Thursday, December 19, 2002
Diversity Institute graduates 2nd group of new journalists
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The second class of nine fellows graduated Dec. 12 from the Freedom Forum Diversity Institute, a training program designed for people of color who want to become journalists but have not had formal journalism training. The graduates now will join the staff of their local sponsoring newspapers as full-time journalists.
“We are proud to send nine new professional journalists back to their communities to work at daily newspapers,” said Wanda Lloyd, executive director of the Diversity Institute. “We are confident our graduates will make a positive difference by making their newspapers more inclusive and by telling some of the untold stories.”
Eight of the new graduates will be reporters; one will be a copy editor. For example, Shawn White Wolf, a member of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe in Montana, will cover Native American issues for the Independent Record in Helena. Shawn was a restaurant manager for Hardees before making the transition to journalism. Chuanpis Santilukka, an attorney for a Minneapolis law firm, will be a reporter at The Times in St. Cloud, Minn. And Romano Cedillos, who had a 20-year military career, will return to Tucson, Ariz., to be a copy editor at the Tucson Citizen.
“We learned that journalism is about more than writing. It is also about reporting and participating and understanding the community,” said Diversity Institute fellow Santilukka, who spoke on behalf of her class at graduation.
Diversity Institute fellows are people of color seeking a mid-career change or recent college graduates who did not major in journalism. Applicants are nominated by newspaper editors, generally in the applicant’s hometown. Participating newspapers agree to hire their nominees as full-time journalists after they have completed the program, which consists of 12 weeks of intensive training introducing the fellows to all aspects of daily newspaper journalism — reporting, writing, editing, visual journalism, media ethics and journalism history. Articles written by the fellows during their training are posted on the Freedom Forum Diversity Institute Web site (www.freedomforum.org/diversityinstitute), along with application and other information.
Diversity Institute fellows are taught at the John Seigenthaler Center, a Freedom Forum facility on the campus of Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Participants are housed in campus apartments and receive a small stipend during the program. The Freedom Forum pays all expenses. Sessions in 2003 begin in June and September. The application deadline for the June class is Feb. 28, 2003.
The first Diversity Institute graduates completed their training in late August. Their initial assignments upon returning home included community news reporter, staff photographer, columnist, graphic artist and business reporter.
“We have received tremendous feedback from our first class of fellows and their editors,” Lloyd said. “After a few months on the job they are producing Page One stories and breaking news.”
New graduates of the Freedom Forum Diversity Institute and their sponsoring newspapers:
Contact: Mike Fetters
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