'How we've brought the real world of journalism into the academe'

John Mair, a senior lecturer in broadcasting at Coventry University and events co-ordinator for the Coventry School of Art and Design, invented and produces the Coventry Conversations.

Jeremy Paxman, Jon Snow, Mark Thompson, Donal Macintyre, Roger Cook, Jon Gaunt, Stuart Ramsay, Nick Davies, Nick Jones, Nick Pollard, Ray Snoddy. All household names in modern British journalism, but simply beyond reach for most - on the ether or the broadsheet page.

Maybe for most journalism students in the country, but not in Coventry. And the big names turn up for nothing, save a free lunch.
 
I have run a series of lunchtime 'Coventry Conversations' for the last three years in which media movers and shakers come to Coventry University to converse and more.

In the publicity, I cite Professor Richard Keeble's praise: he has called it 'the best speaker programme in any British University;' he wasn't just referring to his own two appearances.

There have been 150 conversations to date, 45 this academic year alone. Usually on Thursday lunchtime in the old Odeon Cinema (now a University Media building) in the City Centre.

Attendances range from 20 to 200 and include not just journalism students but also students and staff from elsewhere in the University and, most pleasing of all, a substantial cadre of people from the town, simply interested in modern media matters.

The Coventry Conversations have become the media talking shop of the West Midlands and are very widely reported on this site, and many other publications.

Why you might ask do them? Journalism, however we try to dress it up, is a craft passed on from generation to generation, from platform to platform.

The tricks of the trade are not many and not that difficult to pick up. Some never do. But students can learn from the masters about how they did it and how they made it.

What better than a masterclass on interviewing with Paxo (he was comparatively polite - we're old friends and colleagues), committed journalism from Jon Snow, how to investigate by Donal Macintyre or Roger Cook and to have spin unspun by Nick Jones?

If one quarter of what they said entered the consciousness of journo manqué, that would make up a year's worth of academic teaching of the subject. The message is usually consistent: if you want get in and are determined enough then you will, and that will serve you well in the craft. 'Never give up' is as good a hack motto as any.

As they say in the BBC, 'The Cat can talk to the Controller' and our students can ask any question they wish of the great and good. Often it is about earnings; often that is fudged by the star hack.

The sessions give each and every student a chance to ask questions that may have been eating away at them. Privately, there's always time at the end to beard the Conversationalist and have a one-on-one at least for a short while. The astute trainee hacks get an email address out of the Conversationalist. One got herself a work experience place on More4 News this year thanks to J Snow's business card.

But it's not just listening, it's also about practical journalism. I have set up - but students edit - two publications: the Buzz (a weekly printed newsletter) and Cutoday (an e-newspaper, cutoday.wordpress.com) to publish student reporting of the Conversations and more.

The latter has had over 12,000 hits in three short months. It's fascinating to see how they work their angles (full marks to the first year student who got it out of Andrew Davies that he earned half a million from writing 'Bleak House' and to the young man who derailed a senior BBC 'suit') and how they write it up - well and badly.

Practice makes perfect. Or at least acceptable. Really enterprising students head for local and national stages and get their pieces to the local Coventry Telegraph and nationals like the esteemed organ you're reading now, UK Press Gazette, the Guardian, Broadcast Magazine, Hold the Front Page and more. One graduate this year is leaving with a portfolio of published pieces big enough to prop up his bed! He should get a job.

The Coventry Conversations use new media to the fullest. Most are podcast and put on the University's YouTube site, and soon will be on iTunes. 200 listen to them on average out there but one - Panorama reporter Shelley Jofre on ADD and the Drug companies - has been downloaded 2,000 times. Jon Gaunt - Cov boy made good - has been accessed over 5,000 times on YouTube. Journalism is now global multi-platform and not just confined to a lecture theatre in Cov.

You can do it too. Use your contacts for your students. They will thank you in the end. So will your employer - my university gets about a £1 million worth of free PR each year from the Conversations. The VC always smiles at me and one big tip - never offer a fee: that is a slippery slope. Free lunch but no fee. Bring the real mucky and cruel world of journalism into the academe at a budget price. It's really not that hard.

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