Calling Area Teens: Deadline Approaches for ELi's Summer Youth Journalism Program

Next Friday, July 26, marks the deadline for area youth (ages 15-22) to apply for ELi's Summer Youth Journalism Program, which will run August 5-16 on weekdays. This program follows on two highly successful prior years and provides area youth an opportunity to learn journalistic ethics and practices and to earn a $250 educational stipend for participation.

A couple of spots in the program are still open!

About the program: The course, led by journalism educator Cody Harrell, will lead students in understanding of basic and advanced techniques of journalistic writing, reporting, and ethics. The program is free for students accepted, and students will receive a $250 stipend for participation in the program.

In addition, students will be paid as reporters to produce published reports for ELi’s readers. Students are expected to produce a piece to be published at the end of the program. (Reporting by ELi is paid per published report.)

Topics in the two-week introductory program include First Amendment law, professional journalistic ethics, news hierarchy, interview techniques, concise writing, Associated Press styling, interpreting legal documents, the Freedom of Information Act in theory and practice, basic photojournalism, and more. Participants have praised the program as helping them with listening, fact-checking, writing, and interviewing skills.

By the end of this two-week program, students may be phased into the regular ELi reporting team to assist in local investigative journalism and community news reporting.

Above: The 2018 Summer Youth Journalism Program participants.

Who can apply: We are accepting applications from people aged 15-22 who are interested in journalism, whether or not they are interested in pursuing a career in the field. Applicants do not need to live in East Lansing or to be enrolled in any school to apply and participate.

Above: The 2017 Summer Youth Journalism Program participants.

About the schedule: The program will run Monday-Friday, August 5-16, 2018, with three hours of group meetings per day at the East Lansing Public Library. Students will also work in small groups and one-on-one with Harrell.

About the journalism educator: Cody Harrell (pictured below) is a Journalism and English teacher at East Lansing High School with a degree in Journalism from MSU. ELHS students who have worked with him praise him as a student-centered, engaging, effective educator. While at MSU, he specialized in graphic design, publication design and web design. He also earned accolades from the Journalism Education Association, the Society for News Design and the School of Journalism at MSU.

Harrell has been a student, adviser, mentor, teacher at the Michigan Interscholastic Press Association summer journalism camp held on MSU’s campus. When not occupied advocating for student first amendment rights and working with the best and brightest of tomorrow’s journalism, he enjoys training for marathons and singing in his barbershop quartet.

How to apply: Download a PDF version of the application from this link or to get a Google docs version of the application by clicking here.

Questions? Email publisher@eastlansinginfo.org.