NBCUniversal News Group will invest $6.5 million over the next two years in NBCU Academy, a new multiplatform journalism training and development program for four-year university and community college students. The initiative includes $3.5 million in scholarships, the company, a division of Comcast, announced Thursday.
The program includes on-campus and online training, hands on instruction from NBCU journalists, equipment and funding for accredited journalism programs. Its 17 academic partners include Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic-serving institutions and colleges with significant Latino, Asian American and Pacific Islander, Black, Indigenous and tribal populations. The goal is to reach students from underrepresented groups and diverse racial, economic and geographic backgrounds.
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“Creating an inclusive culture for journalism that represents the communities we serve is at the very core of what we do,” said NBCU News Group chairman Cesar Conde. “Through NBCU Academy, we have the opportunity to widen our extraordinary legacy by building on-ramps for a talented generation of journalists and storytellers who—for so long—may have been overlooked.”
Conde, previously chairman of NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, was moved atop the entire news division in a broader NBCU management shakeup in May.
The program will see professors collaborate on seminar courses with NBC journalists, executives and management from editorial and production teams across NBC News, MSNBC, CNBC and Telemundo News who will participate as guest lecturers to provide real-world insight and mentorship.
Academic partners include:
- Borough of Manhattan Community College in New York, NY
- California State University, Fullerton in Fullerton, CA
- Claflin University in Orangeburg, SC
- Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta, GA
- Dallas College in Dallas, TX
- El Camino College in Torrance, CA
- Florida International University in Miami, FL
- Hampton University in Hampton, VA
- Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, NM
- Miami Dade College in Miami, FL
- Morgan State University in Baltimore, MD
- North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, NC
- Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical College in Orangeburg, SC
- The City College of New York in New York, NY
- University of North Texas in Denton, TX
- University of Texas at El Paso in El Paso, TX
- Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans, LA
