TEACHING HOSPITAL
The Teaching Hospital Model: A New Way of Educating Journalists A
s journalism schools search for innovative ways to prepare young journalists for a changing media landscape, some are turning to a model pioneered by the medical profession: the teaching hospital. Before going into professional practice, medical students get hands-on experience in teaching hospitals, treating real patients under the supervision of experienced medical professionals. This gives them opportunities to practice what they’ve learned in the classroom in a real-world setting as they provide patient care under the guidance of experts. Medical schools are no longer the only ones using this approach. The teaching hospital model is growing in popularity among other disciplines, including journalism, and the Cronkite School is leading the movement, spearheading a series of innovative full-immersion professional programs for journalism students. These programs provide hands-on experiences that allow students to develop their skills while producing professionallevel journalism for the public. Students in Cronkite News Service produce public service journalism for media outlets and audiences statewide and beyond from news bureaus in Phoenix and Washington, while Cronkite NewsWatch, the school’s live nightly newscast, reaches 1.1 million households on Eight, Arizona PBS. In the New Media Innovation Lab, students create digital media products for media companies and nonprofit organizations, and in the Public Relations Lab, students develop campaigns for client companies. In addition, the Cronkite School has developed partnerships with professional media organizations that give students even more opportunities for real-world experience. Students in the multimedia reporting course cover breaking news for 6
The Cronkite Journal
2012-2013
azcentral.com, while in the sports marketing and campaigns course, students develop marketing and public relations campaigns for FOX Sports Arizona. And in the multimedia sports reporting course, students provide coverage of Major League Baseball spring training for several major metropolitan daily news operations. The Cronkite School has received national acclaim for its efforts to bring the teaching hospital model to journalism education. The New York Times, The Times of London and others have written about the school as a leader and innovator in shaping the future of journalism education. Last year, the Federal Communications Commission held a public hearing at the school that explored a major FCC report on the state of American journalism in the digital age. The report featured the Cronkite School prominently in a chapter on university-produced journalism content. The school also has been recognized as a model for other schools looking to implement the teaching hospital approach. In an August 2012 open letter to university presidents, six national foundations urged universities to embrace the teaching hospital model in journalism education, pointing to Cronkite as an example. And in a September 2012 piece for Harvard University’s Nieman Journalism Lab, Leonard Downie Jr., Cronkite’s Weil Family Professor of Journalism, discussed the benefits of the teaching hospital model, writing that “Cronkite is one of a growing — but still too small — number of journalism schools around the country producing vitally needed journalism for their communities, states and the nation, while also teaching, researching and experimenting with mass communications in the digital age.” o