ABC News to Partner with UT

It was announced yesterday that ABC will set up multimedia bureaus at five different college campuses, and the UT School of Journalism is one of them (the others are Arizona State, Syracuse, UNC at Chapel Hill, and the University of Florida). This new program will allow students the opportunity to create stories on local issues and produce content for "Nightline", "World News with Charles Gibson", mtvU, abcnews.com and more under the ABC News umbrella.

This seems to be another example of ABC News' desire to reach out to younger voices (see their work with Facebook) as the audience for broadcast news tends to decrease in number. The president of ABC News, David Westin, says that these college bureaus will "extend the newsgathering reach of ABC News throughout the country. . . they will enable us to nurture bright young journalism students, giving them hands-on training from some of the most seasoned news professionals in the business and opportunities to see their work appear on ABC News' platforms."

Kate Dawson, current lecturer with the UT School of Journalism, will oversee the program in Austin when the bureau starts up in September. Participation will be mostly limited to upper-class undergrad and grad students selected by ABC and UT, and the positions at the bureau will be paid ones. ABC News staff will travel to UT for information sessions, and twice a year, student bureau-chiefs will get to mingle/be mentored at ABC News headquarters.

[UT: School of Journalism Named One of Five "ABC News on Campus" Bureaus]