MJ Graduate working at VOA Beijing
11 August 2010
Summer Course: JMSC and Art Faculty Team Up for Film, Art, Language and Culture
25 August 2010

ABC News on Campus Project Enters Second Year

The ABC News on Campus Project – a joint venture between the American Broadcasting Company and the JMSC – has been given the green light to continue this academic year.

The ABC News on Campus Project — a joint venture between the American Broadcasting Company and the JMSC — has been given the green light to continue this academic year.

The American television network started a partnership between the network’s news division in New York and five of America’s leading journalism schools in 2008.

JMSC ABC News on Campus Team 2009-2010

The JMSC’s Director of Broadcasting, Jim Laurie (pictured far right), was a correspondent for ABC for more than 20 years and suggested that ABC should also take the JMSC on board last year as a provider of news from the Asia Pacific region.

Over the last year, the JMSC News on Campus team delivered content about Asia to the American television network. The team reported on a variety of topics including white collar workers fighting at night in Hong Kong, Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao, the Hong Kong Rugby Sevens and the reunion of a Vietnamese war photographer’s family with the family of a young girl he had photographed during the Vietnam War.

This experiential learning project gave students the opportunity to not only record, edit and voice their own news reports and then have them broadcast by a major media company, but also gave them a chance to pitch stories to a commissioning editor and get a feel of what working in the industry is really like.

Zela Chin, a Master of Journalism student last year, was the JMSC News on Campus bureau chief.

“I’m thrilled that new students will be able to work on the ABC News on Campus project,” she said. “My classmates and I were able to hone our videojournalist skills, which we learned from the JMSC.  And employers look favourably upon CVs with a big name brand and on-the-ground reporting experience from developing countries such as the Philippines, Cambodia, and Vietnam.”

To take advantage of this unique opportunity, selected students will be asked to submit television feature story proposals to ABC that relate to environmental awareness or cultural and architectural preservation in Hong Kong or Southeast Asia.

The proposals selected by faculty of the JMSC and by editors of ABC News New York will receive funding for production.  The award will be issued on a competitive basis and the initiative is expected to start in October 2010.

This project is possible thanks to generous donations from Dora Wu Chung Lin and the International Exchanges and Partnership Programme/Mrs Li Ka Shing Fund.