Student Campus Mentor Teresa Puente instructs students on how to use video equipment before a field trip. (Photo by Charly Edsitty/The UNITY News)

By Charly Edsitty
The UNITY News Online

Forget your sleeping bag and teddy bear, because journalism camp is in session.

The Asian American Journalists Association and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists are heading up two intensive journalism programs this week in hopes of cultivating journalists of tomorrow.

“J Camp,” the AAJA-sponsored program, encourages high school students to consider careers in journalism. NAHJ’s “Student Campus,” nurtures college students who may already be studying journalism. Both programs aim to maintain student interest in the craft, as well as emphasizing the need for diversity. These two student programs precede The UNITY Convention.

Every year AAJA receives hundreds of applications, but only 42 multicultural high school students were selected for this year’s J Camp at Loyola University in Chicago.

“The original idea was to give young people exposure to journalism at a time when they are just starting to figure out what their career direction is,” said Janice Lee, AAJA deputy executive director.

J Camp Director, Neal Justin, explained that there was a need to cultivate journalism interest early in order to build a strong foundation of basic skills.

“I was getting a sense of need to help kids feed their interests early on,” Justin said. “Where is the proper point? Maybe it’s high school. And it grew from there.”

A total of eight media professionals volunteered to mentor students for six days, July 18-23.

The students attended discussions, learned the basics of professionalism and were lectured by media professionals from various publications.

Gordon Ruan, 16, of Champaign, Ill., heard about the program from his teacher and decided to apply.

“The program is trying to prepare you and let you know about the challenges,” Ruan said. “It taught me that diversity is really important because it broadens your view of the world.”

On Tuesday, AAJA released the results of a survey of 293 alumni of J Camp and 78 percent are reported to have continued their studies in journalism or communications.

The survey also revealed that 32 percent of the alumni said that their top reason for choosing journalism as a career was “to positively change the world.”

“We’re thrilled,” Justin said. “ This is a week they will remember and the first step in a long-term effort.”

College students are also getting realistic doses of journalism this week.

Student Campus hosted 41 college students at Columbia College Chicago, in its third appearance during The UNITY Convention. The program is aimed at freshman and sophomores and was funded this year by the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation.

Although similar to the UNITY Student Projects, the two programs are very different.

UNITY Student Projects is a week-long program which brings together journalism students from across the country to cover daily convention events. The project, which is embarking on a convergence experiment, is producing a newspaper, website and radio and TV broadcasts.

NAHJ had a different idea in mind in creating Student Campus. The difference is less of a focus on the publication process and more emphasis on exploration and networking. Students have more time to attend panels and network with media professionals.

Ray Chavez is a Student Campus mentor and Director of the Oklahoma Institute for Diversity in Journalism at the University of Oklahoma.

Chavez explained that Student Campus allows for more involvement in the UNITY Convention by getting an early start and ending before the convention begins.

“We wanted to create a program that was going to address the needs and provide information to the younger students that were not ready for Student Projects,” Chavez said.

Chavez said younger college students get to experience what a career in journalism has in store, and based upon their experience, it allows them to decide if journalism is the right career choice.

During the three-day session, students worked on writing resumes, listened to advice from a panel of recruiters, visited City Hall and covered a mock press conference.

Genesis Samayoa, 20, a Denver resident, said the press conference was “really interesting.”

“The pressure of having to take good notes was very overwhelming,” she said.

Chavez explained that some students end up discovering that journalism isn’t the career for them, but that doesn’t spoil the knowledge gained.

“Here is the chance for a multicultural experience,” Chavez said. “That’s the whole idea, students will learn from each other.”

topic: Industry Issues
tags: AAJA, NAJA

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 at 12:41 am and is filed under Industry Issues, Latest Coverage, Online Multimedia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.