20 Journalism Scholarships to be Awarded

IMPACT OF THE ECONOMIC CRISIS ON AMERICAN FAMILIES:
Applications are now being taken

All costs covered to attend this specialized two-day symposium in Chicago

The SNA Foundation and the Associated Press Managing Editors have been awarded a McCormick Foundation grant to conduct a special two-day symposium. The symposium will educate community journalists on how to uncover local stories on the impacts of the current economic crisis on the American family.

The symposium will take a deep dive into this subject and will feature top speakers from the academic world, as well as journalists who cover highly-specialized aspects of this topic. The ultimate goal is to provide scholarship recipients with a host of tools and information to better cover the topic at a local level in their communities. Follow-up webinars with symposium attendees will also be part of this comprehensive learning experience.

Scholarship applications are due by February 25; click here to access the application form and information. The symposium takes place April 5 - 6 in Chicago (air, hotel and meals are included). Special thanks to the Sun-Times Media Group for hosting this event.

Editors and reporters are eligible to apply. Special consideration will be given to those who are in a position to drive the coverage of this topic at their newspaper. Depending on the size of the paper, this may be the editor, an assignment editor or a reporter. These scholarships are only being awarded to community journalists who work at daily newspapers with a circulation of 100,000 or less or for a weekly group of newspapers. A number of slots have been reserved for weekly newspaper editors and for smaller dailies. The goal is to have a diverse audience.

The symposium presents a one-of-a-kind learning experience at a very in-depth level. The cost to develop and implement this program is $35,000 (the amount of the McCormick grant). Attendees will be treated to an extremely special experience that will pay off for years to come.

"We are very grateful to the McCormick Foundation," said Nancy Lane, President of SNA and the SNA Foundation. "This provides a wonderful opportunity to educate community journalists on a very important topic during a time when training dollars are tight at most companies. We are also grateful to APME for co-sponsoring this grant with us and providing invaluable assistance with the program."

"We are thrilled the McCormick Foundation saw merit in this program and we are greatly appreciative of their funding," said APME President Hollis Towns. "It's also an honor to have an opportunity to partner with a great organization like SNA with a common mission of helping newspapers break new reporting ground on a topic that affects everyone."

The grant is made possible by the McCormick Foundation's Specialized Reporting Institute. Each year, McCormick funds various seminars to educate and inform journalists on how to cover these narrow but critically important topics. Past topics have included: how to cover the BP oil spill, immigration and covering the Olympics.

SNA and APME will also host free educational webinars after the symposium to share with the entire industry best practices and some of the lessons learned.

Click here to access the scholarship application form and information. All applications plus required materials must be submitted by Friday, February 25 to SNA Foundation headquarters atsna@suburban-news.org.