John V. Pavlik, director of the Journalism Resources Institute (JRI) at Rutgers, said the partnership with The Courier is “a wonderful opportunity.”

The institute, based in New Brunswick, works with media professionals, researchers, and students in a variety of professional development and media studies research activities.
The partnership provides the platform for a journalism education program, such as JRI to collaborate with the newspaper industry like the Courier.

Pavlik said the opportunity will enable both to invent or rather “re-invent the newspaper for the digital age.”

“The Internet has transformed the way in which people get their news and information,” Pavlik said. “It is really having a fundamental effect on the role of newspapers and democracy.”

In the classroom, professors and teachers are forced to re-think and revise the way journalism has been taught in the past.

In the field, newspapers, like the Courier, will evolve into a primarily digital media, with more active involvement with the audience it serves in Monmouth County and the Bayshore.

“We will create a participatory kind of newspaper, something that really couldn’t happen before but is possible now because of technology and the Web,” Pavlik said.

The mission of JRI is to act as a bridge between the classroom and the newsroom.
“This collaborative project is a perfect illustration of our core mission, which is to work together with the industry and create a more vibrant form of journalism and journalism education in the future,” Pavlik said.

Serving as a member of the board of directors at the New Jersey Press Association, Pavlik said, the partnership with Courier has many benefits.

“We can continue the quality of journalism that people of Middletown and the Bayshore have come to expect of the Courier,” Pavlik said.

Additionally, the partnership will serve as a business model for the newspaper industry to showcase how newspapers can be financially viable and grow in this century.

According to Pavlik, there are many newspapers that are struggling financially right now. “This is a serious issue for all American newspapers, not just those in New Jersey,” he said.
In such an economic climate, the Rutgers-Courier partnership could serve as a model that will inspire others.

Journalism in the digital age is more inclusive and will serve to engage the readers and audience at various levels.

“It is the key to a successful form of newspapers and to a successful democracy,” Pavlik concluded.