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Caucasus School of Journalism and Media Management

Teaching Investigative JournalismDublin, 2014EJTA Conference

Caucasus School of Journalism and Media Management runs graduate level, degree and certificate programs in journalism and media management. Faculty - American, European and Georgian journalists and media managers. Students - Georgians, Azerbaijanis and Armenians, with majority in journalism jobs. Teaching approach –“skills” based, hands- on studies.

Challenges at the Caucasus School of Journalism (CSJMM) in teaching journalism with the aim to support the free media, which is affected by the conflicts within the region and in Europe.

Current trends in journalism: How the role of the journalist as a truth-teller and

commentator becomes more complex due to the technology revolution.

What are the news

Lord Northcliffe’s famous litmus test: “News is something someone somewhere doesn’t want printed. Everything else is advertising.”

Role of the journalist Truth-teller Sense-maker, Explainer, who reports things someone

somewhere doesn’t want reported, and who does it in a way that doesn’t just make information available but frames that information so that it reaches and affects the public.

Public   The public is that group of consumers or

citizens who care about the forces that shape their lives and want someone to monitor and report on those forces so that they can act on that knowledge.

Revolutionary media Technology revolution

What social media does better: crowds When you aggregate enough individual

participants, you get a crowd. One thing that crowds do better than journalists is

collect data.

What machines do better

Create value from large amounts of data at high speed.

Challengefor the journalists

To swing more of their resources to the kind of investigative and interpretive work that only humans, not algorithms, can do.

Engineers have to understand what makes a story “better”to improve an algorithm.

How to write an algorithm of 

Conscious

Challenge N 1

Ethics

Azerbaijan, Armenia, Abkhazia Georgia

64 media experts

Ethical situations

Scenario 4 International journalist team is covering war

from the battlefield; one of the sides is bombed and smashed. Huge losses: human, material; block posts of soldiers of opposite side are everywhere. Journalists got their footage and now they are on their leave the territories. On their way, they meet one representative of the demolished country in the army uniform, wounded soldier, bleeding, there is a 5 years old boy and boy’s mother with him (they are sister and brother). They are bagging journalists to take them with them, to save them as there is a high risk that all of them die.

Findings Coverage of conflict is misleading, inaccurate

and extremely partisan and the reason for that is self-censorship, which is caused by financial dependence and prioritizing national interests over professional responsibility;

According to the respondents, journalists in Georgia, when reporting on conflict situations, give priority to their self-interests and their own well-being rather than to upholding the ethical standards of journalism.

Be as transparent as possible Fundamental honesty Importance of the multi-cultural environment- it

supports teaching the skills of how to be dispassionate, non-partisan and truthful in reporting on volatile issues.

Challenge 2:

Teaching verification journalism vs “she said, he said” journalism.

Accuracy first

http://coub.com/view/20iohhttp://coub.com/view/20iohhttp://coub.com/view/20ioh It’s sparrow , not swallow

Initiatives that CSJMM implemented to support investigative journalism in Georgia

Establishment of Friedman-GIPA prize in investigative journalism;

Josh Friedman, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and former chairman and current board member of the Committee to Protect Journalists ( EJC)

Collaboration labs that bring together journalists, programmers and graphic designers for the first time;

www.newscafe.ge http://www.newscafe.ge/index.php/en/?opt

ion=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=253

http://newscafe.ge/khudoni/ http://vimeo.com/78560846

http://kavshirebi.gehttp://kavshirebi.gefile://localhost/Users/user/Desktop/presentations/CSJMM _Dyblin_EJTA.ppt

Kavshirebi.ge presentation at the Frontline_Georgia

Producing the fourth official language translation of the Data Driven Journalism guidebook in Georgia; Data journalism Handbook

The Investigative Reporter’s Handbook: A Guide to Documents, Databases and Techniques” 5th Edition By Brant Houston

CSJMM involved in professional training for working professionals

Media Business ManagementMultimedia Journalism Photojournalism Social Media Management Internet Business Marketing Videography Communication psychology Internet Business Marketing TV Reporting New World of Journalism in the Digital Age

and etc

Joining the European network of online data journalism as local learning groups.

Area A: Media Foundation Courses (63 ECTS)

MFC 613 Basic Reporting and Writing (7 ECTS) (Required)

MFC 620 Advanced Reporting and Writing (7 ECTS) (Required)

MFC 625 Audio-Video Training (Non-credited) (Required)

Area B: Journalism Courses (28 ECTS)

JOUR 630 Online Journalism (7 ECTS) (Required)

JOUR 641 Social Media (7 ECTS) (Required)

Area D: Elective Courses (7 ECTS)

WEB 642 Web Technologies for Journalists (3 ECTS) (Elective)

Area E: Student Media Lab, Practical Project& Internship (20 ECTS)

SML 647 Student Media Lab (Converged Newsroom) (10ECTS) (Required)

PRP 634 Internship (Elective) (3 ECTS)

PRP 650 Practical Project (Required) (7 ECTS)

Developing specialized courses that focus on data's use in journalism;

There is a new emphasis on collaboration and partnership between professional journalism, non-journalism organizations and the public

Future perspective

Implementing a forthcoming project inspired by the notion that the audience should participate in the investigative journalism /journalism process. The project will create a criminality map of Georgia. This will be a one-year collaborative project between academia, the media industry, a Georgia tech startup (Jumpstart), and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.

This community-driven reporting project will track crime in Georgia by using original reporting, court documents, social media, and the help of victims’ and suspects’ friends, family, neighbors and others.

Create a platform enabling journalists and civil society organizations to track and verify incidents of crime and compare them with official statistics.

Create a body of journalists able to use data to tell fact-based stories. Create a body of journalists able to conduct crime incident reporting using citizen crime incident reporting methodologies.

Create a body of stories describing crime trends and their impact on society. Create a body of stories holding the Ministry of Interior accountable for accurate, up-to-date, and accessible crime data.

Looking for the future

EJTA membership

Cross-Regional projects???

THANK YOU