Urban Journalism Workshop

The workshop takes place over an academic year.

Immersive:

In this track, students apply to participate in monthly learning experiences culminating in a summer internship with a local newsroom. Students in this track will meet once a month, either at a newsroom or virtually. We see this track as the capstone of the UJW program. Rising seniors will have priority admission to this track, but it is open to driven students who actively want a career in journalistic storytelling. Students who participated in the Exploratory Track can still apply for this track in the future.

We will select up to ten students from applications for this track. We will enroll you in the Exploratory Track if you are not selected. The application will ask for a teacher or counselor recommendation and samples of your journalism work. We will also ask you to share why this experience matters and what you hope to learn from it.

Exploratory:

This track is designed for students who are early in their high school careers and want to dip their toes into journalism. It offers a more relaxed learning environment with fewer obligations, allowing you to explore journalism at your own pace. You can apply to the program each year, either to the Exploratory Track or the Immersive Track, the ultimate UJW experience.

Twenty students will participate in this track.

Newsroom Visits:

We will host bi-monthly newsroom visits. The visits will include opportunities to talk to professional journalists, see journalism production live, and understand how newsrooms work. During these visits, students can shadow journalists, participate in editorial meetings, and contribute to news production. This hands-on experience will give students a real taste of the journalism industry and help them build valuable connections with professionals in the field.

Students in the Immersive Track will attend all four visits, while students in the Exploratory Track will attend one newsroom and the end-of-year Marquette visit. At the beginning of the UJW experience, the Exploratory Track students will select which visit they are interested in attending. Depending on space, the newsrooms may accommodate more students; thus, we will open more spaces for the newsrooms.

Online Workshops:

We'll host online workshop sessions when we're not on a newsroom visit. Here, you'll have the exciting opportunity to hear from professional journalists from various newsrooms and roles. You'll get valuable lessons on producing better journalistic stories for all platforms, broadening your understanding of the diverse world of journalism. This includes conducting interviews, writing ledes, creating stories, building networks, developing relationships, and improving reporting.

Students in the immersive track will attend all workshops in preparation for their summer internship experience. Students in the Exploratory Track will attend at least two sessions; they can attend all of them if they’d like. 

Summer Newsroom Internship:

Students in the Immersive Track will culminate their UJW experience with a four-week internship at a Milwaukee newsroom. 

We’re working on securing all of these visits as you read, but know that we are excited to have lots of interest from our area newsrooms to support you and your experience. Both the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Marquette University (The O’Brien Public Service Journalism Fellowship, Neighborhood News Service, and the Marquette Wire student media) newsrooms are already on board.

Much like the visits, we are working to secure different internship opportunities for students. In some cases, we will connect students based on their interests to specific types of newsroom internship experiences. We will post where you might be going as soon as we secure the internship locations.

• August: Kick-off virtual meeting. We will introduce you to the program leadership, discuss the year's events, and have a keynote speaker to inspire us.
• September: Newsroom visit, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
• October: Online workshop
• November: Newsroom visit, TBD
• December: Online workshop
• January: Online workshop
• February: Newsroom visit, TBD
• March: Online workshop
• April: Newsroom visit: Marquette newsrooms – we will have an end-of-workshop celebration and welcome attendance for all members!
• May: Immersive Track students will do a virtual orientation with their summer internship sites.
• June/July: Immersive Track internship experiences

The Milwaukee Press Club Endowment, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and Marquette University’s Diederich College of Communication make hosting the Urban Journalism Workshop possible. 

The experiences you will have would not have been possible without our partnering newsrooms and journalists.