Free Events for Journalists: News Literacy and Block by Block

I attended two free news educational events last year and wanted to share them with you just in case you would like to attend this year. Be sure to visit their sites to get more information and sign up to receive notifications about registration.

News Literacy Curriculum Workshop

In June 2012, I attended the News Literacy Curriculum Workshop, which was taught by cool instructors from Center for News Literacy at Sunny Brook University School of Journalism and sponsored by The McCormick Foundation. The purpose of this program is to teach instructors how to incorporate news literacy into their curriculum. It was a weeklong program held at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL.

One of the main points covered was “What is news?” This is a legitimate question as we are drowning in information, but is it really news? What makes a news story? And how can we get young people interested in news? We also learned the difference between news literacy and media literacy.

In addition to learning something new, I really enjoyed the passion that the instructors had for news. They were all trained journalists who loved writing news and educating others on how to appreciate it. This topic is especially important as information delivery is moving from traditional sources to online sources.

On a slightly different note, if you ever get invited to the James Allen Executive Center at Northwestern, go! That food is delicious. I promise, we gained at least five pounds that week. It was an awesome experience with VIP treatment. First, we had a reception ~aka~ free drinks each evening from Sunday through Thursday. I don’t drink, but this was a great perk.  We also had a sit down dinner with salad, a choice of beef, chicken, seafood or vegetarian dinner and dessert. Lastly, there was a breakfast buffet every morning.

If the program is offered this year, I would encourage you to go. You do not have to be an educator, but you should have a passion for educating others.

Block by Block Community News Summit

Block by Block is a free event sponsored by Reynolds Journalism Institute where over 140 online news providers from all over the U.S. gathered to discuss their successes and challenges, and to learn about new developments. Entities ranged from nonprofits to for profit entities to people who just love sharing news. The connections were great and the information was priceless.

Let me tell you about the diversity at this event. I met an American Indian from Montana; a citizen journalist from Hawaii; a young lady from California who teaches the community computer skills as part of her program; and quite a few community news people from New Jersey. Regardless of their place of residence, everyone I spoke to had two things in common: 1) they loved people and 2) they loved sharing news. Also, most of them were trained journalists shifting to new media.

I learned about the program from my fellow writer, LaRisa Lynch, the creator of Neighborhood Scribe news site.

Have you attended either of the programs above? What did you think?

Do you know of other free writing, blogging, publishing educational programs?