Justice Media co-Lab
Colleges are trying to meet industry demand for students with both computer science and journalism skills. Some publications, like ProPublica and The New York Times, have whole departments devoted to data, while others, like FiveThirtyEight, focus exclusively on data. In response, there is a need for faculty and student resources and an institutional framework to create career pathways in data-oriented journalism. New courses and dual degrees are helpful, but students need expert guidance to practice and publish in order to secure jobs.
About the co-Lab
The Justice Media co-Lab provides the programmatic structure to train a new generation of computational investigative journalists equipped to leverage the power of computing and data science to advance justice and transparency.
The first interdisciplinary curricular collaboration between CDS and other disciplines, this co-lab aims to develop and test an institutional framework for interdisciplinary collaborations (faculty, students and external partners) around courses and summer programs that lead to student placements in PIT careers. It is a CDS/BU Journalism department and media partner collaboration and brings together students from diverse majors, with a particular focus on computing, data science, and journalism disciplines.
The justice focus complements other BU equity initiatives including the CDS Impact Lab on Equity. Faculty will develop a public interest technology program comprising a computational journalism course and summer certificate program; students will do data journalism work for media partners.
Courses and the summer program will be led by faculty from the College of Communication’s Journalism Department and CDS. Projects will be completed on behalf of local media partner organizations including: