Editor’s Note: Media are invited to cover the opening reception beginning at 6 p.m. on July 6 at the Indian Hills Country Club. Contact Dr. Ed Mullins, 205/348-8592 or mullins@jn.ua.edu for more information.

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - For 20 years The University of Alabama’s Minority Journalism Workshop has been helping to train future journalists for competitive careers at the nation’s top media companies, large and small.

News organizations where MJW alums are working include the St. Petersburg Times, Fox 8 New Orleans, Newsday, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Detroit Free-Press, Detroit News, Miami Herald, Birmingham News, Montgomery Advertiser, Tuscaloosa News, Gadsden Times, Florence Times-Daily, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Nashville Tennessean, Charlotte Observer and many more.

UA’s department of journalism sponsors the intensive two-week program that will be held on the UA campus from July 6-17. High school students, former workshop directors, media professionals and alumni will be at the Capstone to take part in the program.

“The primary goal of MJW is to provide hands-on experience to high school students who have an interest in journalism,” said Dr. Ed Mullins, chair of the journalism department. “We have recruited students from Alabama and other Southeastern states, and we also have a student from Malaysia.”

For the fourth consecutive year, the Gannett Foundation of McLean, Va., has made a $25,000 gift to support the MJW, which puts their total giving to the program at more than $100,000.

MJW has more than 400 graduates who have gone on to exciting careers in prominent media outlets. The alumni returning to this year’s workshop will serve as mentors to the 20 high school students chosen to participate in the workshop. Students are introduced to print, broadcast and new media, as well as encouraged to pursue journalism in college and beyond.

This year’s visiting professionals include Joseph Bryant of the Florence Times-Daily, Marissa Silvera of the Miami Herald, Fred Fluker of the Detroit Free Press and Paul Delaney, former UA faculty member and former deputy editor at the New York Times.

Additionally, Merv Aubespin, retired associate editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal, will serve as the workshop’s editor-in-residence and will speak at the opening banquet on July 6. Aubespin graduated from Tuskegee University. Nancy Parker, a news anchor at WVUE-TV Fox 8 in New Orleans, will be the keynote speaker at the workshop’s closing banquet on July 16. Parker is an Opelika native.

Marie Parsons, founding director of the program, will lead a group of former directors and workshop assistants in a 20th anniversary celebration the second night. They will discuss how their experiences in the workshop propelled their media careers. The panel also will field questions from this year’s student participants.

The UA Minority Journalism Program was founded in 1983 and is one of the oldest journalism diversity programs in the nation. Its main activity is the Minority Journalism Workshop, begun in 1984.

Other components of the program are career tracking, job placement, internships, professional mentoring, job fair attendance and sponsorship and establishment of a chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists.

The Minority Journalism Program has helped transform UA’s College of Communication and Information Sciences into a major center for minority talent. Although just 13.3 percent of the student body is classified as a minority, one in five students specializing in print, online and broadcast news is a minority, which gives UA one of the largest minority percentages in the nation among predominantly white colleges and universities.

According to the Gannett Foundation, that organization values projects that take a creative approach to such fundamental issues as education and youth development, with a special interest in diversity.

Other contributors to the MJW this year include the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund, the Knight Foundation, the Alabama Press Association, Alabama Broadcasters Association, Mobile Register and Montgomery Advertiser. For more information about the program see http://dlserver.ccom.ua.edu/mikelowe/MJW/.