Mercer University Journalism Students and Professors Welcome Local Newspaper to Campus

Just last month, Mercer University in Macon, GA opened its doors in a $5.6 million merger that brought The Telegraph and a Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB) radio station to its campus.

Like nearly every other local newspaper in the country, The Telegraph has been hit hard by a decline in sales. The newly-established Center for Collaborative Journalism (CCJ) will house Mercer’s Department of Journalism and The Telegraph’s new offices, providing the university with a journalistic partnership seldom seen elsewhere. The three main players, Mercer President William D. Underwood, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and The Telegraph’s publisher George McCanless all hope that the merger strengthens local journalism and fosters otherwise unattainable experiences for journalism students and Mercer’s on-campus newspaper The Cluster.

“I have a concern about the future of local print journalism,” said President Underwood in the New York Times. “There’s nothing more vital to a functioning democracy.”

Three years ago, McCanless called President Underwood to gauge his interest in receiving his struggling paper to the Mercer campus. In Macon’s Bibb County, where already 22.4% percent of the population is unemployed, losing The Telegraph and its employees would be disastrous. So the duo consulted with the Knight Foundation’s Beverly Blake, a program director previously known by McCanless through the Rotary Club, and eventually received a five-year grant worth $4.6 million to bring the idea to fruition.

Since The Telegraph moved in at the beginning of the school year, the new arrangement has come along nicely. At least for Mercer’s faculty, sharing space with the new neighbors has not been a problem.

“We’ve only shared the space for a month,” said John J. Chalfa, Ph.D. who is a Schumann Professor in Mercer’s journalism department. “We’re still in a ‘getting to know you’ phase. Overall, they seem supportive and enthusiastic; willing to offer and entertain ideas. To date, we’ve shared a lot of pizza and conversation.”

For potential journalism majors with the threat of their discipline vanishing before their eyes, the merger brings a much-needed sense of hope; a hope that goes beyond “pizza and conversation.” The university they call home is supporting their study and possible profession directly in the real world, and not merely in theory. Working, at many times literally, right next to an active newspaper evokes a unique involvement that blends the practice of journalism and the study of it.

“With the new Center for Collaborative Journalism, students will have a greater opportunity to enhance their portfolios and resumes, publish their work, and gain more real-world experience through the available internships and classes,” said editor-in-chief of The Cluster Katherine Manson.

Although The Cluster’s office is not located in the CCJ, the students realize that their newspaper is now being read by professionals and potential employers and that “has put more pressure on The Cluster,” according to Manson. At the same time, Manson believes they will benefit from the critiques as a learning experience.

In the classroom, journalism and communications-related courses at Mercer are now working on infusing Telegraph and GPB employees into activities as well as working with the editors to publish student works in the paper. When asked further about internships and organized programs, however, Professor Chalfa stressed the importance of the seemingly mundane exchanges between students and Telegraph journalists:

“The more important aspect of their relationship with The Telegraph and with Georgia Public Broadcasting will be the day-to-day, sometimes spur of the moment, interactions with reporters and editors that they are already beginning to accrue… No internship, no class, just being available in the right place at the right time.”