Knight Fellows commend AUC students' enthusiasm for learning.

With hugely successful graduate and professional courses in documentary film behind him, Knight Fellow Craig Duff is not about to close the door on his AUC students. “This is a conversation that’s only just begun,” he says, encouraging to the last. “Use me as a resource for the rest of your careers,” he tells them. “Keep in touch.”

For young film makers and reporters learning their trade, it’s been a doubly good year to be associated with the Center for Electronic Journalism. Alongside Duff, the center is preparing for the departure of Chicago Tribune reporter Stephen Franklin who has spent the last four months training at outlets from new paper Al Badil to electronic magazine Islam Online.

“The experience has been so interesting,” says Franklin. “Journalists are desperate to learn new things. It’s almost like dropping water into a sponge. Everything you say they want to learn, they want to know how to do.”

Both men are convinced change is on the way. And the work they’ve been doing through the Center for Electronic Journalism can only further the trend.

“I have no doubt that an overwhelming majority of my students will go on to make bigger and better films,” says Duff. “That will be infectious.”

The former CNN Executive Producer has been blown away by the steep learning curve his students have made. “We were able to do something together which is just as good as what’s out there, and perhaps better,” he says. “I’m really looking forward to seeing the next film that comes out of these people.”

It’s an enthusiasm for learning Stephen Franklin has also seen in Egypt, both in and outside the AUC community. “People want to be trained. The competition is forcing people to change.”

“The world of Egyptian journalism is at a turning point, like the earthen plates moving underneath an earthquake,” the veteran reporter says. “You can’t see it but you can feel it.”

For Duff, the successes of his term at AUC are a stark reminder of the important role training has in developing journalists. With Orbit, Nile News and Egypt Today all clamouring for a piece of his students’ work, Duff feels proud of their achievements. “It is the final confirmation that what I’ve done here has proved to work.”

A self-described “story-teller by nature”, Duff has encouraged his students to focus on character. “Get me to understand the story by introducing me to people who are affected by the issue,” he says. “We focused on trying to find new ways of covering a story, new angles to things.”

And the approach seems to have paid off. “Some students had things happen in front of the camera they didn’t anticipate,” he says. “I think everyone has learned some key things about documentary that they would not learn on the job here.”

But as Stephen Franklin points out, it’s not easy changing the business model in which journalists have to work. “The problem is, how do you move a large ship that’s been going for a very long time in a very narrow channel?” he says. “There’s a disconnect between the top and the bottom.”

The one-time Middle East correspondent says journalists are now fighting through the tough times. “Even though Egyptian journalists are low paid and it’s difficult to get information, things are changing. The world of Arab journalism is not what it used to be. That’s what’s exciting.”

With an Arabic-English guide to blogging, and stints training at the Middle East News Agency and Al Ahram English under his belt, the self described “dinosaur” of journalism is confident for the future. “Journalists are now willing to look at different points of view which I find very encouraging.”

For Craig Duff though, it’s not just the students who have grown as people and professionals. “The challenges ended up making me a better film maker, story teller and journalist,” he says. “Being forced to think about my own processes and communicate them to other people has made me sharper.”

Going from the professional world of film-making to the very different world of journalism training was far from easy at first. “The first class I taught I just wasn’t a good teacher,” Duff says, then adds with a grin, “but by the end of it I was pretty good. My students made sure of that.”

Although the film-maker couldn’t fault with his students’ willingness to learn, he struggled at first to keep their work to deadline. “They didn’t quite believe me when I told them how much time it takes to do these things,” he says. “But they believed it at the end!”

So what does he think future Knight Fellows can do to get the most out of teaching? “Listening to what the people want to learn is crucial,” he suggests. “Then trying to match some of what they want to learn with things they should learn.”

As for print journalist Franklin, the future lies in the Arab World finding a two-way voice. “I think the Arab world needs a door that goes two ways. A door that goes outward—to the West and to Europe, to invite people in—and a door that swings the other way, to look in at itself.”

Above all, he points to the crucial role for the AUC. “It needs places that can teach and share and can become training centers, like the Center for Electronic Journalism.”

Duff is also in no doubt about the center’s ongoing role. “I don’t know of another place in Cairo where the combination of the expertise, the resources, and the freedom to operate exists,” he says. “Nowhere but here.”