The School of Community Journalism (CoJo School) was founded by Social Street CIC, a leading independent publisher in London, to bring community-led journalism teachings to the world.
Big Tech has transformed local news production and consumption. Traditional media has seen a decline in advertising revenue, leading to the closure of over 271 local print newspapers and the loss of 10,000 local reporters in the UK since 2007. This has resulted in “news deserts”, diminishing local democracy.
Simultaneously, the digital revolution has lowered publishing costs and empowered individuals to become content creators, spurring the growth of community journalism and small independent newsrooms. In the past decade, the UK has seen a rise of over 400 independent news outlets.
However, there is a lack of affordable and agile training to support this fast-developing sector. Traditional journalism educators that grew from print-era news production remain relatively expensive and slow to adapt to new media technologies.
While community journalism has grown from the need to fill news deserts, it embraces a philosophy that is increasingly applied to all news reporting. It is an approach to journalism that engages the reader and reports the news constructively, providing more effective and democratic public-interest news service, be that for a geographical or interest-based community. It is an ethos that addresses the need to increase representation and trust in media.
CoJo School provides affordable live and on-demand online training to support publishers, editors, freelance writers and citizen journalists in the emerging community journalism sector.
Learners receive flexible, accessible and engaging training to suit their skills and experience. It embraces gamification to appeal to younger learners and offers chat functionality for peer-to-peer networking. The training is accessible with live and on-demand courses and options to enrol in bite-size courses or an annual membership.
We partner with leaders in the industry to bring the newest ideas in media to journalists, newsrooms and educators around the world including AI, data journalism, solutions journalism, WEB3, social networks and optimisation.
The platform aggregates training materials from these emerging ‘new media’ movements which are currently siloed and unavailable on a dedicated platform, thereby broadening and enhancing access for learners and supporting the industry. This also provides educators to generate additional income from sharing their teachings
Employers benefit from a more diverse, professionally trained workforce, helping them to address issues in news media including representation, digital skills, news apathy, and misinformation.
Journalists
Use CoJo School to access online courses and personal coaching from specialist instructors worldwide. All that is needed is an internet connection and a desire to learn from the best.
/Lesson downloads
/Drip feed lessons
/Private/group coaching
/Discussion areas
/Quizzes
Newsrooms
Use CoJo School to provide an internal training platform for your company, offer staff training and prepare your newsroom for the future of media.
//Customise homepage
//Manage cohort groups
//Multiple instructors
//Front end reporting
//Admin and leader access
//Certificates
Educators
Use the CoJo School platform to run your courses, using your instructors. Offer courses to your students or reach new students worldwide. We market the courses and you earn revenue from your teaching materials.
//Customise homepage
//Front end reporting
//Assign admins and instructors
//Manage student cohorts
About Social Streets CIC
CoJo School was founded by award-winning Social Street CIC, a leading independent publisher in London that publishes five titles, four online and one in print.
Social Streets CIC was incubated at Cambridge Social Ventures in 2016 to develop a new model of local journalism that would increase participation in the community and be financially sustainable even in areas of deprivation.
Socials Streets CIC is a female-led social enterprise started by Tabitha Stapely, a former editor and digital director at Hearst Digital. Stapely has been recognised as an East London Innovator and NatWest Wise Woman.