Knight Foundation Scholarships

Journalism Scholarships Available for Programmers/Developers

Applications from candidates for these new scholarships are being accepted now, for admission to start in 2009 (enrolling in January, June or September) or January 2010.

Are you a skilled programmer or Web developer? Are you interested in applying your talents to the challenge of creating a better-informed society? Do you want to learn how to find, analyze and present socially relevant information that engages media audiences? Do you see possibilities for applying technology as a way to connect people and information on the Web or new delivery platforms?

If your answers are "yes," consider applying to Medill for a master's degree in journalism. You can earn your degree in just a year. You will learn new skills that will open doors to new opportunities that might help build a better democracy. And a new program at Medill offers you a chance to win a fully funded scholarship.

About the Medill academic program

Medill operates an internationally recognized one-year journalism master's degree program. The program is intended primarily, although not exclusively, for students who didn't study journalism as undergraduates and may have no previous journalism experience. Over the course of a year, students acquire the knowledge and skills to work as journalists in newsrooms and editorial offices all over the world.

The heart of the Medill program is learning by doing. From your very first academic term at Medill, you are immersed in the real world of journalism practice. You learn to understand the needs of media consumers, to find and cover the news, seek out and create compelling content, and tell stories in multiple media formats.You learn about the social mission of journalism and its critical role in building a democratic society. You also learn the legal and ethical frameworks that guide journalists and build audience credibility. And you are immersed in the culture and business of journalism, learning how news organizations work and how media businesses make money.

Medill also offers students a chance to participate in "innovation projects" -- classes where student teams collaborate to create real media products. In these classes, students come to understand all of the ingredients needed to make a successful news publication, magazine, broadcast or Web site. A successful new media product must have compelling content or functionality, an engaged audience and a business model. Medill's innovation classes -- including the Media Management Project, Magazine Publishing Project and New Media Publishing Project -- give students a real-world exposure to product development at media companies.

About the scholarship program

Medill believes that journalism is a key foundation for a functioning democracy and that in the 21st century, programmer/developers are enormously important to the future of journalism. So we have partnered with the Knight Foundation to create a new scholarship program designed for people with strong technology skills that are interesting in pursuing a Journalism Masters degree at Medill.

“The skills and insights that technology developers have are increasingly important to the analysis, delivery and accessibility of information needed in a democracy,” said Rich Gordon, who directs Medill’s program in new media journalism. “At the same time, the journalistic skills learned at a place like Medill can yield important ideas for applying technology in ways citizens will find relevant and engaging.”

Applicants with experience or academic degrees in computer programming or related fields are eligible for a partial or full tuition scholarship. To be considered for the scholarship, applicants must be admitted to Medill's graduate journalism program. (See instructions for how to apply, below.) Applications from candidates for the new scholarships are being accepted now, for admission June 2008:

The priority application deadline for entry in Summer or Fall 2008 is January 2008.
The priority application deadline for entry in Winter 2009 is July 2008.

Late applications are reviewed on a space-available basis. There is still time to apply for entrance in the Winter 2008 quarter (January, 2008). Please contact the Office of Graduate Admissions for details.

Students who are awarded the scholarships will complete the same academic program as other MSJ students. The first academic quarter is spent learning reporting and storytelling skills in multiple media. At least one other quarter is spent in Medill’s Chicago newsroom, covering a beat and creating multimedia stories. As part of the program, all of the scholarship recipients will also be enrolled in one of Medill's innovation projects, in which scholarship winners will have the opportunity to apply their technology skills. They also will be able to choose among a variety of elective courses.

Over the next three years, Medill will offer the equivalent of nine full tuition scholarships, to programmer/developers who earn a MSJ at Medill. At least one full scholarship will be offered in each of the next three years; the remaining scholarship money will be awarded as full or partial scholarships based on the applicant pool.

The connections between journalism and technology

At Chicagocrime.org, people can investigate for themselves what kinds of crimes are most common in their neighborhoods. On the Web site for the Asbury Park Press in New Jersey, people can look up property assessments, campaign contributions and help journalists identify government workers who are “double-dipping” by holding down more than one taxpayer-financed job. At Digg.com, users help each other find relevant news by selecting and voting for the articles they find most interesting. At WashingtonPost.com, visitors can search through databases of congressional votes, campaign contributions and Bill Clinton’s speaking fees.

Each of these examples is a significant technological achievement. Each also represents a marriage of journalism and technology – database development, application programming, interface design and search algorithms applied toward the goal of a better informed society. In the digital age, journalism is more than just reporting and storytelling. And technology is more than just business systems or inventory management or e-commerce. For people to discover and act upon the information they need to be citizens in a democratic society, journalism and technology must increasingly intersect.

The media industry realizes that people with programming skills are essential to the future of journalism. Adrian Holovaty, editor of editorial innovations at Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, is a living example of what someone with both journalism and programming skills can accomplish.

Holovaty, a journalism graduate of the University of Missouri who taught himself to program, helped develop the technology behind the innovative Web sites of the Lawrence Journal-World (Lawrence.com, ljworld.com and kusports.com) and later went on to create Chicagocrime.org as a personal project. He also is part of the team that developed the open-source Django framework, which allows Web developers to build database-driven sites quickly and efficiently. At Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, he is responsible for a variety of database-driven applications, including congressional votes, campaign contributions and Bill Clinton’s speechmaking.

“I'm excited about this new scholarship program at Medill,” Holovaty said. “Programming is becoming a bona fide sub-discipline of journalism, at the same level as photography, infographics and writing, and this Knight grant helps legitimize that. It will also have the tangible benefit of producing skilled journalism technologists, people sorely needed by news Web sites. The graduates of this program are going to be in high demand.”

Jacob Kaplan-Moss, the lead developer at the Lawrence Journal-World, made the jump from the San Francisco Bay Area to work as a programmer in Lawrence, Kansas. On a comment on Holovaty’s blog, Kaplan-Moss explains why he made that move:

If you find the right newspaper, working for a newsroom can be far better than working for any dot-com. My job is hands-down the best job I’ve ever had, in no small part because newspapers need us for their very survival. Most news organizations, although slow to adapt and late to the party, are finally realizing just how compelling web-based journalism can be, and they’re creating positions for us faster than we can fill ‘em.

What might you do with a Medill degree?

The goal of our new scholarship program is to produce a new kind of media professional -- someone who deeply understands both technology and journalism. We can't predict all the ways that someone might use these skills and knowledge. Maybe you'll find ways to apply technology to the task of finding or making sense out of information. Maybe you'll want to help create new media products that make creative use of technology. Or maybe you'd like to report about technology for a blog, a Web site like C|Net or a publication like PC Magazine. Perhaps you'd do all of these, or something else entirely. Our goal is to have you leave Medill with an unusual combination of skills and perspectives that will position you to help reinvent journalism for the digital age.

How to apply:

If you are interested in applying for this scholarship program, here are the steps to follow:

Fill out an online application for admission to Medill, including all required materials.
Please upload your resume with the application. In the resume, please include details about (and links to) your programming work.
In addition to answering the essay questions on the standard application, please upload your answer to the following question: "How do journalism and technology relate to one another in the digital age?"
For more information

More information about the admissions process can be found here.

Details about the Medill graduate journalism curriculum can be found here.

If you have questions about the scholarship program, please contact Rich Gordon at richgor@northwestern.edu.

For questions about the application process, contact Anne Penway, director of admissions, at a-penway@northwestern.edu, or call the office of graduate admissions at 847-491-2052.