PRINCETON, N.J. — The Dow Jones News Fund announced a 2018 operating budget of $505,388 that will support summer journalism internships for college students combined with pre-internship residential training and other key programs.
In response to growing demand, the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University will prepare 20 students to work as digital journalists, including five selected for McClatchy newsrooms. The News Fund will also offer internships in data journalism, business reporting and multiplatform news editing.
In addition, the budget provides funding for multimedia training for professors at Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Hispanic-serving institutions and for summer journalism workshops for high school students. The operating budget also includes additional support to expand the News Fund’s alumni network.
Richard J. Levine, president of the News Fund, said, “With journalism facing severe financial and political pressures, we remain deeply committed to our mission of providing programs designed to enable the nation’s best and brightest students to consider and prepare for careers that will help strengthen American newsrooms. ”
“We expect this dynamic programming in 2018 to have significant impact for news organizations and aspiring journalists in an increasingly demanding, digital industry,” said Linda Shockley, managing director.
COLLEGE PROGRAMS – $397,350
The News Fund plans to train more than 80 college juniors, seniors and graduate students to work as digital and data journalists, multiplatform news editors and business reporters. The budget also covers intern travel, operating costs and $1,000 scholarships for returning students.
David Herzog, a University of Missouri professor and instructor for Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE), will run the data journalism training program with Charles Minshew, IRE director of data services and ’12 DJNF alumnus.
Digital interns will be trained at Arizona State University, directed by Michael Wong.
The multiplatform news editing programs will be at Temple University, Philadelphia, directed by Dr. Edward Trayes, and the University of Texas at Austin, directed by Beth Butler and Dr. Bradley Wilson.
Paul Glader, an associate professor and the director of the McCandlish Phillips Journalism Institute at The King’s College in New York, will lead the Fund’s business reporting and American City Business Journals’ reporting programs at New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute.
The News Fund will also pay registration fees for local college sophomores and juniors to attend professional media conferences in their cities to offer exposure to skills workshops, career fairs and working journalists.
The Fund will finance two, week-long summer multimedia academies for 24 college professors. At the University of Texas, El Paso, Kate Gannon, assistant professor and digital content manager of Borderzine.com, will train 12 professors from Hispanic-serving institutions. Dr. Pam Johnson will instruct professors from Historically Black Colleges and Universities at Western Kentucky University. The academies simulate real-world newsrooms with story assignments and production on deadline. Participants are trained using the latest storytelling tools, such as Adobe Premiere, Soundslides, Audacity, Audition and Photoshop.
HIGH SCHOOL PROGRAMS – $45,000
The summer high school journalism program will support seven workshops to train high school students how to report on, write about, and disseminate important health-related stories.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation provided significant support for this initiative. The funded workshops are the Mosaic Journalism Workshop at San Jose State University, California; Temple University Summer High School Journalism Workshop, Philadelphia; Arizona State University Summer Journalism Institute, Phoenix; the Andy Harvey Broadcast Journalism Workshop at Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff; the Peace Sullivan-James Ansin High School Workshop in Journalism and New Media at the University of Miami; ThreeSixty Journalism News Reporter Academy at the University of St. Thomas, Minneapolis, and Journalism in July at the University of Texas, El Paso.
Six students will be awarded $1,000 scholarships for the best writing, data journalism, health reporting, audio/podcasting, photography and video produced during the workshops.
The Fund will also support the National High School Journalism Teacher of the Year awards program sponsored by the Columbia Scholastic Press Association.
CAREER GUIDES AND RESOURCES – $7,000
The Fund will produce media and resources to promote journalism careers to high school and college students.
GENERAL OPERATING EXPENSES – $56,038
The Fund is investing resources in finding and reconnecting with more of its alumni. The goal is to build a more robust alumni network, provide mentoring for youth and recent graduates and formalize the volunteer alumni leadership committee. Other general operating expenses include marketing, special events and conferences.
