For the past three days, aspiring minority high school journalists from two urban cities in North Jersey got a first-hand account of what it feels like to be a reporter.
The Journalism Boot Camp is a new effort by Montclair State University’s School of Communication and Media to help diversify the news industry by getting students in their sophomore to senior year of high school interested in journalism before they get to college.
The School of Communication and Media, which was created four years ago and began offering a journalism major in 2014, recruited 16 students from the cities of Orange and Patterson, N.J., to participate in the tuition-free program.
Merrill Brown, the director of the school and a veteran media executive who helped launch MSNBC.com, said that the boot camp is the first in a series of ongoing efforts aimed at encouraging underrepresented students in the region to pursue careers in communication. The journalism initiative, he said, is a priority for the school.
“For starters, its an important public service, bringing together gifted educators and talented high school students who may not be in a position to afford ‘boot camp’ programs or other journalism summer efforts,” he said. “We’re also pleased to be in a position to serve students with an interest in journalism, especially at a point in time in which the students and their parents may be getting mixed signals about opportunities in the field.”
The high school students honed their reporting skills by learning from industry professionals. They traveled to New York City where they met with editors and reporters at ABC News and they also had a rare opportunity to interview members of the Cuban National Baseball team that was in the country this week to square off against the New Jersey Jackals at Yogi Berra Stadium on campus.
On campus, they took seminars focused on topics ranging from journalism ethics, field reporting and sports and entertainment journalism.
