Many rural newspapers struggling to stay afloat must rely on untrained volunteers to report the news, often going for presence and quantity rather than quality and professionalism.
"Enter the University of Vermont. Building on a 3-year-old journalism program for undergraduates, in February the school launched a series of free online classes for anyone interested in learning how to write for local newspapers," Anne Wallace Allen reports for Seven Days. "Participants who follow through and volunteer at a local media outlet can get free coaching and editing help from the experienced editors employed by the UVM program."Richard Watts, director of UVM's Center for Research on Vermont, began an undergraduate program for reporting and documentary storytelling in 2019, which has "grown quickly into a de facto journalism school with the companion purpose of bolstering local news reporting in Vermont," Allen reports. "With a team of professional editors to guide them, students are deployed to selectboard and school board meetings for about a dozen local newspapers, including the Hardwick Gazette, the Barton Chronicle and the Shelburne News. The program known as the Community News Service . . . is expected to have 40 students this semester [and] produces an online newspaper devoted to Winooski news."
Watts expanded the class to an online offering after the publisher of a rural paper said she and her editor, neither of whom had formal journalism training, had been unable to get a spot in the class. "There's clearly an interest," Allen reports. "A few hours after registration opened for the first class, News Fundamentals + Intro, all 20 slots were filled with teachers, librarians and volunteer journalists. Another two dozen or so people were on a waiting list for the next six weekly sessions, which will include instruction on such basics as interviewing techniques, how to write a news story, working a beat and journalism ethics."
No comments:
Post a Comment