U of T launches new post-graduate journalism program

A new and different post-graduate journalism program has just been launched at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs.

The program’s website  states that it is seeking 10 people who have some expertise in a subject and want to provide coverage of that subject in the global media.

“These aren’t ‘normal’ times for journalism, and this isn’t a normal journalism program. We need a new generation of correspondents who understand complex subjects as specialists, and who yearn to report on them across borders as journalists,” states the school’s website.

The school will select 10 Global Journalism Fellows who will spend eight months studying such things as “Writing and Multiplatform News Presentation,” “Global Dynamics,” and “Entrepreneurship,” as well as attending lectures by leading journalists and others from around the world. At the end of the program, according to the website, the fellows graduate with a certificate in Global Journalism and the skills they need to become “super-freelancers” or even launch a media business.

The school promises the program will be highly flexible so that it can be changed easily to accommodate changes happening to journalism. Details about the program posted online promise fellows will be matched with a news organization and serve as freelancers for that organization, while they take skills-based courses and attend lectures by experts in a variety of journalism and global issues.

Applications will be accepted until February 13, 2012 for the inagural term in the fall of 2012 and details about application requirements and procedures are now posted online.

Earlier this year, Rob Steiner, the director of the journalism lab at the Munk School of Global Affaris and former Wall Street Journal reporter, spoke to TVO’s Steve Paikin about how this program will complement, not compete, with other graduate journalism programs and why he thinks there is a need to train specialists to be journalists. The 15-minute interview is still available online.

When an early proposal for this program was first circulated last year, some journalists and journalism educators offered their assessment of the focus of this program.