The Emmy win by UBC journalism students and faculty for an investigative documentary on e-waste is a prime example the emerging partnerships between schools, foundations and the media. The documentary, Ghana: Digital Dumping Ground, was produced by students of the International Reporting class, under the supervision of Professor Peter Klein, for PBS Frontline/World. It was made possible by  a $1 million donation from Mindset Social Innovation Foundation to fund an international reporting

On Wednesday 21 July, I’ll be talking at the IAMCR conference in Braga about our integrated journalism programme at the Graduate School of Journalism, University of British Columbia. Here are my slides: Lessons from integrated approach to journalism education View more presentations from Alfred Hermida

Here is my latest column for PBS Mediashift on how journalism students are taking to social media to build up a reputation: One of my students landed her first A1 story on Monday. Amanda Ash’s story on auditions for the sequel to the teen vampire blockbuster “Twilight” was splashed across the front page of the Vancouver Sun. But she first alerted me, and her 130 other followers on Twitter, to

For my latest post for PBS Mediashift, I’ve written about a new undergraduate course I am teaching at UBC: The young men and women entering university today are digital natives who have grown up in a world of Microsoft, Google and Apple. They have lived through a time when the Internet went from being a highly specialized system used by scientists to a ubiquitous utility that defines how they engage

Over at PBS Mediashift, I have looked at how to get ready for the start of j-school this week. During the summer, here at the UBC Graduate School of Journalism, we made a couple of significant changes.  We cut back on the number of required textbooks, and instead added a good quality digital audio recorder, the Zoom H2, as a requirement for students. We also discussed how to teach students

We have some positions open at my J-school at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. If you are looking for a position and this is a good fit for you, I hope that you will apply. If not, please help us let others know about the opportunities. I would be happy to talk with anyone who is curious about the positions, the school, the university, and the city. Assistant/Associate

Good news. I’ve received some funding from the University of British Columbia to investigate online news habits in Canada. Here’s the abstract for the research project, Behind the Discourse on Online Media Democracy: The Canadian Experience, which I will be starting over the summer: Pundits, policy-makers and academics suggest that new online information sources are challenging traditional media elites. Yet recent studies suggest the democratization of sources is more myth

Some big changes are under way at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of British Columbia where I am on faculty. The director of the school, Stephen J.A. Ward, is leaving for the U.S. to be the first James E. Burgess Chair and Professor in Journalism Ethics, and director of a new Center for Journalism Ethics, at the the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The announcement from the Dean of