Washington, DC – The National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) has received a $20,000 general operating grant and $7,000 in scholarships from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to provide training to NAHJ members through the Poynter Institute.

To help NAHJ weather the economic downturn, Knight Foundation has contributed $20,000 to the group’s Count Me In campaign. In addition, the foundation has provided NAHJ with $7,000 in tuition scholarships for NAHJ members to participate in online seminars and webminars at the Poynter Institute’s News University.

There will also be an additional $8,000 in scholarships — for in-person training – shared by members of NAHJ, the National Association of Black Journalists, the Asian American Journalists Association, the Online News Association, the Journalism & Women Symposium and the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, on a first-come, first-served basis.

“The Poynter Institute is at the forefront of addressing the training needs of journalists and we look forward to using these scholarships to continue to give our members the tools they need to keep their jobs, find new ones, or work on their own,” said NAHJ Executive Director Iván Román.

“We know how tough it is to get the time and money to do training in these tough budgetary times, and we’re committed to doing what we can to get journalists the training they need” said Keith Woods, Dean of Faculty at the Poynter Institute.

In order to apply for the scholarship you must be a member in good standing. To renew your membership, please visit http://www.nahj.org/2009/06/membership/.

To sign up for online seminars and webinars visit Poynter’s News University, visit http://www.newsu.org/. Once your register with NewsU, you can sign up for a scholarship to participate in any of the online seminars and webinars. If you would like to sign up for the in-person training sessions, you will need to register with NewsU as well, but those funds are shared among all six groups mentioned above and are on a first-come, first-serve basis until the funds are exhausted.

For questions about membership, please contact NAHJ Membership Coordinator, Paulo Luizaga, at pluizaga@nahj.org or 202.662.7460.

 

Founded in 1984, NAHJ’s mission is to increase the percentage of Latinos working in our nation’s newsrooms and to improve news coverage of the Latino community. NAHJ is the nation’s largest professional organization for Latino journalists with more than 1,400 members working in English and Spanish-language print, photo, broadcast and online media. NAHJ is a 501 (c)(3) tax-exempt non-profit organization. For more information, visit www.nahj.org.

 About the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation advances journalism in the digital age and invests in the vitality of communities where the Knight brothers owned newspapers. Since 1950, the foundation has granted more than $400 million to advance quality journalism and freedom of expression. Knight Foundation focuses on projects that promote community engagement and lead to transformational change. For more, visit www.knightfoundation.org.