A news partnership announced in a Thursday morning ceremony has the potential to transform journalism across Middle Georgia and beyond, officials said.
The Center for Collaborative Journalism at Mercer University will bring together the university’s students and faculty with professionals from The Telegraph and Georgia Public Broadcasting. The effort is backed by a $3.74 million grant to Mercer, along with another $854,000 grant to Georgia Public Broadcasting, all from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Mercer University will double the number of journalism instructors, from three to six, to make the center a success, while Georgia Public Broadcasting plans to increase its Macon staff. Mercer hopes to also double its number of journalism students, from 50 to 100, over the next five years.
Construction on the building that will house the center -- where The Telegraph will move its newsroom -- is expected to finish by July.
Telegraph Publisher George McCanless expects the partnership will become a model for other communities across the country. Quoting computer scientist Alan Curtis Kay, he said: “‘The best way to predict the future is to invent it.’
“And today, we stand to do just that,” McCanless said.
Beverly Blake, the Macon program director for the Knight Foundation, said she isn’t aware of such a deep partnership anywhere else. The Miami Herald has partnered for a number of years with a public radio station, and The Anniston Star is working closely with the University of Alabama’s journalism program.
“But nowhere have we found the collaboration between the daily for-profit newspaper, public radio and the university,” Blake said.
Blake said she’s particularly excited about having more reporters working locally to get more in-depth coverage. By the second year, the partnership should be tackling two community engagement projects a year, taking a closer look at issues such as a special purpose local option sales tax vote or ways to improve local schools.
“The hyper-local coverage will elevate the conversation,” Blake said.
Mercer President Bill Underwood said journalism students will learn much like medical students learn, through participation and supervision with working professional journalists.
The newsroom and instructional space for the center will occupy about 12,000 square feet on the ground floor of a new building already under construction across from the first Lofts at Mercer Village building that houses students, a Barnes & Noble bookstore and other establishments. The new building will include three stories of student housing above the journalism areas.
David Hudson, a media attorney who is chairman of Mercer’s board of trustees, said local media safeguard democracy and that the collaborative effort will benefit every community where participating journalists live and work.
“It is a gift to undergird democracy,” Hudson said.
Teya Ryan, president and executive director of GPB Media, which runs Georgia Public Broadcasting, said the collaboration has the potential to bring communities together.
“This is really about what you call ‘hyper-local,’” she said.
Liz Bibb, a Mercer senior who edits Mercer University’s newspaper The Cluster, said the effort will give students critical experience needed to find a job. She said she thinks it could become a model elsewhere for journalism education.
“We’re definitely kind of leading the pack,” she said.
Blake said the effort will train future journalists to benefit Macon and Middle Georgia.
“This is the right project at the right time, in the right place, and led by the right people,” she said. “I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to start.”
To contact writer Mike Stucka, call 744-4251.
