Borderzine is accepting applications from El Paso area high school juniors and seniors for full scholarships to attend the 15th annual Journalism in July (JIJ) workshop at the University of Texas at El Paso. The dates are July 9 – 16.
Fill out the application form here.
Over the last 14 years, the workshop has provided journalism training to more than 200 students from high schools in the El Paso–Ciudad Juárez–Las Cruces area. A goal of the workshop is to encourage high school students of diverse backgrounds who are already interested in journalism to pursue future studies and careers in news media and communication.
“Journalism in July encouraged me to pursue a career in journalism,” said Gloria Heredia, 2012 alumna of the program and current multimedia journalism student at the University of Texas at El Paso. “This program opened my eyes. I saw myself in college. I saw myself working at a newspaper or being a news anchor. Those 10 days were boot camp for me and life-changing.” Heredia is the current president of the student chapter of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists at UTEP.
The fast paced one-week training includes a variety of hands on workshops in basic journalism reporting and writing skills, media ethics and digital video, audio and photo production. The 18 selected students will stay at dorms on the UTEP campus.
They will work out of the multimedia journalism lab in the Cotton building, spend a day field reporting in a local neighborhood, and visit several local newsrooms. News media professionals will mentor them on story development, reporting and writing. The student journalists will publish their bilingual web news magazine on Borderzine on the last day of the workshop.
The cost of food, lodging and transportation are covered by grants from Dow Jones News Fund and other local sponsors, and support from Borderzine and the UTEP Communication Department.
Completed applications must be submitted along with the following: a teacher’s letter of recommendation nominating the student to participate, a purpose statement from the student, and work samples (i.e. work on school newspaper, literary magazine, yearbook, radio newscast, television newscast, etc), if available. Students are encouraged to submit two writing samples and one audio and/or video production sample.
High school advisors and teachers may nominate more than one student from their high school. Dow Jones News Fund rules prohibit a student repeating a workshop in subsequent years, or going to two DJNF sponsored workshops in the same summer, even if at different universities.
Deadline to apply is Saturday, May 13th at midnight. Applicants will be notified if they were selected in early May. If accepted into the program, there is a $25 non-refundable deposit from the participant to hold their spot.
To get an idea of the top-quality work produced by last summer’s Journalism in July workshop participants, you may visit their web magazine, Desert Diaries.
For questions, contact Journalism in July Program Coordinator Angel Cancino, at (915) 226-2616, and via email: aecancino@miners.utep.edu or this year’s Program Director, Dino Chiecchi, at (915) 747-8475 and via email: echiecchi@utep.edu.
