Studio 20 @ Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute

The STUDIO 20 concentration at NYU offers master's level instruction with a focus on innovation and adapting journalism to the web. The curriculum emphasizes project-based learning. Students, faculty and visiting talent work on editorial and web development projects together, typically with media partners who themselves need to find new approaches or face problems in succeeding online. By participating in these projects and later running their own, students learn to grapple with all the factors that go into updating journalism for the web era.

The program seeks to draw together a diversely talented team of students who can produce excellent work that pushes the field forward and realizes some of the possibilities inherent in a multi-media, interactive and constantly evolving platform for journalism-- namely, the World Wide Web.

Studio classes provide a "hub" for organizing activity and a common space for inquiry and reflection around the program's various projects. Students are expected to be flexible and curious, generous in sharing skills, eager to pick up new knowledge and willing to adapt to what the project--and its deadlines--demand.

The curriculum has three parts: 1.) the traditional requirements of two basic reporting classes plus "the ethics of the web;" 2.) a core of three project-based classes called Studio I, II and III; and 3.) elective enrichment courses that allow students to pursue interests and work on initiatives of their own. In their third and final semester, students design their own projects with an appropriate media partner and try to create innovation--as well as a name--for themselves.

Each year Studio 20 will recruit a mix of writers, editors, videographers, audio journalists, programmers, designers and Web producers under the principle of "bring skills, share skills, learn new stuff." Recruiting will emphasize students comfortable in more than one medium and ready to tackle new challenges. One of our mottos is: "Everyone works on everything." Another: "acquire what the project requires."

In 2009-10, one of Studio 20's major partners was the New York Times. Working with editors at the Times, students and faculty designed and planned a hyperlocal news site for the East Village neighborhood in Manhattan. It launched in September, 2010: The Local East Village.

One of the innovations that came out of that project is The Virtual Assignment Desk, a WordPress plug-in. You can read more about it here.

In 2010-11 Studio20's major project was a collaboration with ProPublica, the investigative reporting non-profit. Students experimented with the genre of "the explainer," a form of journalism that provides essential background knowledge and brings clarity to complex issues in the news. Read more here and see the project site, Explainer.net.

In 2011-12, Studio 20's major project was a collaboration with The Guardian around a different approach to election coverage. You can read a summary from the Nieman Lab. Then see the project in action on the Guardian: here and here.

In December of 2010, NYU announced that the renowned Internet thinker Clay Shirky would be joining the Carter Institute and Studio 20, where he will teach courses and consult on projects.

Think you might be interested in applying? Email studio20.journalism@nyu.edu to let us know. Tell us about yourself and your background and how we can find you and your work on the web.

Here is Studio's 20's official page at New York University's Arthur L. Carter Institute of Journalism.

Here are the official instructions on how to apply. (The initial deadline is Jan. 10; we will accept applications after that but cannot guarantee space or financial aid. Please note that the GRE General Exam is required of all applicants. See our How to Apply page for more details.

Here is a map showing where we are located.

Follow professors Jay Rosen and Jason Samuels on Twitter, as well as Clay Shirky. And check back at this site for updates.
Studio 20 Collaborates with ProPublica to Build a Better Explainer

In its second year, Studio 20 is again embarking on a big collaboration with a major media partner. In 2009-10 it was The Local East Village with the New York Times. In 2010-11 it’s the Building a Better Explainer project with the investigative journalism non-profit, ProPublica.  The project will focus on the art of explaining the sort of sprawling complicated stories that ProPublica covers. The new site students built for the project, Explainer.net, launched last night. 

Studio 20 Director Jay Rosen’s students, consulting closely with the editors of ProPublica, will:

  •  
    • research best practices in explanatory journalism;
    • collect relevant knowledge from other disciplines about how users absorb complex subjects;
    • pick one of ProPublica’s major investigations and produce model explainers suitable for publication at ProPublica.org;
    • experiment with different ways of delivering critical background knowledge, using all the tools of the Web
    • investigate how to make the explainer genre more interactive with Web users;
    • share their findings with ProPublica and the wider journalism world            

Professor Rosen details the background of and plan for the project on PressThink:

We will start by researching what’s working now, and by going beyond journalism to fields that might know something journalists should know. In the spring of 2011, we’ll devote a whole graduate course (18 students, two instructors, plus consultants) to producing explainers that we hope ProPublica can publish, as well as a kind of tool kit to make the task easier. At the project site, explainer.net, we’ll post highlights from our research, solicit help, and publish interviews with thinkers and do-ers who are pushing the practice forward.

Recently, Nieman Journalism Lab’s Lois Beckett visited Studio 20 to speak with students about the project. She writes:

Students will divide into three groups tasked with exploring different elements of explanation. One group is interviewing the members of ProPublica’s news team, from reporters to news app builders to the managing editor, in order to understand the organization’s workflow, what it does with the data it collects, and how its reporters explain what they’re learning to themselves as they report a story.

Another group is building Explainer.net’s WordPress website, which sometimes means teaching themselves and each other skills on an ad hoc basis. 

A third group  is researching the different “explainer” genres. They’re starting with examples of good and bad explanatory journalism, from maps and timelines to more specific visualizations like The National Post’s chilling illustration of how a stoning is carried out in Iran. But they’ll also be reaching far outside the media world to research techniques used in many different fields. Rosen suggested that they focus on situations where people “can’t afford to fail,” like people fixing combat aircraft, or NFL teams explaining complicated plays. The students are also looking at the “For Dummies” book franchise and the language-learning software Rosetta Stone.

Keep up with the project on Explainer.net. Or by Twitter.

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