Most journalism degrees are practical, focusing on teaching skills such as interviewing and filming by sending students out in the field, where they are often assigned a local patch to report on for a given amount of time.
While this is helpful for students in building their portfolio and making contacts that can become sources later on, there are other ways in which trainee journalists can collaborate more closely with community members.
In this post on MediaShift, Sue Robinson, associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's School of Journalism and Mass Communication, provides eight tips for "moving journalism from the classroom to the community".
Based on her own experience, Robinson advises seeking grant opportunities to support coursework undertaken by students, partnering with local groups and organisations and tailoring class assignments in such way that their outcomes are also useful for community partners.
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