The leaders of a journalism course believe they have created a model for teaching investigative reporting that could be significant for the future of journalism. Nieman Journalism Lab reported on the Pearl Project, a journalism course at Georgetown University. The Pearl Project sees the classroom almost as a newsroom, giving students the possibility to conduct the kind of long-form research and reporting that is becoming increasingly rare in news organisations.

The project started in 2007 and for the first three years concentrated on the case of Daniel Pearl, an American journalist killed in Pakistan in 2002, after whom the course is titled. The findings of the final report, released in January, were reported by the BBC and The Daily Beast, among others. Currently, the course investigates why so many journalists connected to something called the Iraqi Media Network have been killed.

As the Nieman article points out, the Pearl Project is far from being the only student investigation course out there. Indeed, it has been noted that journalism schools are increasingly becoming significant media players, instead of being "only" learning labs, and the Pearl Project seems to reflect this trend. According to the project's website, investigative reporting projects at journalism schools are emerging to fill the gap created by elimination of investigative reporting teams in news organisations.

The project stands out from other courses for a couple of reasons, however. Firstly, its leaders are currently in the course of establishing their college journalism consortium, as they believe the course's approach to teaching and reporting also to be of interest to people outside the campus.

Secondly, the teachers of the course are just as involved in research as the students, the whole team sharing tasks and responsibility. At the end of the semester, students tend to say, "I enjoyed working with you," Barbara Feinman Todd, one of the course leaders, said. Working alongside highly qualified professionals ensures that the students gain essential information gathering and reporting skills.

While the benefits for students are clear, newsrooms would also stand to benefit from collaborating with such a course: it would provide them with an access to the kind of in-depth reporting that is disappearing from news organisations. "Students are able to commit hours of attention to a single project," said Asra Q. Nomani, a course leader, "and that's something professional journalists don't get to do in a newsroom anymore."

"There's no money being put into these types of investigations. We think this is one of the options for that," Todd said, referring to the project. "We don't have to pay salaries."

Having students conduct high-quality investigative reporting may raise some ethical issues. Considering that the research touches on different kinds of extremist groups, for example, is it possible that inexperienced students may be exposed to potentially dangerous situations? This is a flip side to gaining extensive hands-on experience during the course, however, which allows students to leave the project with a notable amount of practical knowledge of their profession.

Sources: Nieman Journalism Lab, The Pearl Project