Cronkite Institute for High School Journalism Formed

The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication has announced the creation of the Cronkite Institute for High School Journalism, a consortium of programs reaching out to high school journalism students and their teachers.

The institute includes long-standing Cronkite programs as well as several new ones. It is directed by Anita Luera, a long-time Arizona broadcast journalist and past president of the Arizona Latino Media Association.

Among the programs are the Donald W. Reynolds High School Journalism Institute, a two-week fellowship program for 35 high school journalism instructors from around the country, and two full-immersion summer programs for high school students interested in journalism – the Summer High School Broadcast Institute and the Summer High School Print Journalism Institute.

A major new initiative is the Stardust High School Journalism Program. Over the next two years, the Cronkite School will install multimedia newsrooms in 10 underserved Arizona high schools in an effort to revitalize their journalism programs.

And next year, Luera will be literally taking the Cronkite School on the road to high schools around the region and the state in a new Cronkite School mobile unit outfitted with a television camera and other equipment that will provide students with hands-on experiences. The program is designed to encourage students who might not otherwise have had any exposure to journalism to consider journalism as a career, said Cronkite Dean Christopher Callahan.

In addition, the school supports daylong workshops each year for high school students, working closely with the Arizona Interscholastic Press Association, the Arizona Latino Media Association and the Arizona Indian Education Association.

“By launching these new programs and building on the ones we already have, we hope to make a major impact on high school journalism,” Callahan said. “We want to provide the training, support and resources needed for talented young people to enter the profession and make a difference.”

Callahan said the array of programs – arguably the most extensive offered by any university in the country – is possible because of the support of a variety of individuals and foundations, including the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation, the Stardust Foundation, the Arizona Broadcasters Association, the Scripps Howard Foundation, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the American Society of Newspaper Editors and Phoenix attorney Tom Chauncey.