Events
May 14-15
Iowa Media Collaboration
Attendance is limited, application required.
This is a one-day deep dive into the opportunities, mechanics and potential of university collaborations with local newspapers. In January, the independent student newspaper of the University of Iowa announced that it had purchased two local newspapers in the state: the Mount Vernon-Lisbon Sun and Solon Economist. This event is a to brainstorm with the leaders at UI (Melissa Tully) and the Daily Iowan (Jason Brummond) about the opportunity to broaden the reach of their student reporting and create synergies across other academic departments to build sustainability in the long term. The event is sponsored by the University of Iowa School of Journalism, The Daily Iowan, and the Center for Community News at UVM. Attendance is limited.
Apply here or contact Richard Watts at rwatts@uvm.edu for more information.
August 7
Powering Local News: Universities Making a Difference
The Center for Community News is hosting "Powering Local News" ahead of the AEJMC 2024 conference in Philadelphia, PA from 12:00 to 5pm on August 7th, 2024. Registration is required and lunch will be included. Some funding may be possible for travel.
Partnership Leaders Brown Bag Check-In
Thursday, April 25 | 2:00pm - 3:00pm | Virtual
For: Faculty, staff, and other leaders of news-academic partnerships around the U.S.
This virtual discussion and open forum will be facilitated by Amanda Bright (UGA) and Hannah Kirkpatrick (CCN).
About this Series
Connect with other leaders of news-academic partnerships to discuss best practices and key issues. Monthly conversations led by Amanda Bright (UGA) and Hannah Kirkpatrick (CCN).
Private Colleges and News-Academic Partnerships
Friday, April 26 | 12:00pm - 1:00pm ET | Virtual
Public colleges and universities make up most of the Center for Community News data base of university led reporting programs. Yet three quarters of the 3,000 four-year colleges/universities in the country are private. Why is this? Are there steps that we can take to engage big and small private colleges and universities, providing high impact learning experiences AND bringing their students and resources to the local news crisis? In this session, we will hear from leaders at private schools where student reporting is making a difference in local news. The panel includes Jack Shuler (Denison University), Colleen Steffen (Franklin College), Alison Jones (Duke University), Gina Gayle (Boston University) and Susan Paterno (Chapman University). Following short presentations from our panel, we open the conversation to all of you. The panel is moderated by CCN Director Richard Watts.
Developing Public Media/University Partnerships #3
Thursday, May 2 | 1:00pm - 2:00pm | Virtual
“Universities + public media + Election 2024 = an amazing opportunity”
Election 2024 is an incredible opportunity for college students and public media stations to work together. How can student-led journalism reach new audiences and approach political coverage in a fresh way? We’ll learn what’s happening all across the U.S. from America Amplified, and on the ground in one mid-sized Midwestern community. Hosted by Scott Finn (CCN) and Peter Dominowski (U:SA) with panelists Chelsea Nebeker-Naughton (America Amplified) and Jenna Dooley (Northern Public Radio).
The Future of University-Led Reporting Programs
Friday, May 10 | 12:00pm - 1:00pm ET | Virtual
What is the future of university-led reporting programs? Can they make a significant contribution to addressing news deserts? As CCN hits its two year mark, we bring together a panel of leaders to discuss recent research and future directions for these programs. Richard Watts and Meg Little Reilly from CCN will present ideas for the future and summarize results from a survey of 100 faculty program leaders.
We very much want to hear from you. What would be helpful? What kind of funding or resources might make a difference?
Partnership Leaders Brown Bag Check-In
Thursday, May 16 | 3:00pm - 4:00pm | Virtual
For: Faculty, staff, and other leaders of news-academic partnerships around the U.S.
This virtual discussion and open forum will be facilitated by Amanda Bright (UGA) and Hannah Kirkpatrick (CCN).
About this Series
Connect with other leaders of news-academic partnerships to discuss best practices and key issues. Monthly conversations led by Amanda Bright (UGA) and Hannah Kirkpatrick (CCN).
Statehouse Cohort Monthly Meeting
Friday, May 17 | 12:00pm - 1:00pm | Virtual
For: Statehouse Faculty Champions, mentors, and other cohort members.
Community Journalism Lecture Series
Virtual conversations with leading researchers, stakeholders and teachers once a month. Sponsored by the Community Journalism Interest Group of AEJMC.
More events coming in Spring 2024!
Recordings of previous conversations are available below.
Past Talks & Recordings
Apr 4, 2024: Developing Public Media/University Partnerships #2
"How we did it: a deep dive into how one public media station grew its relationship with one university."
Students were rarely seen or heard at public radio station WILL, even though it’s part of the University of Illinois. Professor Chris Evans was hired to change that. He worked with station leaders to create the Illinois Student Newsroom, and greatly increased quality student storytelling on WILL’s platforms.
In this webinar, we dove deep with Chris to find out how WILL and University of Illinois did it, from curriculum to students to university/station relations. He also shared the pitfalls and challenges the program continues to face and offer a road map for anyone seeking to create a public media / student newsroom of their own.
Dr. Chris Evans is an assistant professor of journalism at Howard University, where he teaches multimedia journalism and serves as editorial director of Howard University News Service. Before coming to Howard in 2023, Evans created the Illinois Student Newsroom at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, a nationally recognized model for combining the efforts of student journalists and public media newsrooms.
Mar 29, 2024: Brown Bag Check-in
Recording
Passcode: e9e#y%r9
Mar 28, 2024: Expert Panel Series: High Impact Local News Research
What is the state of local news research? What are some of the latest findings? In this panel Phil Napoli, the James R. Shepley Distinguished Professor of Public Policy Professor and Director of the DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy at Duke University and Jessica Mahone, Research Director at the Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media at the University of North Carolina summarize recent research in local news, building on a national local news research workshop hosted earlier that week. Moderated by Meg Little Reilly, CCN’s Managing Director.
Mar 19, 2024: Libel Insurance Information Session
Mar 7, 2024: Developing Public Media/University Partnerships #1
Feb 23, 2024: The Democracy Beat: Students Covering Statehouses and Elections
Feb 22, 2024: Brown Bag Check-in
Dec 8, 2023: Key Issues in News-Academic Partnerships
Recording (Available by request - contact hkirkpat@uvm.edu)
Connect with other leaders of news-academic partnerships to discuss best practices and key issues. Led by Amanda Bright (UGA) and Hannah Kirkpatrick (CCN). What resources can CCN provide to support you?
Dec 1, 2023: University/Public Media Collaborations
On Friday, December 1 at noon EST, join Scott Finn, CEO of Vermont Public, and CCN researchers for a discussion of our recent research on collaborations between public media and universities. What are the next steps that your station or university might take to increase collaborations?
Nov 10, 2023: Public Funding of Local News
Four states now provide funding for local news through state appropriations: New Jersey, Washington, New Mexico and California. In this program, we hear from local news leaders in those states and the national organization Rebuild Local News. Speakers include Ayinde Merrill (New Jersey Civic Information Consortium), Steve Waldman (Rebuild Local News) and Christa Scharfenberg (UC Berkeley). This session will be moderated by Meg Little Reilly (CCN).
Faculty Q&A Session with the Student Press Law Center
Faculty - wondering how to best protect your student journalists as they publish stories with local media outlets? Join us on Thursday, October 19 at 1pm EST for a special Q&A session with the Student Press Law Center. Senior legal counsel Mike Hiestand and executive director Gary Green will be on hand to answer your questions about legal issues in news-academic partnerships.
Check out our "Legal and Ethical Considerations" faculty resources page for a primer before the session. Come with your questions and ideas!
Recording available by request - contact hkirkpat@uvm.edu
Oct 12, 2023: Distribution of Content
University led reporting programs distribute content to news partners in many ways. Some send out a weekly email with stories, others post them to a website with a republish button, others distribute directly to the public. In this discussion, Justin Trombly (Community News Service) is joined by Adam Giorgi (Center for Rural Strategies) and Marcie Young Cancio (Amplify Utah).
Sept 8, 2023: Faculty Resources: Building and Sustaining News-Academic Partnerships
Amanda Bright, leader of UGA’s news lab and the Oglethorpe Echo, reviews the faculty resources page she created with CCN Research Director Hannah Kirkpatrick. How can this page be better? How can it be helpful to you? Bring your ideas and suggestions.
May 12, 2023: 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.
Apr 28, 2023: 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, 2022: 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, 2022: 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.
Spet 16, 2022: 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).
