The Power of Diverse Voices workshop — now one of Poynter’s most competitive programs — is a transformative, four-day seminar that helps journalists of color find their voice and build skills for writing opinion pieces and personal essays.
Opinion writing plays a vital role in explanatory, features and watchdog journalism, and is important in a thriving democracy. Led by Tom Huang, this seminar will foster the diversity of voices necessary in the profession and train the next generation of opinion writers from a wide spectrum of backgrounds.
You will learn both through instruction as well as intensive coaching in small writing groups. You will focus on fact-based opinion writing — and using social media to spark a conversation — across platforms.
We plan to host this programs in-person at Poynter’s campus in St. Petersburg, Florida. However, if public health guidelines require the workshop to be offered completely virtually, we are confident the experience will be just as robust. Live teaching sessions, small group workshops and writing time will take up a large portion of each day. In order to focus and get the greatest benefit from the seminar, participants will be asked to commit their full attention to the seminar and take time off work.
More than 90% of previous participants rated their experience as “exceptional,” like Alejandra Salazar, associate producer at NPR’s Latino USA and a graduate of the 2018 workshop:
“In the never-ending shuffle, it becomes all too easy to conform to a norm that often excludes the voices of women, of people of color, of LGBTQ+ communities, of minorities — voices like my own. But my weekend at Poynter was a vital, affirming experience that reminded me of the power of storytelling, and of the importance of diversity within that storytelling. The skills, connections, support and confidence I gained in this program truly made it one of the most important and formative experiences in my career.”
Accepted applicants will join an active and successful alumni group. Their work has appeared in podcasts such as This Land series by Rebecca Nagle and an episode of Racist Sandwich by Joseph Hernandez; in local news such as this column about being the daughter of Pakistani immigrants by Shaheen Pasha in the New Hampshire Gazette; and in national outlets such as Iris Kuo’s column in The Atlantic on the ‘whitening’ of Asian Americans and Russell Contreras’s story for the Associated Press about his family surviving five generations of Houston storms.
Apply now to be a part of the Writing Workshop for Journalists of Color community and give power to your voice.
Questions?
If you need assistance, email us at info@newsu.org.
