Program
Our curriculum combines mentored freelancing to major media with teaching in journalism, global affairs and entrepreneurship. And because journalism is continually changing, we are designing this program to be massively flexible; so that we can review it, and change it, on an ongoing basis.
The curriculum is built on three pillars:
1. The Practicum: Mentored Freelancing to Major Media
Under strong mentorship, Fellows with advanced knowledge of a discipline can offer news organizations value as freelance journalists right away— rather than waiting for a summer internship at the end of a year of classroom study. From Day One of this program, Fellows will build a portfolio of reporting in major media—and a network of global contacts and sources.
- Primary Freelance Arrangements. Upon admission, each Fellow will be matched with a member of our media network: The Globe and Mail, CBC News, The Toronto Star, Postmedia Network, and Trustlaw (a global service of the Thomson Reuters Foundation covering anti-corruption news and women’s rights). Fellows will then cover their own disciplines as freelancers to those news organizations throughout the program. This work will take precedence over course-work and over other freelance work.
- Secondary Freelance Possibilities. Through arrangements organized by the program, Fellows will also have the opportunity to freelance in their disciplines to other news organizations around the world, including: The Financial Times, BBC Global News, The Washington Post, and OpenFile.ca.
- Mentorship. For mentorship, Fellows will be assigned to ‘bureaus’, under the leadership of an experienced journalist acting as ‘bureau chief’. The ‘bureau chief’ will be responsible for mentoring them on story judgment, pitching story ideas, reporting, and writing. Fellows will meet with their ‘bureau chief’ extensively every week.
2. Courses in the Classroom
- Writing and News Presentation. Fellows will learn how to write clearly and present news across a wide range of traditional and digital
media platforms. - Reporting and Research. Fellows will learn a portfolio of tools they need to break new stories in their disciplines—including investigative reporting techniques, clinical and legal interviewing skills, and uses of data generated through academic research.
- Global Dynamics. Fellows will develop news judgment about their own disciplines function as global stories, by studying international political, economic and cultural systems at the Munk School of Global Affairs, Canada’s leader centre for the study of these disciplines.
- Entrepreneurship. Fellows will learn how to design, assess, plan, launch and manage new businesses—including their own businesses as freelancers, new enterprises they may wish to launch or units within news organizations they are hired to manage.
3. The Open Lectureship
This curriculum will be complemented by regular lectures from leaders in a wide range of subjects that are essential to global correspondence, including:
- Ethics
- Journalism values
- Freelancing practice
- Safety in conflict zones and authoritarian states
- Global media economics
- Diversity and transnationalism
Fellows graduate in May 2013 with a Certificate in Global Journalism from the Munk School of Global Affairs in the University of Toronto.
