Projects » Journalism Program Evaluations

Philliber Research Associates has provided evaluation services for serveral journalism programs including:

The Anniston Star—This newspaper hosts the first graduate program in community journalism right inside the paper’s newsroom. Six masters students are receiving training in various aspects of local news reporting and the program is intended to not only affect how they report news but is expected to have an impact on the content of the newspaper itself. To measure whether this outcome occurs, PRA is currently engaged in a detailed content analysis of The Star, coding qualitative material over time. This project is an example of evaluation of training but also of our work in coding content.

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation funds a high school journalism initiative that includes several collaborating agencies. PRA has collected data on the initiatives of each of these agencies and tracked the progress of high school print and broadcast journalism in the schools where they are working.

The Radio and Television New Directors Foundation has worked to develop broadcast journalism programs in high schools throughout the nation. PRA has been evaluating their efforts for more than five years.

The Robert McCormick Tribune Foundation funds mulitiple programs each year in journalism leadership, training, first amendment freedoms, and other journalism issues. PRA has been evaluating their programs now for close to a decade and has also been building evaluation capacity among their funded agencies.

The Teaching Newspaper in Anniston, AL is the first master's degree program in community journalism to operate in a working newsroom. PRA has tracked the recruitment of students to these programs, their achievements, and their post-graduation employment patterns.