KUOW, KPLU Join NPR And CBI To Train Next Generation Of Multimedia Journalists

Last Updated on September 15, 2014 by askcbiorg

KUOW, KPLU, NPR and College Broadcasters, Inc. are seeking student applicants to their first Student Multimedia Project. The week-long opportunity for college and graduate students to learn from professional journalists will be hosted at the CBI National Student Electronic Media Conference in Seattle, Oct. 20-25, 2014. The application deadline is midnight Pacific Daylight Time Monday, Sept. 22, 2014.

A committee of journalists will select up to six students to pair one-to-one with public media journalists and college multimedia instructors from around the country. Three students will be selected from the Seattle/Tacoma area.

“At KUOW we are excited about this project because including more voices and a greater breadth of storytelling in public media ensures our resonance and relevance with audiences into the future,” said KUOW General Manager Caryn Mathes, “I applaud this project that seeds our craft with the next generation.”

The Student Multimedia Project will emphasize multimedia storytelling focused on character development. Students who are selected for the project will each find a person to focus on for their story—someone doing something interesting who is willing and available to be interviewed. Students will produce a radio story about the person and then tell their story differently for the web.

“NPR and its member stations support the Project because it allows us to discover and groom a diverse pool of young talent,” said NPR Consultant and Project Manager Doug Mitchell. “The Project gives public media professionals a chance to see if students have what it takes to do the work and lets our industry build a pipeline of new professionals who understand our way of storytelling.” Mitchell thanked KUOW as well as NPR member stations KPLU Seattle/Tacoma, Michigan Public Radio and Milwaukee Public Radio for dedicating staff as mentors in this project.

Mentors for the project are Amara Aguilar of the University of Southern California Annenberg School of Journalism; Ruby de Luna of KUOW Seattle; LaToya Dennis of Milwaukee Public Radio; Sarah Hulett of Michigan Radio; Kyle Stokes of KPLU Seattle-Tacoma and Traci Tong of “The World” from PRI, BBC and WGBH Boston.

This is the sixth student media collaboration of Next Generation Radio and CBI/College Media. Previous projects were at conferences in Dallas, Nashville, St. Louis and Kansas City.

The mission of KUOW is to create and serve an informed public, one challenged and invigorated by an understanding and appreciation of events, ideas and cultures.