UK university uses VR to train students in crime reporting

Journalim students from the University of Leeds learning crime reporting through VR headsets

Credit: Carl Hartley

In a nutshell:

• The University of Leeds has successfully piloted a VR journalism training programme where first-year students experience crime reporting scenarios, with 28 out of 30 students responding positively and requesting more VR-based learning sessions.
• The current VR simulation takes students through a drug raid story, where they learn to check social media, organise press conferences, interact with actor-played sources, and produce news articles, all while practicing proper journalistic protocols and safety considerations.
• Lecturer Carl Hartley is planning to expand the programme to include trauma-informed reporting scenarios, focusing on sensitive stories like Grenfell Tower, with built-in mental health support and guidance on working with traumatised sources - aiming to better prepare the next generation of journalists for emotional challenges in the field.

The University of Leeds is looking to virtual reality (VR) to teach students trauma-informed journalism in a safe setting.

This comes after a successful pilot last semester where first-year students experienced crime reporting through virtual reality. The idea is to give students a taste of working in the industry with the right guardrails in place.

Once students put on the headsets, they see a text from their editor asking them to report a breaking news story of a local drug raid. Students are asked whether they should head straight there, ring the press office or check on social media for updates.

The right answer is to check socials, where they can fact-check and prepare accordingly for a press conference, which they organise second by ringing the mock press office.

Students were then tasked with creating a social media post and interacting with sources, using pre-recorded scenes with actors.

Carl Hartley

Pre-recording a press conference for students

One of these is a press conference with a detective inspector, using lines full of proper police vernacular.

The final task is to produce a written news article based on all the information students were able to obtain. A lot of the lessons transfer to other graded assessments in terms of factual reporting, plucking out top lines, preparedness and basic safety considerations.

The session was received well by the students, with 28 out of 30 saying they would like to see more teaching sessions using virtual reality.

One student said: "I felt excited before and during, [the session] and thoroughly enjoyed a more active different learning experience, more memorable than an average session."

Potential for trauma-informed reporting

The brains behind the project is Carl Hartley, lecturer in journalism practice at Leeds University. He collaborated with Dan McKinnie and Dr. Danielle Millea at the university's Digital Educational Enhancement Team, which provided the technical expertise.

Cart Hartley

Carl Hartley (right) getting his students set up with VR headsets

Hartley is looking to the summer when he hopes to start working on a similar project centred around a "traumatic" or "emotional" story, the likes of Grenfell Tower. But the exact scope of the story is as yet undecided.

This would include the same elements around deadlines and deliverables. But there would also be a built-in focus on mental health and aftercare for journalists, as well as more sensitive approaches to working with traumatised sources.

Hartley is looking to include survivors and mental health professionals to inform the training. He thinks VR could be a safe way to introduce young journalists to the tough but necessary and valuable side of the profession. And he wants this next generation of journalists to be much better about talking about their mental health and emotions than his.

"I always felt alone in my generation, like I couldn't talk to anyone. My biggest fear was that I would be taken off the biggest stories," he says, adding that the news leaders are realising that younger journalists are more prepared to be emotionally vulnerable instead of seeing opening up as a weakness.

"I want [this generation] to make journalism better. I want them to change the fate of our industry and to be critical thinkers as journalists. I want them to challenge the industry."

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