Other Resources: Syllabi, Cases

Q. How do you teach journalism students about the issues confronting community journalism?

Thanks to several recent reports, including one by the Federal Communications Commission, more and more policymakers and educators are focusing on the journalistic and business challenges confronting a variety of community news organizations, including newspapers as well as digital start-ups.

How do you incorporate the lessons in Saving Community Journalism into a classroom discussion about journalistic decision-making? How do you teach students about the economics of news operations or the feasibility of a digital start-up?

This section is designed to be an additional resource for journalism professors who are attempting to address those questions. If you would like to share your own syllabus, lesson plans or related teaching materials on community journalism with other educators, please reach out through this page and your resources will be posted here.

A Classroom Discussion in a Community Journalism Course: University of Kentucky professor Al Cross has shared a condensed version of a recent class discussion about the main themes in Chapters One, Two and Six of Saving Community Journalism. Click here to see a PowerPoint presentation of the discussion format and the questions he posed.

A Semester Course in Innovation: Click here to access a syllabus that walks students through the process of conceiving a product and launching it. The syllabus and lesson plans are contributed by John Clark, director of the Reese News Lab at the University of North Carolina.

A Semester Course in Media Economics: Click here to obtain a recent syllabus for Digital Media Economics and Behavior, an upper-level course designed to teach students how the economics of the news industry differs from the entertainment business. The class is taught by Penny Muse Abernathy, Knight Professor of Journalism and Digital Media Economics at the University of North Carolina.