Fair Use FAQ
• Public Domain FAQ
• Glossary of Terms

Assessment

Student evaluation will be based on individual participation in class discussions, group research and presentations, homework assignments, and written and verbal participation in the final class project.

Relevant Education Standards

• California History-Social Science Content Standards (9-12)
• International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE NETS)

CPJ Video Report: Murdered with Impunity

via The Committee to Protect Journalists

<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/24253795?title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0&amp;color=cc0000" width="400" height="225" frameborder="0"></iframe><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/24253795">Murdered With Impunity</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/cpjmultimedia">Committee to Protect Journalists</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>

In “Murdered With Impunity," Sri Lankan journalist Sonali Samarasinghe describes the unsolved murder of her husband, the editor Lasantha Wickramatunga. Although Wickramatunga was beaten to death on a busy street in broad daylight, the government has failed to apprehend his attackers. (3:32)

Read the accompanying CPJ special report, “Getting Way With Murder.” Please visit the Global Campaign Against Impunity and see how you can help. CPJ's Global Campaign Against Impunity is underwritten by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.