Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas

Short Courses of the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas

Online Feature Writing Course for Caribbean Reporters EndsOnline Feature Writing Course for Caribbean Reporters Ends

The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, in partnership with the Association for Caribbean Media Workers, concluded its five-week online feature writing course with reporters in the Caribbean.

The course was taught by Dr. Dominic Lasorsa, a former newspaper reporter and editor who is currently an associate professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin.

Lasorsa assisted participants in developing literary techniques to go beyond the average news story — a challenge requiring strong reporting and writing skills. This was the first time the Knight Center offered the course as part of its distance education program for Caribbean and Latin American reporters. Lasorsa recently offered the online course to reporters working at small Texas newspapers. Participants gave the course positive evaluations.

The course addressed a variety of themes, including:
*Writing strong leads and endings
*Constructing compelling profiles and first-person accounts
*Turning ordinary assignments, such as routine seasonal and anniversary features, into strong narratives.

Students participated in discussions and performed all assignments online. This means students selected their own hours for working on the course. The course was graded on a credit/no credit basis, and participants who completed the course received a certificate from the Knight Center.

The Knight Center has offered courses online in Spanish, Portuguese, and English since 2003, and is committed to expanding the scope and reach of its courses in 2006.

“Distance learning is an effective, economical, innovative way to train journalists in Latin America and the Caribbean,“ said Dean Graber, the Knight Center's program manager.

“These courses allow the Knight Center to reach journalists who are unable to attend our training workshops on the ground. We also want to help our partner organizations in Latin America and the Caribbean to develop expertise in offering distance learning to journalists in their countries.”

Other members of the Knight Center's distance learning team who assisted with the Feature Writing course are Amy Schmitz Weiss, a doctoral student at the University of Texas School of Journalism; Summer Harlow, a journalist finishing her Master's degree at UT's Institute of Latin American Studies; and John Lerma, developer of the Knight Center website.

The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas was created by Professor Rosental Calmon Alves at the University of Texas at Austin School of Journalism in August 2002 thanks to a generous donation from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Its main objective is to train journalists in the hemisphere and help them to develop self-sustaining training programs that will raise the ethical and professional levels of journalism in the Americas.

For more information about the Knight Center, contact Dean Graber, program manager, at deangraber@mail.utexas.edu.

Added Jul 18, 14:58, 2006