AMERICAN INDIAN JOURNALISM INSTITUTE
ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS FOR SUMMER 2011
VERMILLION, S.D. — The Freedom Forum is accepting applications until April 1 for the annual American Indian Journalism Institute summer session, the premier journalism training, scholarship and internship program for Native American college students, June 15-24.
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 10 years, almost 200 students completed the program. Instructions and application forms are available at www.freedomforumdiversity.org or by emailing a request to jharris@freedomforum.org.
AIJI students will be eligible for college credit by taking a multimedia journalism course taught at the Freedom Forum’s Al Neuharth Media Center, on the University of South Dakota’s Vermillion campus.
AIJI graduates compete to be hired for six-week paid internships as reporters, copy editors, photographers and multimedia journalists in daily newsrooms beginning about July 1. Interns must be licensed drivers with access to reliable, legally registered vehicles.
“The intent of AIJI is to recruit, train, mentor and retain Native Americans for journalism careers,” said Jack Marsh, AIJI founding director and Freedom Forum vice president for diversity programs. “AIJI is an intense and demanding academic and internship 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 three hours of college credit from the University of South Dakota that students may transfer to their current school.
Students must be able to provide their own transportation to and from Vermillion, S.D., and must attend the full program beginning Wednesday, June 15, and ending Friday afternoon, June 24. Each student will have a room in an apartment-style 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 the organization more aware of American 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 199 Natives among the industry’s 41,500 journalists working in daily newsrooms.
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 Crazy Horse Journalism Workshop at Crazy Horse Memorial in South Dakota’s Black Hills. The workshop, April 17-20, 2011, 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.
Jack Marsh, 605-677-6315 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Chuck Baldwin, 605-677-5802 Jan. 14, 2011
Janine Harris, 605-677-5424
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