The St. Catharines Standard interviewed NC Journalism program coordinator Charles Kopun about anticipated changes to the Journalism program. The program, with one more cohort going through, is being reviewed due to declining enrollment and the changing industry.
The curriculum for a new course is still in the design phase, and Kopun envisions that the program will adapt to current industry needs and job opportunities for graduates as the era of print news is eclipsed by digital. The new program will be based in NC’s applied learning model. It will include a multimedia, multi-platform approach to storytelling, teaching interviewing skills, content creation, analytics, as well as the fundamentals of journalism, ethics and best practices.
Kopun says, “A lot of smart people at the college are working on this now. This is not an end of an era by any means.”
NC’s Journalism students received a mention for having won Ontario Community Newspaper Association awards, and in 2018, partnered with The Standard to produce a live-stream broadcast for the municipal election. They will be involved in a similar broadcast for the 2019 federal election.
