Beyond the theoretical

RJI students harness the Public Media Platform to expand audiences for public media

Last fall the Reynolds Journalism Institute (RJI) at the University of Missouri kicked off its eighth annual student competition designed to tackle real-world problems in media using a multi-disciplinary approach. Teams are made up of journalism and computer science/engineering students. It’s the second year in a row that they’ve partnered with the PMP, keeping their focus on public media. The four finalist teams were selected in early December and began work in earnest this month, with the competition culminating in a winner being announced in April and awarded a trip to Washington, DC.

Says Mike McKean, Associate Professor at the Missouri School of Journalism and RJI Futures Lab Director, “We had such a good experience the first year [partnering with the PMP]. It really seemed like a no brainer [to work with them again] since the PMP was growing in complexity and Kristin Calhoun, PMP’s executive director, had a better sense of what directions she and her board wanted to go in.”

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