A former U of T communications executive is working to establish a new graduate program in journalism. Robert Steiner, former assistant VP strategic communications, is hoping to have a unique, highly specialized program ready for students in fall 2012.
“We should know by September 2011,” said Steiner. “We’d all have to know by then, because by September 2011 we’ll have to be marketing the program.”
He said the program will be unique from anything he’s ever seen. Doctors, lawyers, grad students, advocates, and other people with substantial life history would participate in a program tailored to their niche. While learning the fundamentals of journalism, students would focus on reporting in their specific fields and would begin freelancing by second semester.
“It’s premised on all this evidence that while generalist media are having problems, specialist media are actually growing,” said Steiner. He noted the 2008 US recession, when American car companies lost revenue and slowed advertising. While Newsweek suffered, magazines like Motor Trend saw increased advertising revenues, said Steiner, adding that companies increasingly advertise within their niche.
The idea is to form freelance journalists who can pitch their work globally.
“The problem with conventional journalism programs at the master’s level is that they are teaching people to be general assignment reporters at the local city paper. There aren’t as many jobs as there are students.
“What we’d like to do is actually create a program that recruits students who already have a specialty. We’re going to recruit those folks and teach them over the course of two years how to be a journalist in the global niche media, covering their fields. This would be as global as conventional [journalism programs] are local.”
The program would likely be run from the Munk School of Global Affairs and would seek a mix of Canadian and international students. Course content would include entrepreneurship and how media work in various states, including covering authoritarian states. Students would be taught how to create a personal studio, complete with all necessary tools for reporting through multiple platforms on the issues relevant to their work.
“I think most of our students aren’t going to be working in newsrooms in the end,” said Steiner. “They’ll be working as freelancers, and they’ll be working in their own areas.”
Steiner started his new role of founding director of the Journalism Lab at the Munk School in mid-October. Since summer 2009, he has worked on the program during evenings and weekends. “I was doing this on the side a little bit over the course of the last year, until it got to a point where we figured someone has to jump right into this and do [it], or it’s just not going further.”
He said the idea came about through conversations with his colleagues in the joint undergraduate journalism program between UTSC and Centennial College.
“They’re on a strong path forward for undergraduate education, and it struck me that there might be a different but complementary path forward for graduate education — one that starts with older students who already have a specialty they wish to cover,” said Steiner.
Before working in public relations, Steiner freelanced during his undergraduate degree and later worked at The Wall Street Journal, where he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He said he looks forward to returning to journalism, but stressed the program is just a proposal and that approval and accreditation would take months.
“There’s a lot to happen between now and then,” he said. “I’m really struck and very moved by the interest people are showing, and we have to get the details right.”
