University/Statehouse Reporting Conference – Sept. 28, 29 2023
University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri
Agenda includes updates from current programs, review of credit, funding, distribution, organizational and partnership models. There is a special emphasis on planning how to collaborate across existing programs and for universities planning to start programs. Registration is limited to about 50 participants. Participants should be engaged in statehouse reporting program or planning to start one.
Sponsored by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the University of Missouri and the Center for Community News.
Read more:
Student reporters fill crucial gap in state government coverage - The Conversation
CCN Statehouse Report
Trainings and Organizing Sessions
The Center for Community News offers free training/organizing sessions for faculty and media organizations keen to start or expand a collaboration between a college/university and local media organization. These sessions are limited to 8-10 faculty/stakeholders and are designed to workshop ideas and move them forward. Attendees should come with ideas and expect to leave with concrete plans.
Community Journalism Lecture Series
Virtual conversations with leading researchers, stakeholders and teachers once a month. Sponsored by the Community Journalism Interest Group of AEJMC.
Recordings of previous Brown Bags are available below.
More Brown Bags coming in Fall 2023!
Past Talks & Recordings
Friday, May 12: Collaborations with Public Media Organizations
There are more than 200 university licensed public radio and public TV stations – often co-located on university campuses. What are the opportunities for collaboration? In this presentation we hear from some university programs that are partnering with their local public media outlets in a variety of ways. Chris Evans, a Clinical Professor of Journalism at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, coordinates through his classes hundreds of students stories that air on Illinois Public Media. Courtney Cowgill, a professor at Montana State University who manages a student reported daily one-minute audio broadcast from the Montana Statehouse that is shared with radio stations across the state, Virginia Dambach, the Executive Director of the University Station Alliance that encourages these partnerships and Claudia Cruz, who is the managing editor of Noticiero Móvil, a bilingual faculty-run, student-produced news site that provides additional Spanish-language audio content to the local public radio station KUNR.
This panel will be moderated by Scott Finn, the President & CEO of Vermont Public.
Friday, April 28: Recruitment, Fundraising & Distribution of Student Content
University led student reporting content is distributed in a variety of ways, from shared webpages to email lists to direct partnerships. Some programs are involving students beyond their journalism programs. How do they recruit those students and why? And we also talk about raising money for your program, knowing that University funding often follows students. Here we hear from program leaders on some of these topics. Our panel includes Alva James- Johnson, a teacher at Southern Adventist University who works with students to increase coverage of the surrounding community; Marcie Young Cancio with Amplify Utah, an organization that works with a number of partners, Elizabeth Stephens at the University of Missouri, who distributes statehouse reporting content in partnership with the Missouri Press Association and David Squires at North Carolina A&T, where student reporters are covering the neighboring East Greensboro community, to fill reporting gaps at the hard-hit daily Greensboro News & Record and supply content to two local weeklies.
As always, we will also hear from all of you. How is it going? What challenges do you face? What questions or suggestions do you have. At the heart of all of these programs are creative and innovative faculty. Bring your questions and thoughts.
Mar 31, 2023: Stories of Local News Partnerships Making a Difference
Student reporters in University/local media collaborations are bringing local news to rural, urban and suburban areas. In this panel we hear from three programs; Amanda Bright of the University of Georgia, who oversees the ownership and operation of a community paper, Andrew Conte, who coordinates student reporting projects through Point Park University in Pittsburgh, and University of Miami professor Tsitsi D. Wakhisi (invited), who coordinates Communitywire.miami – a student staffed reporting initiative to produce local stories for city neighborhoods.
We also will hear from all of you. How is it going? What challenges do you face? What questions or suggestions do you have. The Center has identified more than 140 of these programs and there are more – but at the heart of all of them are creative and innovative faculty. Bring your questions and thoughts!
This panel will be moderated by CCN Director Richard Watts.
FEB 24, 2023: Research on Local News
Join us for a panel discussion of the latest research on local news, moderated by Dr. Mimi Perreault, drawing from the 2023 Local Journalism Researchers Workshop (Feb 16, 17) co-sponsored by University of North Carolina and Duke University. More than 50 presentations focused on local news research, from pink slime to civic engagement were featured at the workshop. In this brown bag, session organizers Philip Napoli of Duke and Jessica Mahone from the University of North Carolina will highlight some of the top papers and findings. Phil Napoli is the Director of the DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy and Jessica Mahone is the Research Director Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media at the University of North Carolina.
Dr. Mimi Perreault’s research and teaching expertise are in community-media relations and media writing, specifically helping local non-profits develop strategic communication plans and she serves as the advisor to the student led regional publication, Overlooked in Appalachia.
JAN 20, 2023: WHAT ARE COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES DOING ABOUT THE LOCAL NEWS CRISIS?
More than 100 colleges and universities are coordinating programs to provide local reporting. In this panel, Lara Salahi, of Endicott College, and Christina Smith, of Georgia College will discuss their research on these collaborations. Salahi, an award-winning journalist, started a partnership at Endicott College and Smith worked for 13 years as a community newspaper reporter and is now a weekly newspaper scholar. Also joining Salahi and Smith is Meg Heckman, from Northeastern University, the founder of a local media initative and a fellow scholar and Mark Berkey-Gerard, from Rowan University, who has identified more than a hundred news-academic collaborations partnerships in the U.S. and conducted surveys and interviews on key benefits and challenges. Christina Smith will moderate.
DEC 15, 2022: STUDENT STATEHOUSE REPORTING PROGRAMS
As the number of fulltime statehouse reporters have decreased, student reporters in University/College led programs are stepping in to fill the gap and provide high-quality experiential learning for the students. Here we hear from four of those programs; Colleen Steffen with Indiana's Statehouse Files, Alix Bryan-Campos with VCUs Capital News Service, Chris Drew with LSU's statehouse news bureau and Rafael Lorente with Maryland's Capitol News Service. For more details see our case studies here. The panel is moderated by Kathleen McElroy of UT's Moody School of Communication in Austin.
DEC 9, 2022: FACULTY FUNDRAISING BROWN BAG
Many of the local media partnerships utilize some mix of faculty-led university fundraising. In this virtual brown bag we focus on university/faculty fundraising, exploring some of the different approaches and sources. Our panel includes Kevin Morgenstein Fuerst, Executive Director of Annual Giving at the University of Vermont Foundation; Susan Paterno, chair of the journalism program at Chapman University and Laura Simoes, Executive Director of the Nackey S. Loeb School of Communications. The panel is moderated by Richard Watts, the Director of CNS. Each of the panelists has had extensive experience raising many thousands of dollars in university settings. Bring your own ideas and thoughts.
NOV 18: FUNDING FOR LOCAL NEWS?
A lack of local news undercuts democracy, reduces citizen engagement and leads to greater polarization. One recent report finds we are losing two community newspapers a week. What is the role of philanthropy in addressing the crisis? What is the role of public funding? Moderated by Meg Little Reilly, the Communications Director at the Convergence Center for Policy Resolution. In this panel we hear from Karen Rundlet, a Director of the Journalism program at the Knight Foundation, Todd Franko, the director of local sustainability and development for Report for America and Michelle Srbinovich, the Vice-President for Portfolio Success at the American Journalism Project.
OCT 21: WHAT IS COMMUNITY JOURNALISM?
A conversation with Andrea Wenzel, the author of “Community Centered Journalism” and Nikki Usher, the author of “News for the Rich, White and Blue.” A discussion of what we mean by community journalism, who it is for and who is involved in the production and dissemination of news. This conversation is moderated by Traci Griffith, professor emeritus of Media Studies at St. Micheal’s College and the current racial justice director for ACLU Massachusetts.
SEPT 16: HOW TO SUSTAIN LOCAL NEWS?
What are some of the innovative for-profit and public funding models? Moderated by Erica Beshears Perel, Director, Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media at the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media. Here we explore some private and public funding approaches. Mike Rispoli is the Senior Director of Journalism Policy at the Free Press/Free Press Action Fund that recently helped win $3 million in public funding for news outlets in New Jersey and Michael Shapiro, the founder of TAPinto, a for-profit franchise model for local news, that presently has a network of 86 local news sites in New Jersey (as well as sites in PA, Fl and NY).
