By: Caroline Embleau
After editing at the Orlando Sentinel for 20 years, Rick Brunson decided to take a turn teaching University of Central Florida students how to cover local news in a hands-on way.
Brunson, a senior instructor at the university, heads a partnership with the newspaper and the college’s Nicholson School of Communication and Media that gives students the opportunity to write for the Sentinel.
The partnership takes the form of a rigorous independent study course called the Joint Reporting Project, which allows students to see their bylines in the Sentinel and gain experience reporting in communities beyond campus.
Brunson said the project stems from a desire to protect local news in Central Florida.
"I love the place; I love local news," he said. "I don't want to see it go down."
What evolved into the course began as a grant from the Ernst & Gertrude Ticho Charitable Foundation in 2018. The foundation's goal was to strengthen local journalism in communities where it is diminishing.
"They gave us $15,000 to develop a program, a plan, to try to do what we could to help — if not solve the problem, make it less worse than it is," said Brunson. "So that's how it started."
Protecting Local Journalism
The grant initially funded student memberships to a nonprofit that helps strengthen investigative journalism and a program between students and NPR News called Next Generation Radio.
That evolved into the Joint Reporting Project — which offers enrollees three credits.
"We've ... made it where students who sign up for [the course] are strictly interested in what it is," said Brunson. "We can interview them and vet them to make sure they have the time available and commitment to do it and do it right."
The Sentinel's decision to relocate its office to the school’s downtown campus influenced the decision to deploy students as staff.
"The Sentinel's coverage area spans pretty far, and they don't have the staff to be able to uphold that," said Caroline Brauchler, one of the project’s student reporters. "There were a lot of things that were falling through the cracks, so they took in student reporters, and each [student] gets a city to cover or even a county."
Students cover a wide range of locations, including the cities of Oviedo and Casselberry, along with east Orange County and parts of Lake Nona, said Brunson.
The course holds five students: four reporters and one videographer.
By covering several beats, students gain chances to broaden their reporting — spanning topics like city budgets, commission meetings and planning and zoning. Students recently joined the Sentinel to cover the Nov. 8 midterm elections.
Brauchler got to cover a hurricane that passed through Orlando and its effect on human lives.
"I'm getting real reporting experience," she said. "It's an incredible partnership."
Helping Students Learn
Students research and write the story themselves, then turn to Brunson for a first read. The product then reaches an editor at the Sentinel for editing before publishing.
Brauchler said Brunson takes time to ask questions students "might not have thought of."
"He tears it apart," she said. "We have that assurance that although we're students, it's up to the quality that the Sentinel would expect of any of its other reporters."
The course allows students to gather "strong, solid clips and published work for their portfolio," said Brunson. A digital portfolio is a requirement for journalism majors to graduate from the university.
"The Sentinel basically uses this course as the minor league for their internship program and employment," said Brunson. "They basically harvest their interns out of this course."
He said two or three reporters from the program have earned full-time roles with the Sentinel.
The project’s success is opening doors for other potential opportunities — including more partnerships and formalized internship programs with media affiliates like NPR and ABC, Brunson said.
All the while, the Joint Reporting Project continues to teach students the importance of local news.
"Covering your campus is really important. It's where you learn your chops," Brunson said. "But these students are going to actually one day be going out in the community, and they need to know how to cover it."
For more information:
Rick Brunson, Rick.Brunson@ucf.edu