Lady Ann Salem joins Newmark J-School Product Immersion program

The City University of New York Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism announced the third cohort of the Product Immersion for Small Newsrooms program.

 

This includes 25 journalists from the Asia-Pacific region, where ate least 13 are female/non binary. IAWRT Communication officer Lady Ann Salem joins this group, along with three others from the Philippines.

 

The 25 journalists in the new cohort live in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mongolia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, and Sri Lanka. They work for magazines, newspapers, digital outlets, radio stations, and other news-related organizations. The vast majority work in newsrooms with 25 or fewer employees.

 

The online training is tuition-free and will be run for two months from July to August by the school and partners News Catalyst and the Google News Initiative.

 

The program started in 2019. The program is designed to teach journalists in small to midsize local news organizations to build, launch, and grow news products that serve audiences’ needs.

 

“With this new, talented cohort, we will continue building a global network of emerging news product leaders,” said Marie Gilot, director of J+,  the professional development division of the Newmark J-School.

 

Gilot shared that the Product Immersion program is designed to meet an unmet need in the news industry: Teaching small newsrooms to build sustainability through product thinking.

 

“We have seen an immediate and transformational impact with previous cohorts as some participants took on new product roles, some made their newsrooms more audience- and data-centric, others changed the way they organize teamwork, and several actually built news products,” she said.

 

The courses are a mix of asynchronous lectures, live discussions, and small-group coaching, all led by news professionals with experience as product leaders — in startups, legacy companies, and nonprofits. The program follows the phase of product development in a news context.