Cronkite School Hosts ALMA High School Workshop

The Cronkite School is hosting 90 high school students from across the state for a daylong workshop on journalism sponsored by the Arizona Latino Media Association. The workshop draws students from across the Valley as well as Yuma, Tucson, Tolleson, Coolidge and Agua Fria. It is scheduled for Feb. 29 at the ASU Downtown Campus. More than 500 students have participated in the workshop since it began in 1997. Many of those students have gone on to careers in journalism, said Anita Luera, past president of ALMA who now directs high school programs for the Cronkite School. For the first time this year, the workshop will focus on multimedia skills. Students will assemble online stories for the Web, print, radio and television. Sessions will be led by working journalists and Cronkite School faculty. Jaime Casap, project manager for Google Arizona, will be the featured speaker. The workshop relies on dozens of working Latino journalists, said Lorenzo Sierra, a communications consultant in Phoenix who led the planning effort for this year’s workshop. “Those who are teaching the sessions get a chance to share their knowledge and experience in the jobs they do every day covering the news,” he said. Financial support for the event comes from KNXV ABC 15, Telemundo Arizona, SCF Arizona, United Phoenix Firefighters Association and Latino Perspectives magazine. In-kind donations were made by Humana and Radio Campesina. ALMA is a non-profit Latino organization created in 1996 to support members’ professional development, attract youth to the field and seek fair and equitable media coverage of the Latino community. In addition to coordinating the annual high school workshop, ALMA offers scholarships to youth, fellowships to media professionals to attend conferences and hosts other events throughout the year. For more information about the ALMA workshop or other Cronkite School programs for high school students, contact Luera at 602.496.5477 or at anita.luera@asu.edu.