UC journalism embarks on a program expansion

Department to focus on urban and political reporting

Growing student enrollment and a program expansion in the University of Cincinnati’s Department of Journalism reflects the department’s reputation for academic excellence and stellar internship opportunities.

UC Journalism Hall of Fame Awards Ceremony, March 31, 2017. Photo by Gretchen Semancik

Jeffrey Blevins, professor and head of UC's Department of Journalism

“UC journalism has made extraordinary strides in an extremely short amount of time. This up-and-coming journalism department has emerged on the national stage for delivering well above its level of expectation,” says Jeffrey Blevins, professor and department head, who took the helm in 2012 when UC’s journalism program received its departmental status within the College of Arts and Sciences.

Journalism has been taught at UC since the late 1930s, first in the Evening College, and beginning in the mid-1950s, in the Department of English and Comparative Literature, College of Arts and Sciences, when the college first offered a certificate in journalism in 1977.

A growing department

Megan Goth Wesley holding a plaque and standing next to Jeffrey Blevins, professor and department head for the UC Department of Journalism

Alumna Megan Goth Wesley, with Blevins, was honored at the 2020 Young Alumni Awards. Wesley is a senior manager of enterprise and investigative reporting at WCPO-TV. Previously she was an associate editor for The New York Times Syndicate and held various positions in digital content management, editing and coaching at The Cincinnati Enquirer.

Since becoming a department, enrollment has grown from a program of roughly a hundred students to 171 students majoring in journalism, along with 30 other students in one of the department’s three added certificate programs, which include journalism, digital broadcast news and literary journalism. Journalism students elect coursework in hard news, feature writing, investigative reporting, photojournalism, entrepreneurship, political reporting, visual storytelling, international fieldwork, sports reporting, broadcast news and social media.

In recent years, students have secured high profile internships with NBC’s news program, the “Today” show, and the newspaper USA Today, and postgraduation employment with Bloomberg and Vox, as well as local outlets WCPO-TV and the Cincinnati Enquirer.

“Internship support is as important as anything we do in the curriculum,” says Brian Calfano, an associate professor with joint appointments in journalism and political science. “You really have to have ongoing education because there’s always going to be something new,” says Calfano who is also a political reporter and producer for Nexstar Media Group and appears regularly on CTV News Channel, Global News Toronto and Sky News.

Experiential learning expands

And that something new, both Blevins and Calfano tout enthusiastically, are efforts to establish a UC Center for Urban and Political Affairs reporting, with a corresponding urban and political affairs certificate program. 

“Experiential learning is such a big part of what we do that establishing the center is just the next logical outgrowth,” Blevins says of partnering with UC’s Department of Political Science to establish the center, and certificate program for a 2021 launch. The certificate will allow the regular offering of courses such as Race and Reporting, Post-truth and Fake News, U.S. Media Public Policy Research and Reporting and a course in Journalism Literacy.

This outgrowth, Blevins says, stems from several support mechanisms from within and outside the university.

We have more students doing paid internships than ever before

Jeffrey Blevins Professor and head of the Department of Journalism

More support for internships

Thanks to a grant from the Scripps Howard Foundation, for example, the UC departments of Journalism, Political Science and Communication collaborated in 2018 on the Common Ground Project, an ambitious research program designed to explore patterns of media engagement in the Greater Cincinnati region and analyze their effects on political perceptions. In July 2020, through an innovation grant from the college, the department was able to offer two internships with community-based and minority-owned news outlets: The Cincinnati Herald and Streetvibes. And, in August 2020, a grant from the Murray & Agnes Seasongood Good Government Foundation will support two more internships at these publications in conjunction with the certificate program.

“We have more students doing paid internships than ever before,” says Blevins, “but not all publications have the financial resources to support experiential learning.”  

In support of UC’s strategic direction called Next Lives Here, he says, grants for internships help advance the university’s commitment to urban impact, creating an opportunity for UC to establish a relationship with Cincinnati’s urban communities and providing students with real-world, ground-level experience producing relevant news for marginalized communities — Black, Latino, LGBTQ and homeless communities.

“Grants such as these really fit well with what we’ve done so far,” he adds, citing that both the research endeavors and the investigative reporting instruction students receive at UC is raising the department’s visibility.  

In 2018, for example, one UC journalism student and several recent UC graduates and faculty contributed to a Cincinnati Enquirer series, “Seven Days of Heroin,” which won a Pulitzer Prize. The department also has received recognition through the national Investigative Reporters and Editors organization with a collegiate award for reporting on athletic spending at Ohio’s public universities.

Featured photo of student conducting a video interview. Photo/Unsplash.

In a recent market share report by the UC College of Arts and Sciences, the journalism department ranks fifth of 17 in Ohio; ninth of 40 in the Tristate (Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana); 20th of 70 in the region; and 99th of 354 nationally for number of journalism degrees conferred.

Impact Lives Here

The University of Cincinnati is leading public urban universities into a new era of innovation and impact. Our faculty, staff and students are saving lives, changing outcomes and bending the future in our city's direction. Next Lives Here.

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