Journalism is going through a period of rapid transformation, with the Internet creating extraordinary opportunities to tell stories in new and innovative ways. At the UBC Graduate School of Journalism, you will learn to combine text, audio, video and interactivity to produce quality multimedia journalism.

Our approach focuses on developing multimedia story-telling skills, rather than focusing on teaching coding skills such as HTML or CSS.  You will gain hands-on experience in the basic tools of multimedia journalism, such as photo, audio and video editing, as well as an understanding of web-publishing systems.

During your time at the school, you will be producing stories to be published on our online student publication, TheThunderbird.ca, providing the groundwork for you to succeed in the newsrooms of tomorrow. For example, Kat Scarrow ‘06 found her time at the School helpful for her eventual move to Yahoo! Canada News, where she is currently working as an Editor. “The UBC Graduate School of Journalism opened many avenues for me, including the chance to work for one of the fastest-growing online news portals in Canada. It was the program’s rigorous academic standards and attention to teaching its students a range of journalistic skills, which allowed me to break into New Media with confidence.”

Vancouver is an ideal location to explore innovative forms of journalism due to the emergence of the city as a digital media hub on the west coast of Canada. It is the city where Flickr was born and is currently home to new participatory media start-ups, NowPublic.com and Orato.com.

UBC faculty with expertise in multimedia journalism include:

• Alfred Hermida is an experienced TV, radio and online journalist who joined the faculty at the School of Journalism from the BBC. He is an online news pioneer, having been a founding member of the award-winning BBCNews.com website. He was the news editor on the site from 1997 to 2001, before launching a dedicated technology news section.
• Kathryn Gretsinger ‘06 works with the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. as a trainer in radio news, current affairs and podcasting. She is highly regarded for her work as an award-winning host of the highest rated morning show in Vancouver, The Early Edition. She has also worked as a researcher and Associate Producer with the CBC.
• Kirk LaPointe helped found NationalPost.com and currently oversees VancouverSun.com. In 2007, he oversaw the transfer of online editorial control to local newsrooms in the CanWest newspaper chain.