The curriculum, with instruction predominantly in English, is designed to produce graduates for all types of local, regional and international media, whether the graduates ultimately practice in English, Chinese, or some other language.

From day one, students develop convergent skills enabling them operate comfortably in all aspects of the industry, ranging from print, audio, video, multi-media to online journalism.

• Find out more

Some of the scholarship winners.  From left to right: Connie Tse Cho Yi, Echo Yu Xinyan, Sophia Xu Qian, Paola Barisani, Sanday Chongo Kabange

Sanday Chongo Kabange of Zambia was among 13 students to receive a scholarship this year. The scholarships are given to talented students who would otherwise have difficulty funding their studies.

Kabange, one of several recipients of a South China Morning Post-Wah Kiu Yat Po scholarship, was already a journalist before he enrolled at the JMSC.

He has continued to file stories to the African media during the year, and one of these won the award conferred by the Republic of Zambia Ministry of Health, for the best reporting on malaria by Zambian journalists and media practitioners.

Kabange said he researched the story in Zambia before arriving in Hong Kong, but wrote it once he was here.

In April, he was honored at a special ceremony, presided over by HKU Vice Chancellor Lap-chee Tsui, to congratulate students for their achievements outside the university.

“I have also been influential in the coverage of news in Zambia through my tweets and posts on social media,” Kabange said. “At least 90% of the information I tweet or post is re-published or broadcast in major newspapers and websites in Zambia. This is because of my strong connections and the experience I have gained while on the MJ programme.”

Three other recipients of SCMP Wah Kiu Yat Po scholarships were Sophia Xu Qian and Cherry Yu Yichun, both mainland Chinese students, and Alexis Lai, from Canada.

Xu did an internship at Phoenix TV, where she worked on current affairs documentaries. She collaborated on the production of a documentary called Sunrise and Sunset in Pyongyang, and assisted in the production of a documentary called Scattered Pearls, Notes of Okinawa.

Yu has been doing a continuous internship at the Chinese-language blog of the Vancouver Sun since last October. So far, she has published 17 articles for the blog.

She has also been working on the Yahoo HK/JMSC experiential learning project, which required her and other team members to develop six video programmes that will be shown on Yahoo HK’s platform sometime in August or September this year.

Lai worked as an editorial intern at  CNN.com International and the Phnom Penh Post in Cambodia during the course of her studies at the JMSC.

“One of the highlights was taking the Literary Journalism course,” said Lai. “The fictional storytelling devices I learned enabled me to write about my real-life experiences in a way I was previously unable to.”

Lai also acted as a student reporter on the JMSC team working with Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) to produce Cantonese-language segments for RTHK 1’s radio programmes. She worked on that project alongside Connie Tse Cho Yi, winner of a JMSC Young Journalist scholarship.

Tse said that having her work at RTHK was one of the highlights of her MJ year.

“I produced two audio news packages for RTHK in my second semester,” said Tse. “The audience called in to the programme and expressed their views on the ‘Occupy Central‘ story my teammate and I produced. I was excited to hear them discussing the issue, since this is what journalism is about — giving voices to people and allowing people the chance to participate in debate.”

“The support of my scholarship provider enabled me to learn about and become inspired by the big picture of the media industry worldwide,” Tse said. “I am now better prepared to work in the fast-changing and vibrant digital environment, thanks to all the skills I have learnt here.”

Hua Lu, a mainland student who received a Hong Kong University Graduate Association Journalism Fund scholarship, worked as an investigative journalist for the Guangzhou-based newspaper Southern Metropolis Daily prior to studying at the JMSC.

“Environmental Communication and Reporting & Writing are the courses that have impressed me most,” Hua said. “As I previously worked in print, these two courses helped me to rethink my writing and reporting experience. I am on course to get the Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Certificate offered by the JMSC which I hope will be my future career direction.”

Hua put her studies to good use during her winter internship. “I interned as assistant editor in the Guangzhou-based Southern Weekend,” she said.  “I was mainly in charge of editing environmental news, which allowed me to use the knowledge I learned at the JMSC.”

Scholarships donors to the JMSC also include the William F. Woo Memorial Journalism Education Fund, Frank Proctor of Muse Magazine, the Hong Kong University Graduate Association Journalism Fund and the JMSC Journalist Grant Scheme.

Lareina Choong (MJ 2012) at CNNGo

Here is her account of her experience:

“When one thinks of CNNGo, it’s synonymous with the word ‘fun’ in bright bold colours.

“While that’s largely true, what really pulls everything together is a mixed bag of hours of hard work, dedication and humour. My 10-week internship can be summed up in this equation: one quarter fun, three quarters boot camp.

“My role consisted of writing features and assisting staff with web content management system, which required the knowledge and technical know-how taught in Diane Stormont’s online journalism and Kevin Drew’s reporting and writing classes.

“When I say ‘boot camp’, I mean I had to work really hard to meet deadlines, interview people and research stories. It wasn’t about sitting at the desk for eight hours making the occasional coffee and photocopying documents.”

“A typical day lasts from 9.30 pm to 6.30 pm, sometimes even longer than that if you have to make international calls to the US or UK, which is what I did for a couple of stories.

“The editors at CNNGo regularly gave my colleague (Chan) Hoishan – a fellow MJ – and me opportunities to pitch as many feature stories as possible, on top of other smaller editorial tasks. Hence, a good part of the mornings were allocated to news reading and trawling for the latest travel-related stories.

“My articles required constant communication with industry professionals from the Lonely Planet, Quintessentially, Crashpadder, Roomorama, Cathay Pacific, The Royal Collection, Calgary Stampede and more. I had to conduct interviews or request product information and permission to reproduce copyright images.

“One of the fun things I did was taking photographs for the articles How to enjoy Christmas in Hong Kong and Souvenirs we can’t wait to buy in 2012. These were fun pieces to write about but involved a good deal of research and making contact with companies.

“I feel CNNGo’s a great place to get as many bylines as possible — you’re truly expected to produce written material! The best part is that the editors give valuable feedback on your work: they’ll tell you where you went wrong; how you can improve, and give tips on what sort of interview questions to ask and how to ‘chase’ press officers or companies for information.

“CNNGo doesn’t subscribe to writing PR fluff, but putting its own spin on the topic, so it was an extremely satisfying feeling when my interview subjects read the published articles and were happy with the write-up.

“JMSC students who want to intern at CNNGo must be prepared to write as much as possible. Be ready with ideas to present to the editors and always be ready to jump onto any assignment the editor dishes out.”

The China Media Map

• This geoweb application maps all the news organisation in China’s GAPP database
• Click on the map to search for news organisations within a radius specified in the sidebar
• Search by news organisation name in the sidebar
• Drop-down list in the sidebar zooms to a province, autonomous region or province-level municipality
• Highlight the Chinese text with your mouse for an automated Google translation into your preferred language.

A selection of outlets taking JMSC interns this winter

The placements are in a wide range of organisations spread over a large geographical area.  They include Agence-France Press (AFP), Associated Press Television News (APTN), Asia Pacific Vision (APV), Bangladesh 24, BBC Radio, Buddhistdoor, China Daily, China Tourism, CNN en Espagnol, CNN Go, CNN International, the Financial Times (FT), the International Herald Tribune (IHT), the Irrawaddy, the Jakarta Post, Malaysiakini, Phoenix TV, the Phnom Penh Post, Tatler Hong Kong, Southern Weekly, Time Out Hong Kong, the Vancouver Sun and YZZK.

The JMSC prides itself on offering students internships in media companies during the course of their studies, giving them the chance to learn through experience.

The Amazing Race. Photographers had to be in the right place at the right time … Photo: AJ Libunao

The assignment would make a hardened war correspondent tremble: cover a pair of science camps spent locked up overnight in a museum with 300 teenagers.

But student journalists from the JMSC picked up the challenge and produced a fine multi-media file documenting the activities of hundreds of high school students in what the University of Hong Kong (HKU) organisers described as “No ordinary field-trip”.

Dubbed A Night at the Science Museum, the pioneering two-part festival of hands-on science and engineering activities plus inter-school competitions was not an easy event to report.

• View a selection of reports here
• View the website produced for the event here

Key to success rested on choosing the right tools for the job and meticulous planning. Reporting more than 12 hours of continuous activity — and keeping track of video, text, photos and audio files — posed a logistical challenge.

Students were required to build a tower from spaghetti, tape and string, topped by a marshmallow. The tallest won.

Making sense of a team challenge involving uncooked spaghetti, string, duct tape and a marshmallow required dexterity with words as well as strong images.

Covering a competition that sent 300 students hurtling around all four floors of the museum collecting clues lent itself to video and stills photography — and required careful positioning to catch more than blurred images of sprinting teens.

In between all this mass activity, students attended workshops providing hands on experiments, enjoying a range of often bizarre activities.

One group tossed eggs off a balcony. Another raised finger-prints from a series of potential murder weapons ranging from a baseball bat to a wine bottle.

Some students flailed around in darkness — experiencing a Hong Kong without the glare of light pollution that has become ubiquitous. That was not a workshop that lent itself to photography.

LIVE ON THE WEB – NO ROOM FOR ERROR

Tutor Kevin Lau (left) and MJ Charles Lui stream the opening hour live

The organisers, HKU’s faculties of Engineering and Science, wanted the opening hour or so of both evenings covered live.

No problem.

That job fell to MJ Charles Lui, supervised by JMSC lecturer Kevin Lau. See his streamcasts here.

The rest of the team got busy photographing, audio-and video-recording and writing up the antics of the youthful participants.

They recorded and captured footage for a short video wrap to be ready before breakfast and clips for a longer documentary to be put together afterwards.

They shot still photographs, wrote up quotes, taped audio soundbites, filed text, photos and video to Facebook and compiled audio-visual reports.

Speed was of the essence but patience was required. Coaxing meaningful quotes from teenagers was no easy task as any parent can attest.

Say something! JMSC Student Journalist Elisa Chan interviews teens

In a temporary newsroom set up in the Science Museum’s Ground Floor computer room, JMSC faculty news edited and filed material as the student reporters checked in and out to edit, upload and tag their material on  a set of labelled laptops.

Kevin Lau ran video. Teaching Assistant and multi-media producer AJ Libunao directed photography.

Teaching Consultant Masato Kajimoto ran the social media effort and Senior Teaching Consultant Diane Stormont coordinated the web side of things and pulled the project together.

Audio: JMSC Student Reporter Lareina Choong collects Vox Pops

Masato Kajimoto engages in Mobile Journalism (MoJo) to update Facebook live

Student reporter Varia Bortsova covers a hands-on science workshop

EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING AT WORK

Undergraduate Elisa Chan was so engrossed that she did not notice the Vice Chancellor peering over her shoulder

“I’m pleased to see experiential learning at work!” — HKU Vice Chancellor Professor Lap-Chee Tsui

Vice Chancellor Professor Lap-Chee Tsui  (4th from left) after inspecting the newsroom. The Museum Night was part of HKU

Experiential learning — or learning through doing — is a hallmark of the JMSC experience.

Both graduate and undergraduate students put into practice what they had learned in class during the museum assignment.

The Vice Chancellor, who visited the news room on the second night and inspected work in progress, declared himself impressed.

Professor Tsui arrived just at one of the busiest parts of the evening.

Half the JMSC team were out reporting but the other half had hunkered down to write, process, edit and file their material.

NO TIME TO SLEEP … WELL NOT MUCH

Not all the teens managed to keep their eyes open for the entire night

The idea behind the nightcamps at the Science Museum, said Professor Paul Cheung of HKU’s Engineering Department, a driving force in getting the unprecedented event off the ground, was to give students a taste of what awaited those who planned to go on to study science subjects at college.

“Youngsters like to stay up all night and sleep all day so this was thought to be an ideal way of reaching them,” Cheung said.

Many teens did in fact grab some sleep. But only a handful of the JMSC student journalists got much more than a quick catnap on the newsroom floor. But only once their work was done. The others meanwhile, worked on until the sun rose over Kowloon.

Click on the appropriate tab to see some of their efforts:

The Website

Click to enlarge:

 

The website set up at http://jmsc.hku.hk/sites/science-museum/ showcased all the reporting. The JMSC journalists wrote up their articles and embedded photos, video, soundslides and social media elements.

The Facebook page, created and directed by Masato Kajimoto, was embedded on the home page.

 

 

Video

This video wrap had to be shot, captured, edited and output before breakfast. It was broadcast to the student body as the science camp wound down.

 

A Night at the Science Museum HKU 100 from JMSC HKU on Vimeo.

Throughout the night, student-journalists needed to remember to shoot video footage both for the wrap and for a longer documentary to be edited afterwards. JMSC tutor and web video specialist Kevin Lau had to edit the wrap fast in order to meet such a tight deadline.

Livestreaming the opening segments fell to MJ Charles Liu, who put his height to good use:  View his videostreams here.

 

Social Media

Masato Kajimoto led the charge on Facebook, uploading story snippets, photo albums and video clips recorded on his now alas no longer manufactured Flip mini videocam.

His page, http://www.facebook.com/hkusciencemuseum, captured more than 300 followers before the science camp was out — underscoring the importance of Facebook to teens.

Student journalists received crash-course in fast reporting skills, a particularly important technique to master, especially for those contemplating a career with the wire services or 24-hour revolving news broadcasters. Flickr, the photosharing site, proved useful in keeping track of hundreds of photographs.

View The Night At the Museum Facebook Page

 

Soundslides

 

A useful tool for displaying audio-visual stories, but far faster to compile and upload than video, Soundslides can prove a powerful reporting tool. Song Yang, a doctorate student in education who attended JMSC online classes as part of her thesis research, ventured into hands-on journalism at the event by producing two fine soundslides:

One is embedded below. The other can be seen at Icebreaker Challenge: Take This Spaghetti and Marshmallow …

 

Photography

Shooting powerful photos was only part of the job; photographers, under the direction of AJ Libunao, also had to edit, caption, tag and upload their work for matching with stories and as stand-alone chronicles of the events of the two nights.

Two social media sites proved useful for this task: the Facebook photo albums utility and the Flickr photo storing and sharing site.

 

JMSC Student Participants

Professor Cheung served as MC and took a lead role in organising the event.

November 11:
Kai Wang
Sylvain Gharbi
Varia Bortsova
Elisa Qiu
Charles Liu
Ellen Chueng
Emma Dong
Michael Kim

“The JMSC did a fantastic job. Very professional.” — Professor Paul Cheung

November 18:
Michael Kim
Charles Liu
Elisa Chan
Phoebe Yuen
Lareina Choong
Sanday Chongo Kabange
Yang Song

 

November, 2011.

JMSC Students check out audio visual equipment to document the wheelchair challenge. Photo: Lionel Mok.

Students taking Online Journalism were set a challenge: experience life as a wheelchair-bound user of the University of Hong Kong campus.

They were divided into groups, issued with a wheelchair and given a route to negotiate.

As this selection of reports shows, the student reporters found the university’s facilities for wheelchair users fell far short of the ideal.

View a selection of reports:

1. Eliot Hall to the Canteen in the Chong Yuet Ming Amenities Centre

2. The Run Run Shaw Building to the Lily Pond

3. The HSBC Cashpoint to the Main Library

4. The East Gate to the Swire Building

1. Eliot Hall to the Canteen in the Chong Yuet Ming Amenities Centre
Soundslide: Jalasaya Federoff
Narration: Jalasaya Federoff
Photos: Lionel Mok, Zahira Danda, Sergio Held and Jalasaya Federoff
*Note: There is a wheelchair ramp from Eliot Hall but the team could not find it

2. The Run Run Shaw Building to the Lily Pond
Soundslide: Lareina Choong
Audio/Narration: Lareina Choong, Stephanie Li, Natalie Wang
Photos: Natalie Wang, Stephanie Li, Lareina Choong

3. The HSBC Cashpoint to the Main Library
Soundslide: Robert Kemp
Audio/Narration: Tracy Lam, Apple Lam, Robert Kemp
Photos: Tracy Yang, Apple Lam, Robert Kemp

4. The East Gate to the Swire Building
Soundslide: Connie Tse
Audio/Narration/Photos: Jaime Chua, Jingting Peng, Connie Tse and Xinyan Yu

Reports produced with Soundslides

Stay in touch with the JMSC with the JMSC App on your iPhone or iPad. In the app you will find the latest news and events from the Journalism and Media Studies Centre, plus locations of events.

News & Updates – Find out the latest news, updates and events from the JMSC. Follow updates from fellow students and alumni

Map & Events – Find locations and events from your phone

Class Resources – Updated each semester, this lists the online syllabusi and course websites

Media & Events – Watch recorded lectures directly from your phone. Catch up with JMSC events and lectures such as the recent talks given by Ruby Yang and Kristie Lu Stout

Developed by Nathan Griffiths (MJ 2011)
http://datahustler.com/

Exhibition Details

30 August–4 October 2011

University Museum and Art Gallery, 90 Bonham Road, Hong Kong

「大道之行–紀念辛亥革命一百周年影像展」為中港十一地紀念辛亥革命百周年的大型圖片聯展項目，香港大學百周年校慶節目，展出86幅1850年至1930年的珍貴圖片，反映1911年前後中國社會的實況。 展覽照片由普立茲新聞攝影獎得獎人、國際著名攝影家劉香成獲北京中華世紀壇世界藝術館支持，歷時一年從世界各地知名檔案及個人收藏中搜羅具歷史價值的珍貴圖片共萬餘幅，重點描繪了辛亥革命及其前後幾十年間中國的社會、經濟、政治、文化等變遷，以影像呈現辛亥革命前後的社會形態，勾勒近代中國的變革歷程。

「大道之行–辛亥革命一百周年影像展」香港全球首發
日期：2011年8月30日至10月4日
地點：香港大學美術博物館

「大道之行」中港十一地聯展除在香港首發外，內地包括北京、河南、湖北、江西、廣東、貴州、甘肅、福建、東莞及雲南等九省共十個知名博物院及藝術館，於2011年9月22日至10月22日在內地同步舉行「大道之行–紀念辛亥革命一百周年影像展」展覽，展出圖片120張。「大道之行–紀念辛亥革命一百周年影像展」由香港大學新聞及傳媒研究中心及香港大學美術博物館聯合主辦，北京世紀壇世界藝術館支持，「港大人文基金」贊助。