Traveling Curriculum for Journalists

The focus of the Committee of Concerned Journalists' Traveling Curriculum is different than other development programs. While the workshops address issues of craft and provide tools that can sharpen skills, the program is designed first and foremost to help to make the journalist more reflective, to make his or her journalism more conscious, and to develop a pattern of critical thinking.

The Curriculum was launched in February of 2001 and grew out of two years of discussion with more than a thousand journalists concerned about the future of the profession and what they see as a rise in "infotainment" and opinion in the news. (See CCJ Forums.) [1] To those journalists, and to the journalists we've met with over the course of this project, the profession's core purpose rests in its ability to provide the public with the information it needs to assume an informed role in self-government. It is with that purpose in mind that the Traveling Curriculum was built.

The program engages participants in a discussion about broader goals and purposes and then facilitates an examination of whether your newsroom's reflexes, methods and routines are living up to those higher purposes. It helps an organization clarify its goals and develop strategies to achieve them.

How We Developed the Curriculum

With a team of academic partners, we spent six months learning how other professions, from law to medicine to engineering, conduct mid-career training. The result is a curriculum that relies heavily on the Socratic method, case studies, small-group exercises, and large-group discussion. Lecture is limited. The program tailors itself naturally to each group and setting.

One of the primary theories behind this training is that a wealth of knowledge and experience exists in every newsroom. Participants are given scenarios drawn from real-life situations faced by news organizations and asked to work in small groups brainstorming solutions to the issues raised. Large group discussions give participants the opportunity to think about broad concepts and examine how they relate to their own newsroom. Facilitators also introduce various techniques and strategies we have collected from journalists around the country.

Our Facilitators

The facilitators [2]themselves are a diverse team of more than 20 experienced journalists from a variety of media, all of them recognized and respected names in the profession with broad experience and deep knowledge as correspondents, editors, producers and managers.

Curriculum Workshop Overview

The Curriculum consists of a series of individual units that we refer to as modules [3]. Each module is about three-hours in length and addresses a critical intellectual problem in journalism, such as issues of verification, making stories more engaging, or identifying biases. News organizations can choose any combination of these modules to suit their needs.

For print newsrooms, it is important to keep the same group of participants together for the entire workshop. We think the optimal workshop is a day-and-a-half with three modules -- beginning in the afternoon the first day, breaking for a social dinner, and then going from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. the second day. Another option is to do two modules in just one day, with a mostly social dinner the evening before. A third option is to do an evening session one day, followed by a morning session.

For local television stations, we typically repeat the same three-hour module several times over the course of a couple of days for different groups of participants. This allows us to train almost the entire staff at many organizations.

Impacts on Workshop Participants

In 2003, an intensive three-year assessment of the impacts the Traveling Curriculum was having on the individuals and newsrooms that have participated was undertaken. Click here for a summary [4] of the findings of the assessment, or here for a comprehensive report [5].

Interested in more information, or in setting up a workshop? Email us here [6].

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