The University of Toronto are recruiting only 20 Fellows from around the world for their Fellowship in Global Journalism Program
Qualifications: Twenty Fellows Like This…
They won’t wade into the current debate over ‘who is a journalist’, except to suggest this simple definition: A journalist is anyone who, in live time, helps deepen an audience’s honest understanding of the people or circumstances around them.
In their case, they aim to help outstanding subject-matter specialists become great reporters, not pundits. Fellows will be women and men with the potential to lead the global coverage of their own fields by breaking news, not just by offering their own opinions.
It’s tough work, and there is no single personality type doing it. But some qualities do distinguish the types of people we’re seeking:
Hunger and Ambition
You need to be very hungry to “own” the coverage of your specialty—your beat. You must have the urge to find untold stories that are important to your audience, to report on those stories until you’ve broken the news and to tell it more reliably and compellingly than your competitors.
Engagement, Excitement and Collegiality
Cynicism and world-weariness—that sense of having seen everything before—are toxic in journalism. You need an ongoing sense of wonder at the world: an unrelenting curiosity, and more… You need to take joy in finding the counter-intuitive ways in which your stories play- out, internationally.
Polite persistence is key. You need to keep knocking—politely—on dozens and dozens of doors as they get slammed in your face, often over weeks and months, either until the right door opens or you find a better path. You’ll be reporting globally, but language barriers are no excuse. Find a way around.
Day to day, many great reporters display these qualities through their sense of humour. They also show it in their humility—as they shape their own opinions around facts they find and sources who understand a story better than they do. And great reporters operate with respect—for their audiences, for sources they trust as guides to complex subjects, for their editors and collaborators and, most importantly, for the integrity of their coverage. Great reporters are subtle listeners.
Intellectual Rigour, Reliability and Discipline
You’re responsible for deepening your audiences’ honest understanding of their world. That requires a very high standard of analytic rigour and intellectual discipline. You need a critical mind that is queasy about generalizations and seeks evidence instead. You need the discipline to change your story as the evidence you find deviates from your original understanding; and even to kill your story entirely if you find no evidence to support your ideas.
You need to be reliable; which means planning your reporting and sticking to your timeframe; knowing when to file a story—or elements of it—and not being late.
Discipline also means respecting your lay audience. Insider jargon is seductive and useful, but you need the discipline to kill the jargon and explain complex ideas in plain language to smart, lay audiences.
An Independent Mind, and the Guts to Follow an Unconventional View
You need to question assumptions that other people take for granted. That includes looking for ways your stories play out around the world and not just in one or two countries you know well.
When your instinct tells you to explore an unconventional view—because it might be very important to your audience—you can’t wait for the dust to settle. You have to start reporting. You must have the guts to “just go”.
Most importantly, you need an independent mind. You must have the intellectual rigour and confidence to challenge even those you admire, or with whom you sympathize.
Cost and Earnings
The Fellowship
The Fellowship in Global Journalism will cost roughly $26,000 per student to deliver. But the Fellowship will pay $10,000 of that cost for every student admitted to the program. Fellows thus pay tuition of only $16,000 for their eight-month program. Fellows continue to receive free coaching for two years after the program, through monthly on-line bureau meetings.
Financially, this journalism program differs from conventional Master of Journalism programs in five key ways:
- Fellows can continue working in their field, throughout the program. We’ll help you balance the pace of your news reporting with the pace of your professional or academic work to meet your own goals and needs – and to manage any potential conflicts.
- After our full time, six week boot-camp), we schedule our journalism classes so that you can spend the bulk of each day working and reporting.
- You don’t need to move here. Fellows who are not based in Toronto can return home after the six week boot-camp. We teach journalism both on-site and through our distance education platforms.
- We can support admitted Fellows with their applications for grants and funding from organizations in their field.
- And because we want to encourage a balance of foreign and Canadian students in the program, both pay the same tuition fee.
Financing Your Costs
- Fellows who are Canadian citizens or landed immigrants may be eligible for student lines of credit from major Canadian banks.
- Fellows who are neither Canadian citizens nor landed immigrants may be eligible for the same lines of credit if their loans are co-signed by a Canadian citizen or landed immigrant; or they may be eligible for financial support and loans from their home country.
- Because this is a certificate program, Fellows are not eligible for financial aid from the University of Toronto or the Government of Ontario.
Admission Requirements
The University of Toronto are recruiting only 20 Fellows from around the world—and they’re seeking something different than conventional journalism programs:
- Specialization
- The relevant graduate degree, professional degree or work experience to report knowledgably on any specialty. If in doubt, please send us your application anyway.
- Prior experience as a journalist is NOT necessary, but some specific qualities are: Read Qualifications to understand the kind of personality they’re seeking.
- Written and spoken fluency in English.
Applications for the next cohort (Sept 6, 2016 – April 28, 2017) close February 19, 2016.
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