CHAPEL HILL -- For decades, much of the reporting done by journalism students has simply been graded and shelved.
Jean Folkerts, dean of the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Mass Communication, thinks it's "fake" journalism -- work no one ever sees.
With a new, $3.5 million gift from an alumnus, the journalism school now plans to put more of its student work into the public realm. A new 24-hour newsroom project will give students a place to work with new technology, tap into the advice of faculty members and try new methods of innovative communication without fear of failure.
This working laboratory, which will be created in a current classroom, is funded by a gift from the estate of Reese Felts, a 1952 UNC-CH graduate who spent nearly 30 years in radio and television broadcasting in Winston-Salem.
This project will produce news, though not in the traditional sense. There will be no news "paper," but Web sites will feature the audio, video and written journalism that students produce.
The lab will also be used by students studying advertising, marketing and public relations.
There are still plenty of details to work out, including the hiring of a new director -- and what title that person should hold.
Folkerts spoke with The News & Observer this week about the new project.
Here are excerpts from the interview:
Q: The person who directs this venture will be called an "executive producer," rather than an editor or professor. Explain that.
We wanted somebody who really understands they had to work with bringing many different pieces together; technology, software, platforms. It couldn't just be a word editor. They had to really think multidimensionally.
Q: So where does a person like that work right now?
That's debatable. There are people coming out of print newsrooms who are being very creative. A person in our faculty now came from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and did a lot of media and digital projects. Others are coming out of broadcast. Look at the work WRAL is doing with multiple platforms. What we're really interested in is a person's capability and vision. This is a new project that does not have all the details worked out.
Q: Is this something a school can do that a news organization can't afford to do?
We have more time because we're not on a day-by-day deadline. We don't have to be the community newspaper, so we can take more time. And we don't have to bring in revenue, which lets you look at it differently. But we'd like to make models that are useful to the industry.
Q: It's dubbed a "24-hour" newsroom. So set the scene: What's going on at 3:30a.m.?
We've had a lot of issues with students who would love 24-hour access to work on projects. So it may be a kid building an interactive game. It's not that news is breaking at 3 in the morning. We just want it to be as accessible as we can.
Q: Is it more newsroom or laboratory or totally different?
We hope it's different than putting it into a standard niche.
My goal is to have everything a student does in any class be in competition for being published on the site. If it's a marketing class, it's an idea that has a chance to be tested.
One thing that happens in a school where the daily newspaper is totally independent of the journalism school, you can end up with people doing things in class that was fake. That's not a good thing.
Our whole goal is to make sure everyone in these classes is competing to get work showcased or experimented with.
It's a project that will evolve over time. But I think it's just a wonderful combination of news experience and laboratory and research that a journalism school can provide that is very hard to provide in the outside world right now.
