Native American students are benefiting from an intensive journalism training course run by an American university.

Twenty-five students from the US and Canada are currently taking part in the three-week course run by The American Indian Journalism Institute (AIJI), based at the University of South Dakota.

Students are learning how to conduct interviews, how to gather research material and how to construct stories through use of language and photography. They will also attend seminars and workshops on ethics, photojournalism and online journalism.

Successful students receive academic credits and a grant towards their future college course, plus the opportunity to publish work online at reznetnews.org.

Reznet was launched last year by Dennis McAuliff, associate professor at The University of Montana School of Journalism and member of the Osage Tribe.

Funded by the Knight Foundation through the University of Montana, the site provides a platform for Native American journalism students to publish their work, as well as providing a community base to connect native students across North America.

Reznet also pays students for their contributions and graduates of the AIJI have all moved on to write for the news site after the course, which is now in its third year.

Many previous students have moved on to internships, and Geneva Horse Chief recently became the first AIJI graduate to achieve a full-time reporting post based in Muskogee, Ohio.

AIJI co-ordinator Jack Marsh hopes that the Institute will continue to develop in the next few years.

"If funding continues, I hope AIJI is repeated annually and that we can continue raising the standards for admission," he told dotJournalism.

Several experienced journalists are contributing to workshops and lectures, including Dana Hedgpeth of The Washington Post, Professor Ray Chavez from the University of South Dakota and Fred Sweets of the Associated Press.

Native Americans Wilma Mankiller, former principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, George Benge, news executive at the Gannet Company and Mark Trahant, page editor of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, are also speaking at the event, sharing their experiences and advice on working in the news industry.

This year's students represent more than 19 different tribes including Blackfeet, Cheyenne River Sioux and Timbisha Shoshonee.

According to figures published in April this year by the American Society of Newspaper Editors, among the 55,000 journalists working on daily US newspapers only around 289 are Native American.

Sources:
http://www.reznetnews.org
http://www.freedomforum.org
http://www.maynardije.org/news/features/021205_benge/

See also:
http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/story563.html