Center for Community News

Program Models & Workflows

There is clearly no one-size-fits-all model for news-academic partnerships. From funding to platforms to university resources to communities served, numerous factors shape how these newsrooms operate and why. Below are cornerstone resources for considering how your program could take shape/evolve and examples of some of these models.

Mission & Vision

Before choosing a program model, the purpose, audience and message for the news organization needs to be clarified. (See questions for determining PAM.) Brainstorming for your situation is crucial, too, such as what gaps (geographic, topical, demographic) your newsroom would address within the community you are serving. Use the templates and playbooks below to think through these big questions.

KEY RESOURCES

How to Build or Expand a News-Academic Partnership Worksheet
Amplify Utah Playbook, a step-by-step guide for building a news-academic partnership
College Media Playbook, by Sydney Lewis with support from the Reynolds Journalism Institute

Program Models

There is a full list of case studies and a report by Richard Watts that summarizes the depth and breadth of model options, but here are a few example programs, separated by type, to inspire and guide.

Resources for Awards and Honors

Part of growing a program is gaining recognition for its quality. Below is a list of organizations that you can consider submitting student work to in order to provide encouragement for your students and the community they serve.

Broadcast Education Association (BEA) Festival of Media Arts and other competitions
College Media Association contests
Institute for Nonprofit News Awards
Online Journalism Awards (ONA) with student categories
American Scholastic Press Association Awards
State press association awards and broadcasters association awards (if applicable)
Society of Professional Journalists awards
Hearst Journalism Awards
News Guild list of other contests and awards

Leadership Structures

Faculty-led newsroom:

In this model, college faculty are the lead editors and executive producers for the reporting. Sometimes news organization leaders participate, too, but in many cases, content will simply be published by the newsroom once it’s vetted and approved by the faculty in the partnership.

Job descriptions and examples:

The Statehouse File at Franklin College, executive editor Colleen Steffen;
Grady Newsource, director Dodie Cantrell-Bickley, executive producer Ralitsa Vassileva and managing editor Amanda Bright

External editor:

With the help of extra funding, some news-academic partnerships hire a part-time or full-time editor/producer, outside of a faculty role or specific course assignment, in order to act as leadership of the news-academic partnership and/or share the load for editing and providing feedback for publication or broadcast.

Job descriptions and examples:

UVM Community News Service, editor Justin Trombly
The Oglethorpe Echo, editor Andy Johnston

News organization-led:

Other partnerships are built on the premise that the newsroom leaders will do the vetting and approval of content, while the faculty member plays a secondary role with instruction. In these models, newsroom leadership works with students and/or faculty in order to get reporting to publication or broadcast level.

Job descriptions and examples:

The Macon Newsroom
Arizona PBS

Workflow and Roles

The roles students take on in your newsroom (as well as the role(s) faculty play) will depend on too many variables to name, but there are key considerations — once a program model is established — that can keep the newsroom workflow efficient and effective.

Pitch structure — many news-academic partnerships find success in a specific pitch formula (news value, sources, why the audience should care, platforms, etc.) along with a systematic way to provide pitches with feedback as pre-reporting begins
Reporting and product roles — set clear expectations about sources, length and depth of content (writing, video, audio), style and editing guidelines, beat systems, photos and captioning, web and interactive elements, etc.
Collaborative expectations — whether it’s between reporters themselves or with editors/producers, faculty, or professional journalists, guidelines about workload and communication frequency must be clear
Editing process — create a consistent and rigorous path that reporting must go through before being seen by an audience; in essence, how much oversight will other members of the staff, you/faculty, professionals, and others have before it goes live; recommend that students are part of the editing process as editors when possible
- Local News Network Editing Workflows (University of Maryland)
- The Oglethorpe Echo Editing Workflow (University of Georgia) — all published work
Editor/producer roles — these can be static for a period of time or students can rotate through them (like in this example) to gain experiences with editing, video, graphics, digital products, etc. For another example, a broadcast class workflow from Grady Newsource shows how students rotate through producer, editor and MMJ roles.

Recommendations:

Create a stylebook, editing workflow, and/or newsroom guide to ensure consistency and to capture the knowledge of each staff to be passed onto the next semester or year
Create video walkthrus or other documentation for self-led role training
- Grady Newsource training videos playlist
- The Oglethorpe Echo training videos playlist

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