Howard to Offer Free Virtual Journalism Program for High School Students

The Howard University Multicultural Media Academy invites high school students to attend a free journalism workshop from June 20 to July 1, 2022. The virtual 10-day program is open to U.S. high school students in ninth through 12th grades, and new graduates who will be entering college in the fall. The program will focus on how to use the power of multimedia journalism to cover health and wellness in underserved communities.

The application for the summer program is available at https://bit.ly/2022HowardHealthJournalismThe deadline for application submission is at 11 p.m. Friday, June 10. The workshop is sponsored by the Dow Jones News Fund, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Department of Media, Journalism and Film in the Cathy Hughes School of Communications.

“We’re honored that Howard was again selected to host a Dow Jones News Fund Workshop and train young reporters to cover health inequities,” said Professor Yanick Rice Lamb. “It’s a great program with amazing students.” Lamb is the co-director of the program with Christine McWhorter, PhD, an assistant professor of broadcast journalism, and Professor Ericka Blount, a lecturer and adviser to 101Magazine.net and TruthBeTold.news.

The workshops will be held virtually from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. The free workshops include sessions on reporting, interviewing, scriptwriting, editing, multimedia, social media, ethics, professional development and other topics. Students will work under the guidance of a talented pool of professional journalists along with Howard professors, college students and alumni.

High school students will learn how to write news stories, capture audio, shoot and edit video, take photos, use interactive tools, incorporate social media and build a portfolio of their work. They will also develop an understanding of interrelated social issues — such as housing and hunger — that contribute to making communities unhealthy. Their work will be published and distributed by the award-winning Howard University News Service and VoicesofTomorrow.news. Participants are also eligible for Dow Jones News Fund scholarships.

For more information, please contact mjf.howard@gmail.com or (202) 806-7694.

The Department of Media, Journalism and Film is the largest unit in the Cathy Hughes School of Communications at Howard University. Its faculty and alumni include award-winning, internationally renowned filmmakers, journalists, media producers, documentarians and research scholars. The department offers one of the top MFA programs in film and the only one at an HBCU. It was named as having one of the best university cinematography programs. USA Today and College Factual has ranked the journalism program among the top 20 nationally, and the National Association of Black Journalists ranked the program as No. 1 in the United States. The Broadcast Education Association honored WHBC student radio with the Signature Station Award. Howard is one of two universities in Washington and among seven HBCUs accredited by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications.

For a half-century, Howard has been the leading producer of journalists and communicators from multicultural backgrounds, and the Cathy Hughes School of Communications recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. In addition to its collegiate curriculum, the journalism faculty has organized workshops for high school students since 1978 and other programs for younger students. It also collaborated with Morgan State University on a year-long pilot program for high school students under a health journalism grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. For more information, see http://communications.howard.edu.

Founded in 1867, Howard University is a private, research university that is comprised of 13 schools and colleges. Students pursue more than 140 programs of study leading to undergraduate, graduate and professional degrees. The University operates with a commitment to Excellence in Truth and Service and has produced one Schwarzman Scholar, three Marshall Scholars, four Rhodes Scholars, 12 Truman Scholars, 25 Pickering Fellows and more than 165 Fulbright recipients. Howard also produces more on-campus African American Ph.D. recipients than any other university in the United States. For more information on Howard University, visit www.howard.edu.