How Medill graduate journalism students in a national security class covered the NATO summit and wound up with their content published across platforms around the globe.
This year’s G-8 and NATO summits presented an extraordinary opportunity for advanced Medill graduate students to report in depth on critical international topics. It also posed the challenge of addressing the needs and interests of clients and the distinct differences in their sophisticated audiences.
The summits were held in May 2012 at Camp David (G-8 was initially planned for Chicago, but moved at the eleventh hour) and in Chicago. The timing was perfect for students’ thorough research and reporting for explanatory advance stories, a bit of breaking news, and subsequent topical analysis.
The summits’ timing allowed for a timely restructuring of the course plan for spring-term U.S. Security and Civil Liberties Reporting, given the anticipated agendas, and the expectation of civil-liberties-testing demonstrations. The class is part of the Medill National Security Journalism Initiative.
The academic focus of the eighteen students, all in their third or fourth terms, was balanced between the depth-reporting concentrations – public affairs; health, environment and science; business and economy. There were also a couple of broadcasters, and a few who were combining broadcast with their depth-reporting. → Full Story
