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  • Section 1: Organization's Information

    Thank you for your interest in this program. Your information will not be saved until you submit this application. Please be ready with basic organization and team lead information. An incomplete application will be reviewed as is. | Program duration: March 19 - Oct. 22, 2025 (lecture dates are March 19, April 23, May 21, June 18, Sept. 17, Oct. 22). | The early-bird deadline to apply is 11:59 p.m. EST on Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. The final deadline is Friday, Jan. 17, 2025.
  • (Legacy newspaper, TV station, public media, online-only site, etc.)
  • (200 words or less)
  • (200 words or less)

Transforming Local Crime Reporting Into Public Safety Journalism (2025)

Original price was: $1,000.00.Current price is: $600.00.

Apply Now

Transforming Local Crime Reporting Into Public Safety Journalism (2025)

Transform your newsroom’s impact on the community by reimagining your reporting on criminal justice and crime. As a team, you’ll work together over six months to make both big and small changes to your crime reporting, implementing adjustments that elevate your newsroom’s focus on public safety and better serve your audience.

March 19, 2025– October 22, 2025

Overview

  • Open to U.S.-based newsrooms.
  • Tuition is just $600 if you apply by Dec. 6 (that’s 40% off the $1,000 price).
  • Final application date is Friday, Jan. 17, 2025, at the regular tuition rate of $1,000.
  • Limited need-based scholarships are available, which can be indicated on your application.
  • All participants will meet together virtually six times for up to three hours, though some classes will be shorter.
  • Newsroom teams will also meet virtually in smaller cohorts and in one-on-one meetings with their coaches.
  • Teams must include at least one front-line journalist and one manager with the ability to influence policy.
  • One person should apply per newsroom. Full team roster can be solidified after acceptance into the program.
  • This change-management program and the custom coaching would normally cost $10,000.
  • The tuition price is reduced thanks to MacArthur Foundation, Just Trust and Craig Newmark Center for Ethics.

Original price was: $1,000.00.Current price is: $600.00.

Apply Now
SKU: POGS06-25 Tags: ,

Learning Outcomes

In this course you will:

  • Transform the way your newsroom approaches crime, public safety and community.
  • Work with experts, explore recent case studies and receive custom coaching.
  • Employ change-management techniques to improve newsroom capacity and refocus your priorities.
  • Move away from “If it bleeds, it leads” and improve your ability to respond to community needs.
  • Exert fewer resources on episodic crime reporting and more resources on public safety journalism.
  • Pivot your coverage from superficial to deep.
  • Change your narrative from one that amplifies law enforcement to one that tells stories from the communities you serve.
  • Institute a new crime coverage policy in your newsroom.
Sale!

Original price was: $1,000.00.Current price is: $600.00.

Apply Now

Overview

  • Open to U.S.-based newsrooms.
  • Tuition is just $600 if you apply by Dec. 6 (that’s 40% off the $1,000 price).
  • Final application date is Friday, Jan. 17, 2025, at the regular tuition rate of $1,000.
  • Limited need-based scholarships are available, which can be indicated on your application.
  • All participants will meet together virtually six times for up to three hours, though some classes will be shorter.
  • Newsroom teams will also meet virtually in smaller cohorts and in one-on-one meetings with their coaches.
  • Teams must include at least one front-line journalist and one manager with the ability to influence policy.
  • One person should apply per newsroom. Full team roster can be solidified after acceptance into the program.
  • This change-management program and the custom coaching would normally cost $10,000.
  • The tuition price is reduced thanks to MacArthur Foundation, Just Trust and Craig Newmark Center for Ethics.

Training five or more people?
Check out our custom training.

Why is there a disconnect between what your audience wants out of crime reporting and what your newsroom traditionally delivers?

News consumers want information about crime trends, personal security and system accountability. 

Newsrooms devote their resources to covering breaking news about violence.

This results in an information gap that leads to a frustrated and misinformed public, amplifies inaccurate narratives and harms the communities most affected by crime.

Transforming Local Crime Reporting Into Public Safety Journalism was pioneered by Poynter and cited by the AP Stylebook as a major influence in its new chapter on how journalists should cover crime. 

Now in its fourth year, this change management program has led more than 500 journalists in over 80 newsrooms to evolve their traditional reporting on crimes, safety and criminal justice. 

With this training, your newsroom can be at the forefront of this wave of journalistic change as news leaders begin to truly synthesize the harm that can come from outdated ways of producing “if it bleeds, it leads” news.

Over the course of this six-month program, we’ll introduce a series of change management tools that will guide newsrooms as they transform their coverage, step by step. Every newsroom’s solution will be unique to the communities they serve. 

Best of all, we’ll show you how clickbait crime stories are a bigger drain on resources than you realize, and how these modifications to your storytelling can lead to greater revenue and audience trust. 

We’ll start by identifying the journalistic purpose behind your stories about cops, courts and public safety. We’ll teach you how to analyze your own content to determine how much coverage you are currently producing and what percentage of that coverage serves your audience. After that, we focus on change management, building and implementing new policies, and strengthening your capacity to provide more meaningful reporting.

Each team will join other newsrooms facing similar challenges to form a small group cohort. Our previous participants have highly praised these sessions as practical and galvanizing ways to share problems and solutions with similar news organizations in a way that’s almost impossible in a normal day-to-day setting. You’ll meet with your cohort and your assigned coach once a month to exchange ideas as you tackle the next steps of organizational change and surmount roadblocks.

We’re proud of our history of helping all sorts of newsrooms overhaul their practices: digital start-ups, public radio, legacy newspapers, nonprofit newsrooms, and commercial television stations all have benefitted from this training. 

Only U.S.-based newsrooms will be accepted into this program. 

Your U.S.-based newsroom team must consist of three to six people, must include a frontline reporter or producer currently responsible for telling stories about law enforcement and crime, and must have an editor or manager with the authority to implement editorial policies. After your newsroom application is accepted, we’ll work with your team leader to make sure you assemble a team that will accomplish your goals.  

After participating in this training, newsrooms will:

  • Understand what information helps citizens manage their personal safety.
  • Be able to report accurately on crime trends, including crime resolution rates.
  • Recognize why law enforcement points journalists to certain types of crime.
  • Identify how news coverage shapes public opinion, which in turn shapes public policies.
  • Describe trends by demographics and zip codes evenly and equitably so that people truly understand their absolute and relative risks in different areas.
  • Report more deeply on the underlying causes that contribute to crime, including economic issues, education, access to health care, affordable housing policies, and addiction and mental health treatment.

In the years we’ve been offering this training, we’ve collected writing, data and testimonials that demonstrate the power of this change management movement. 

Read more about this important movement below:

Newsroom teams accepted to this program should expect to spend about four to six hours a month from March to October in live training sessions and peer coaching meetings. Full sessions will take place on Wednesdays.

Times for the virtual sessions are tentatively set for 1-4 p.m. Eastern, which includes a closing 30-minute Q&A, but are subject to change.

The dates and session topics are as follows:

 

Wednesday, March 19: Welcome and onboarding

In this first session, we’ll do introductions, set expectations for homework and participation, meet coaches, share goals and ambitions, and hear advice from previous participants about their accomplishments.

 

Wednesday, April 23: Foundations of public safety journalism

During this second session, we’ll  review the list of straight-forward changes your newsroom can make; get a rundown of the history and impact of local crime coverage; and discuss our mission statements/promises to the audience

 

Wednesday, May 21: Law enforcement sourcing and data

In May, you’ll learn how to build better sources, hear from experts at the Marshall Project about tools and techniques for improved coverage, and learn more about getting and understanding reliable data.

 

Wednesday, June 18: Vulnerable sources and systems

During our fourth meeting, you’ll get feedback about your plan to change law enforcement relationships, learn about a strategy for covering juvenile crime, get information about trauma-informed reporting, and learn more about vulnerable sources.

 

Wednesday, Sept. 17: Managing change and building audience relationships

In our second-to-last meeting, you’ll learn how newsroom policies work and evolve, find out what happens when you change your relationship with audiences, and learn more about getting your newsroom colleagues on board.

 

Wednesday, Oct. 22: Creating lasting change

We’ll spend our final session together comparing notes, showcasing our work thus far and making plans for future progress.

Who should apply

This training is designed to initiate structural and cultural change within newsrooms; only news organizations with executive-level support and participation will succeed. A minimum of three participants from each newsroom is required, including a senior leader and a journalist who covers crime, justice, cops or courts. 

We welcome editors, reporters, visual journalists, audience engagement strategists, producers, executive producers, news directors, assignment editors, photojournalists, digital producers, and marketing staffers who touch some aspect of traditional crime coverage and who represent a cross section of the community your newsroom serves. Please consider generation, race, gender, sexual orientation and other varied life experiences when considering your right team. 

Application process

One person per newsroom should apply, and we will reach out if you are accepted to help you build out your team. Your project team will eventually include a minimum of three people and a maximum of six.

The process to apply is straightforward and simple. No letter of recommendation or reference is required. Please be prepared to answer questions about your newsroom size and the audience you serve.

The early-bird deadline for applications is Friday, Dec. 6, for $600 per newsroom; that’s 40% off the regular price of $1,000 per newsroom. The final deadline to apply at the regular price is Friday, Jan. 17, 2025. Please apply as soon as you know this program is for you and you have a potential team assembled that includes an executive-level champion. Admissions are conducted on a rolling basis.

Cost

This course is priced at $1,000 but newsrooms that apply by Friday, Dec. 6, pay only  $600.  The final deadline to apply at the regular price of $1,000 per newsroom is Friday, Jan. 17, 2025.

This includes about 24 hours of live instruction and several hours of personalized feedback on your progress from industry experts.

Limited need-based scholarships are available. Request a scholarship in the application form.

Instructors

  • Kelly McBride
    Senior Vice President and Chair of Craig Newmark Center for Ethics and Leadership
    Kelly McBride is a journalist, consultant and one of the country’s leading voices on media ethics and democracy. She is senior vice president and chair...
    Read More
  • Cheryl Thompson-Morton
    Black Media Initiative Director for the Center for Community Media at the Newmark J-School
    In her role as Black Media Initiative Director for the Center for Community Media at the Newmark J-School, Cheryl Thompson-Morton works to support Black media...
    Read More

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