2018 Andy Harvey Workshop participants (Photo by Keanu Jones)

PRINCETON, N.J. —  With significant support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Dow Jones News Fund will award $60,000 in grants to summer high school journalism workshops that concentrate on health and wellness topics and host community events to showcase students’ work.

The Fund chose programs that reach underserved communities and students who do not have access to journalism training in their schools.

“The Dow Jones News Fund is thrilled to create opportunities for students to chart career paths in journalism while gaining health and wellness knowledge they can use for a lifetime,” said Heather Taylor, manager of digital media and programs for the Fund.

The 2019 grantees are:

  • California Chicano News Media Association: The Mosaic Journalism Workshop at San Jose State University empowers young journalists to report and write stories important to them – from housing costs to poverty to immigration status and impacts on the health and welfare of children and adults in Silicon Valley. Stories are published online by The Mercury News.
  • Florida International University: Journalism Jumpstart at FIU develops and sharpens beginner journalists’ skills as they report on issues impacting Miami’s Haitian community. Students’ work will be showcased as art in a local gallery or community center.
  • Howard University: The Howard University Multicultural Media Academy teaches students how to report, write and broadcast stories about the causes of poor health outcomes in their communities using solution-oriented storytelling.
  • Marshall University: Students will report on the effect of the opioid crisis on local communities in Huntington, West Virginia, while embedding themselves in The Herald Dispatch newsroom.
  • Northern Arizona University: Students at the Andy Harvey Broadcast Workshop at NAU will report on the physical and mental well-being of the indigenous population in Arizona, as they produce multimedia content for a live-to-tape broadcast, website and social media.
  • Rutgers University: The Hugh N. Boyd Journalism Diversity Workshop teaches basic journalism and video skills to students from New Jersey. Students will cover mental and behavioral health issues such as stress, anxiety, depression and opioid addiction. Their work will be featured on local TV, published online, and shared at a community forum and the Garden State Scholastic Press Association fall conference.
  • University of Arizona: During the Donald W. Carson Journalism Diversity Workshop, Arizona teens learn a variety of multimedia journalism skills as they cover the Campus Health Service and report on stories that impact their peers, such as access to health care, vaccinations and nutrition.
  • University of Miami: The Peace Sullivan/James Ansin High School Journalism & New Media Workshop is a competitive program for high school journalists in Florida. Students will cover the crises facing young people, such as college debt, ICE activity, gun violence, climate change, political dysfunction and health care. Students’ videos and articles will be published at MiamiMontage.com and shared at two community forums.
  • University of Oklahoma: The Oklahoma Institute for Diversity in Journalism brings a diverse group of students together to learn broadcast and digital journalism. Students will cover issues around mental illness in the community. The top stories will be published in The Norman Transcript.
  • University of Texas, El Paso: Journalism in July at UTEP teaches local teens digital and broadcast journalism as they report and write about health issues that plague the Borderland region such as obesity, diabetes and depression. Students’ work will be published on the Borderzine website and in The Prospector campus newspaper, and presented to parents and community members at a special event.

The Fund will also award $12,000 in college scholarships to winners in a competition for best photo, video, reporting, data journalism and overall health and wellness journalism. Students who attend these Fund-supported workshops are nominated by their workshop directors.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation awarded DJNF a $50,000 grant to encourage health reporting in its 2019 summer workshops.

Since 1968, the Fund has introduced more than 12,000 high school students to journalism careers and provided valuable hands-on experience publishing in print and digitally. These workshops add value beyond the newsroom, exposing students to campus life, thinking critically and working collaboratively.

About The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
For more than 40 years the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has worked to improve health and health care. We are working with others to build a national Culture of Health enabling everyone in America to live longer, healthier lives. For more information, visit www.rwjf.org. Follow the Foundation on Twitter at www.rwjf.org/twitter or on Facebook at www.rwjf.org/facebook.