Native American students get digital training at Cronkite School

Native American students from nine states will participate in a digital journalism program this week at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.

The student program was developed as part of the National Native Media Conference, which will take place July 18-21, in Tempe, Ariz. The students will get training in multimedia and journalism fundamentals at the Cronkite School, then produce multimedia stories for the Native American Journalists Association conference newspaper and its website. They also will produce a TV news broadcast.

The 20 Native American students come from high schools and colleges in Arizona, California, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota and Utah. The students, who were selected by a committee of professional Native American journalists, will be housed in the Taylor Place residence hall on ASU’s Downtown Phoenix campus.

“The Cronkite School is proud to host these young aspiring journalists,” said Anita Luera, director of the Cronkite School’s High School Journalism Institute. “We want to share the best of what we have to offer at Cronkite with the students who will be the future storytellers of their communities.”

The National Native Media Conference is hosted by NAJA in partnership with Native Public Media. About 250 media professionals from around the country are expected to attend. The conference features workshops and panels designed to improve reporting on and delivery of Native news and opportunities for networking among Native American media professionals.

Prior to the conference, the Cronkite School’s Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism will conduct a seminar on computer-assisted watchdog reporting for conference attendees.

Mary Hudetz, vice president of NAJA and an editor at The Associated Press’ West Regional Desk in Phoenix, said the student program is reflective of NAJA’s “deep commitment to creating opportunities for the next generation of Native journalists, and we are proud the Cronkite School is a partner in our efforts this year as we prepare to welcome an especially outstanding class."

The NAJA program is one of several training institutes held at Cronkite each year. Earlier this summer the school hosted high school journalism teachers in the Reynolds High School Journalism Institute, high school journalism students in digital and broadcast camps, and college journalism students in a Dow Jones digital journalism training program.

The Cronkite School, located in a state-of-the-art media center on the ASU downtown Phoenix campus, is home to 1,400 students who study broadcast, digital and print journalism, and public relations. The school has been recognized as a leader and innovator among journalism educators by The New York Times, The Times of London and American Journalism Review.

The Native American Journalists Association, based on the campus of the University of Oklahoma, supports Native Americans in journalism, works toward better representation of Native Americans in the media and defends challenges to free press, speech and expression on Native lands. The organization has more than 350 members nationally.

Native Public Media’s mission is to promote healthy, engaged and independent Native communities through media access, control and ownership. The organization offers training in digital journalism and storytelling, hosts an annual Native Media summit and issues the Native Media Landscape Report, providing an overview of Native radio, television, print and new media.