Wednesday, December 19, 2007

American Indian Journalism Institute Accepting Applications for Summer 2008

VERMILLION, S.D. — The Freedom Forum is accepting applications until Feb. 1 for the eighth American Indian Journalism Institute summer session, the premier journalism training, scholarship and summer internship program for Native American college students, June 1-20, 2008.

Students attend AIJI for free and receive other financial assistance. Applications are welcome from any Native American college student preparing to become a journalist. In its first seven years, 156 students completed the program. Instructions and application forms are available at www.freedomforum.org/diversity.

AIJI students will be eligible for college credit by taking one of several journalism courses taught at the Freedom Forum’s Al Neuharth Media Center, on the University of South Dakota’s Vermillion campus. Once accepted, AIJI students will be placed in an appropriate course based on their experience, interests and previous coursework.

Top AIJI graduates will be hired for six-week paid internships as reporters, copy editors, photographers and multimedia journalists at daily newspapers and with The Associated Press beginning about July 1. Last summer, 16 AIJI graduates worked in paid news internships.

“The intent of AIJI is to recruit, train, mentor and retain Native Americans for journalism careers,” said Jack Marsh, AIJI director and Freedom Forum vice president for diversity programs. “AIJI is an intense and demanding academic program that opens doors for those who have the passion and the potential to succeed as professional journalists.”

The Freedom Forum administers and funds AIJI, including tuition, fees, books, room and board. To be eligible for AIJI, Native students must have completed at least one year of college. Applications for the program will be accepted from new participants and from returning AIJI students who want more training.

Program graduates will earn four hours of college credit from the University of South Dakota that students may transfer to their current school. In addition, graduates will receive a $500 stipend/scholarship from the Freedom Forum, paid when they resume full-time studies in the fall.

Select AIJI graduates will be hired to work at www.reznetnews.org, the Native American online news site, during the school year.

Students must be able to provide their own transportation to and from Vermillion, S.D., and must attend the full program beginning Sunday afternoon, June 1, and ending Friday afternoon, June 20. Each student will have a single room in a dormitory. Meals will be provided on campus. AIJI forbids the use of alcohol, other intoxicants and illegal drugs at any time during the program. Violators will be dismissed from the institute.

The American Indian Journalism Institute is part of the Freedom Forum Diversity Institute’s commitment to increase employment diversity in daily newsrooms.

“Having even one Native American working in a newsroom makes that newspaper more aware of Indians in its community, and more sensitive and intelligent in reporting stories about them,” Marsh said. “American Indians are by far the most underrepresented people of color in the news media, and this often results in stereotypical and erroneous coverage of Indian issues and Indian people.”

The American Society of Newspaper Editors’ annual employment census identified about 332 Natives among the industry’s 56,982 newspaper journalists.

AIJI also offers a semester-long Visiting Scholars Program at the University of South Dakota every fall and spring. Students are mentored by a journalist in residence and take a full load of college courses in journalism and related subjects. The program was created for students from schools that don’t offer journalism courses. Fellowships are available to visiting scholars to cover the cost of tuition, fees, room and board.

In addition to journalism diversity programs at the University of South Dakota and at the John Seigenthaler Center in Nashville, Tenn., the Freedom Forum funds and helps organize the Native American Journalism Career Conference at Crazy Horse Memorial in South Dakota’s Black Hills. The workshop, April 22-24, 2008, introduces high school and college Native students to journalism career options.

The Freedom Forum, based in Washington, D.C., is a nonpartisan foundation dedicated to free press, free speech and free spirit for all people. The foundation focuses on three priorities: the Newseum, an interactive museum of news in Washington, D.C.; the First Amendment and newsroom diversity.