Black communities across the United States face a significant disparity in access to essential news and information. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), with their deep roots in these communities and established journalism programs, appear uniquely positioned to address this challenge at scale. These institutions, established before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to educate African Americans, have grown into vibrant hubs of academic excellence and cultural pride.
Today, we are thrilled to introduce the HBCU Collaborative, an organization with a vital mission to support journalism at HBCUs. Our work aims to empower HBCU student media outlets by providing them with a toolkit of editorial, technological, and support resources, enabling them to engage in collaborative and civic journalism successfully.
For decades, numerous HBCUs have had journalism schools, media studies programs, and student-run media outlets that have been trusted sources of information for both the campus communities and neighboring Black enclaves. Unfortunately, despite their pivotal role in educating and informing, HBCU journalism faces a concerning decline.
As the founder of Get Current Studio, a newsroom support agency dedicated to collaborating with local media publishers, I have noticed a striking pattern. Local media organizations and HBCU student media outlets encounter similar challenges that restrict their ability to deliver robust news coverage. Limited resources, including constrained budgets and overburdened staff, hamper their ongoing and thorough news reporting capacity. This further hinders their efforts to create high-quality online journalism that effectively reaches their communities. HBCU student media outlets need guidance when optimizing their investments in online infrastructure.
To address the obstacles encountered by campuses and their newsrooms, we created the HBCU Collaborative, a centralized collaborative hub. This hub serves as a repository of various resources, including educational pathways, accessibility to editors and digital strategists, technical assistance, sustainability guidance, and shared revenue opportunities. Our primary objective is to channel these resources back to the campuses and their newsrooms, empowering them to excel in their journalistic endeavors and easing their burdens whenever feasible.
Our Collaborative Model
Through collaboration, shared resources can be leveraged to achieve significant outcomes. The HBCU Collaborative aims to provide all HBCU news outlets equitable access to vital infrastructure, editorial resources, and training opportunities. By fostering collaborations, we may broaden their reach locally and regionally.
The Collaborative will operate as a hub connecting HBCU newsrooms. In this model, the hub can help identify key opportunities for news collaborations among campuses and external partners.
Leveraging the “ongoing and integrated” model, we aim to cultivate collaboration and knowledge sharing among students, professionals, and faculty members.
In this model, HBCU student newsrooms operate independently, with integrated CMSs, editorial, and technical support resources. While each outlet makes editorial decisions, they’ll share an ad network where one does not exist and messaging systems, like Slack, to organize their conversation and produce journalism on a standard but network-connected CMS.
The Collaborative Hub will also deploy editorial workflows and train in best practices, thus optimizing editorial efficiencies.
The HBCU Collaborative will help advance journalism and strengthen the quality, reach, and impact of news coverage for urban and rural communities in and around HBCUs. It will also create a nurturing environment for HBCU student media to flourish and lay the groundwork for establishing communities of practice.
Max Resnik, the Director of Network Services at City Bureau, wrote, “We’re in a golden age of communities of practice in journalism,” while laying out examples and ways of doing it well. At the HBCU Collaborative, we think there’s an opportunity to establish communities of practice at HBCUs and provide great technology to community-serving newsrooms for publishing journalism that, as Max describes, treats audiences “as full members of the community.”
Our goal is to serve as a valuable resource in relevant contexts. When HBCU students seek guidance with copy editing or explore innovative storytelling techniques to enhance audience engagement, we encourage them to consult with us. Recognizing the potential for collaboration among HBCU newsrooms, we facilitate connections between local members, host discussions, help facilitate their reporting, and provide advice on publishing strategies. Additionally, when students desire to engage with local communities to understand their news and information needs, we equip them with a playbook to facilitate effective community conversations.
Launching into action
Today, the HBCU Collaborative is excited to invite HBCU student newsrooms to apply for free membership to participate in a suite of programs that kick off this August.
The Online Publishing Lab will migrate a cohort of newsrooms to Newspack, an industry-leading CMS platform. Training modules will equip participants, including students and faculty, with the skills required for excellence in online reporting, production, and publishing.
After completing the Online Publishing Lab, the cohort will begin the Voter Guide Workshop, a series of hands-on sessions designed to help HBCU student media leverage tools and services offered by the Knight Election Hub to cover the 2024 elections for their campus and surrounding communities.
This September (dates and program details to come), we’ll hold an Online Media Convening to unite members of the HBCU Collaborative, ONA HBCU Fellows and fellowship alums, and HBCU educators and students. The Convening’s primary objective is to present student- and faculty-focused programs that facilitate sharing best practices, discussions on emerging trends, and exploration of growth and development opportunities, including election training. The Convening aims to foster a thriving ecosystem within HBCUs, empowering them to produce compelling online journalism.
The HBCU Collaborative represents a significant step forward in addressing the challenges of the HBCU journalism landscape. By fostering collaboration, providing essential resources, and empowering HBCU student media outlets focused on meeting the information needs of urban and rural HBCU communities, we aim to create a thriving and sustainable ecosystem for journalism in and around the nation’s Black colleges. Together, we can ensure that HBCUs continue to play a vital role in informing and uplifting their communities.
If you’re an HBCU with questions regarding membership, please contact us. If you’re a field-building organization interested in learning more about our initiatives and potential collaborations, let’s discuss it. For organizations interested in supporting our efforts, please contact us. If our mission inspires you and you want to contribute, consider donating. Your support will help us continue our work toward a brighter future for all.
