Fellowship recipient to spend winter term at Carleton University’s School of Journalism.
Journalist Melanie Coulson is the recipient of the 2012 Michener-Deacon Fellowship for Journalism Education. The Fellowship was presented during the annual Michener Award ceremony held at Rideau Hall in Ottawa on June 12, 2012.
She is a senior online editor at the Ottawa Citizen and will spend the 2013 winter term at Carleton University teaching an undergraduate multimedia reporting course while conducting research on the growing involvement of audience participation in journalism.
Ms Coulson will specifically focus her research on the effects of citizen journalism on the functioning of news organizations. She will also look into what type of news content communities and citizens want out of news organizations. (Update: Melanie Coulson Fellowship report)
She will share her research findings and experience with students in journalism and other fields of study at Carleton. Having made the shift to digital media more than a decade ago, Ms. Coulson has also been responsible for community engagement projects in the National Capital Region for The Citizen.
In her acceptance speech, Ms Coulson said it as “an honour to be recognized by the Michener Awards Foundation, and to receive the first-ever Michener-Deacon Fellowship for Journalism Education. It’s great to see the foundation recognizing the importance of journalism schools”. (Her complete text)
Ms Coulson has previously worked as an instructor of Media Law at Algonquin College, deputy managing editor at the Ottawa Citizen, and as assistant national editor at the Globe and Mail.
She studied at Wilfrid Laurier University where she received an honours Bachelor of English Language and Literature. She also graduated from Carleton University in Ottawa with a Master of Journalism degree.
Rideau Hall – June 12, 2012
Judges for the 2012 Michener-Deacon Fellowships:
Lindsay Crysler (chair), former managing editor of The Gazette, Montreal, former director, journalism department, Concordia University, Montreal; Clinton Archibald, associate professor, professor of public ethics, St. Paul University, Ottawa; Michael Goldbloom, Principal and Vice-Chancellor of Bishops University, Sherbrooke, Quebec, and former publisher of The Gazette and the Toronto Star; Lynne Van Luven, associate professor of journalism and creative non-fiction, University of Victoria; Erin Steuter, chair of the sociology department, Mount Allison University, Sackville, NB.
The fellowship of the Michener Awards Foundation, introduced in 1987, is known today as the Michener-Deacon Fellowship (named after the late Roland Michener and the late Paul Deacon, a senior media executive and Michener Awards Foundation president). The fellowship is to encourage excellence in investigative print and broadcast journalism that serves the public interest through values that benefit the community. Mature journalists are invited to submit written outlines for studies over four months that will strengthen their competence.