Media Trainings for Members of Community Organizations
Sign up now to take a college level Journalism workshop and begin telling the stories that are happening in your community.
You
may have watched or listened to a television or radio news story about
your community and found yourself thinking that the reporting missed
important information, lacked evidence, or was misleading. If so, you
are not alone. Many reporters may not fully understand the
circumstances, struggles, dreams, and goals in communities of color.
You may be better plugged into a community to be able to find more
accurate stories and information. For too long many communities,
particularly immigrant and low-income communities, have been
under-reported or mis-reported, and the subjects of stories. Now is the
time that our communities create the stories that need to be heard.
A
college level Journalism 101 workshop is about to kick off this Fall to
teach members of grassroots community organizations the skills of
researching, interviewing, and digital media production. You will
graduate able to report on important stories! Space is limited so sign
up now.
Expectations, Requirements and How to Sign up
We are inviting members of grassroots organizations to participate in our Radio Journalism Workshops offered by the Community News Production Institute (CNPI), New York City’s only news bureau run by community journalists.
If
you have ever thought, “If only we could tell our story the way we want
to, we might be more effective in our organizing work?”
Through media training with CNPI, a program of People’s Production House, your organization can gain a highly trained in-house journalist with access to the radio airwaves to do just that!
Our
mission is to partner with grassroots organizations and train a few of
their members to make their own media about their communities and
organizing campaigns. Our previous participants have produced powerful
radio stories that were broadcast on local and national radio stations
and on the Internet.
CNPI
was launched in 2006 as part of People’s Production House, a non-profit
multimedia organization headquartered in New York City. In the past
four years, CNPI
has worked to train members of community based organizing groups in
radio journalism so they can report on issues of great import to their
communities, frame the story the way they want to, and project often
unheard voices into the public debate.
During
the past couple of years, members from our journalism trainings have
filed over 100 stories on more than 100 local and national radio
stations. Some of the stories focused on:
- Domestic workers’ efforts in Albany for the enactment of a state law to bring basic labor protections to the industry
- Street Vendors Project’s campaign to end police harassment of some of the city’s most vulnerable small business owners
- Project-based
collaboration with New Immigrant Community Empowerment (NICE), a local
organization working with construction workers, to produce a
Know-Your-Rights CD to help day laborers understand their rights on the
job.
These
projects and campaigns would not be possible without the journalism
training received through CNPI. We think our media training could be a
tool to help groups meet their organizing goals and add new voices to
the public dialogue on issues important to the communities.
Our next 12-week Radio Journalism Training Workshops are set to start in September 2010. There is an application to be filled out by BOTH the organization and the interested members.
The training schedule requires selected participants to attend one class during the week and be willing to work on a multimedia project.
Our
media trainings are generally done as fee-for-service on a sliding
scale. We have secured funding to fully subsidize the cost of up to 10
participants in the training, but spaces are limited. Being a
non-profit community-based organization ourselves, we understand the
challenges to securing funding for technical assistance and operational
support. If there are ways we can support your fundraising appeals we’d
be more than happy to discuss this further with you.
The 12-week Radio Journalism Training Workshops costs $2,500 per organizational member (or at no cost if your application for a full subsidy is accepted).
In addition to acquiring reporter skills, these workshops can help your organization:
- Add a media component to your organizing campaigns
- Document your weekly meetings and make them available as online podcasts
- Utilize social media tools like Facebook, Twitter and Skype in your promotional material and organizational communications
To
reinforce the media trainings, we are asking each organization to
purchase a digital audio recorder for use by their member(s). These of
course will remain with the organization once the workshops have
finished. These audio recorders cost about $160 each.
The software we will be using is free and open source and can be installed on your organization’s computer(s).
If
you are interested in this training opportunity please fill out the
application form and send it to Rob Robinson, CNPI Coordinator,
People’s Production House either by:
fax: 212-334-7433 email, rob@peoplesproductionhouse.org or snail mail,
People’s Production House, 666 Broadway, Suite 500, NYC, NY 10012
Please contact us if you have any questions, thoughts or concerns.
Thank you for your attention and we hope to hear from you soon.
Rob Robinson
CNPI Coordinator
People’s Production House
666 Broadway, Suite 500
NYC, NY 100012
Downloadable application available soon. Contact Rob for a copy of the application.
