The Committee of Concerned Journalists’ “Traveling Curriculum”

The Committee of Concerned Journalists is dedicated to raising standards in journalism through research and education. As its name suggests, the Committee arose from the concern that journalism’s capacity to accomplish its public mission has been challenged by conditions in the news industry today. One of the Committee’s responses to this challenge has been the “Traveling Curriculum” that is the subject of this report.

In 2001, with support from the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Committee of Concerned Journalists launched a program of intense training workshops designed to bring new learning opportunities to journalists working in the field. The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation joined in support of the program’s implementation and assessment in 2003. Unlike most existing mid-career training programs, the CCJ workshops take place in journalists’ own newsrooms or in nearby community settings, rather than at locations such as the Poynter Institute - hence the title “Traveling Curriculum.” Because the workshops travel to news organizations, entire newsrooms can experience the workshops together. All levels of print staff, including executive editors, managing editors, front-line editors, reporters, feature writers, copy editors, photo editors, advertising directors, and business managers participate as peers in the workshop discussions. So do all levels of broadcast staff, including news directors, producers, assignment desk staff, reporters, photojournalists, promotions department staff, studio production staff, and advertising and sales personnel. Indeed, it is a requirement of the CCJ training that all staff levels participate.

The workshops consist largely of small-group exercises and problem solving, with a few formal presentations and lectures that convey tools and standards of journalism. The curriculum covers core ethical concepts, but it is not limited to ethics; it covers the entire spectrum of good journalism practices, such as how to write engaging stories, how to expand a newsroom’s target audience, how to uncover new information for an investigative report, and how to plan a feature series.

For print newsrooms, the workshop program takes a day-and-a-half. During that time, the program delivers three “modules” that have been pre-selected by the newsroom from a set of 12. For broadcast newsrooms, the workshop program is compressed into a single half-day presentation in which two abbreviated modules are offered, along with a key interactive “story-stacking” exercise that requires participants to make careful choices regarding how and when to air a highly diverse variety of news stories. The two modules offered in CCJ broadcast training are news judgment and engagement and proportionality – the former focusing on how to think reflectively and critically about everyday decisions regarding sources, treatment, and placement of stories, and the latter focusing on the problem of making important and complex news personally interesting to the audience. In addition, although both print and broadcast visits are followed up with phone calls and, in some cases, subsequent visits, the extent of post-visit consultation for the broadcast stations has been significantly greater than that for print.

Module topics for print newsrooms include verification, bias, engagement (making news stories interesting), proportionality, independence, conflict of interest, watchdog, and the other “elements of journalism” identified in the Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel book of that name. A complete list of the Traveling Curriculum modules can be found at concernedjournalists.org [1].

Examples of how the modules are composed include the following: The bias module begins by addressing the problem of political bias and then expands the bias concept to include particular life experiences, personal beliefs, attitudes, and values that influence one’s reporting. The module’s discussions of bias recognize that all reporters inevitably will have their own perspectives on stories that they are covering, and that these perspectives can be valuable in conceiving and shaping a story; the module’s goal is to make participants aware of the nature of their own biases so that they may adopt methods that correct for any imbalances in coverage that may stem from such biases.

The accuracy and verification module follows up on the bias module by presenting a range of tools that journalists can use to achieve greater accuracy, reliability, and transparency in their work. Other modules also offer tools for better reporting along with opportunities for critical reflection about purposes and standards of good journalism.

The engagement and proportionality module focuses on two related standards: interesting writing and proportional coverage. The watchdog journalism module discusses how to choose the most appropriate topics for investigative reporting and how to find powerful exploratory methods.

The meaning of journalistic independence module discusses ways in which journalists can integrate their public roles as members of the communities that they report on without getting entangled in conflicts of interest.

The how to deal with growing business pressures in the news module emphasizes the marketplace demands of the news industry and discusses ways in which journalists can deal constructively with business pressures without compromising their work.

The workshop format of small-group exercises and frequent interactive dialogues was chosen because it has been shown in the pedagogical sciences to foster critical thinking and deep understanding. (Many high-level professional and executive training programs in business, law, and other professions use a similar format, although in journalism this type of intensely reflective training is still relatively rare). The workshop exercises and discussions are implemented in a Socratic manner, with trainers asking thought-provoking questions and guiding the discussions towards solutions that impart useful knowledge, reveal new insights, and emphasize the importance of key standards.

Prior reports and observations of mid-career education in other fields (business, law) have revealed that training works best when certain conditions are met:

• The training must address issues that the participants themselves recognize as important for doing their jobs well.
• The training must actively engage the participants in collaborative exercises.
• The training must be vigorously supported by the leadership of the organization.
• The training must challenge the participants with difficult, cutting-edge problems.

Our own pilot workshops confirmed these initial assumptions. During the pilot phases of our training program, it became clear that, whenever the workshops strayed from small-group, active-participation format – whenever, for example, there was too much lecturing in a module at the expense of time for the small-group active exercises – the sessions suffered. The key features of the CCJ workshop design were confirmed during the program’s pilot phases: direct relevance, active collaboration, critical thinking and reflection, and serious tasks that would challenge even the most seasoned journalists.

The trainers in the workshop program usually are distinguished journalists, either recently retired or working in educational or other nonprofit settings. The trainer’s job is to present the problems, facilitate the discussions, and share information and ideas about how to tackle difficult challenges in reporting the news accurately and fairly. Often trainers offer workshop participants illustrative anecdotes and insights from their own professional experience.

Subsequent to the workshops, CCJ sends the newsroom a detailed report based upon the participants’ responses to pre-session survey questions as well as on the informal observations of the trainers during the visit. The report is sent to the editor or the news director, with a request that it be circulated throughout the newsroom. In some cases this request has been honored (to a greater or lesser degree), whereas in other cases the report has remained on the editor’s or news director’s desk. CCJ follows up with phone calls to the editor or news director, to discuss issues in the report that may require further clarification or suggestions.

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