Meredith-Cronkite Fellowship Program
The Meredith Corporation and its Phoenix television station, KPHO CBS 5, sponsor a week-long fellowship program for top minority broadcast journalism students at the Cronkite School and around the country.
The students spent a week each January – during most schools’ winter break – working in the CBS 5 newsroom with KPHO reporters, producers, editors and videographers, and with instructors from the Cronkite School. The program is led by Mark Lodato, the Cronkite School’s assistant dean and news director, also a former investigative reporter at CBS 5; along with the CBS 5 news director, Michelle Donaldson.
Meredith-Cronkite Fellows receive hands-on experience creating news packages and producing newscasts on deadline while learning about newsroom ethics and leadership. Specific sessions include:
* How to get your first job — tips from news directors and recent grads
* Secrets of producing a top-flight audition tape
* Live reporting 101
* Three things that will make you the No. 1 reporter at your station
* How to craft exceptional news packages
* Developing and pitching winning story ideas
* Perfecting your voice-over skills
* Problems in the field — and how good reporters work around them
* Photographers: the other half of your team
* Real-world broadcast ethics: What would you do?
* Broadcast law: Why saying bad things about people can get you (and your station) in trouble
* One-on-one mentoring and career advice from the pros
About 12 fellows are selected each year in a competitive process, half from the Cronkite School and half from other schools around the country. Students leave with a highly polished newscast from KPHO’s studios.
Students from universities outside of the region each receive a $2,000 stipend to cover expenses. Cronkite students receive a $500 stipend.
The inaugural program, held in January 2007, included students from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Maryland at College Park, Howard University, Bowling Green State University and the University of Memphis in addition to Arizona State University.
“This experience has basically been a crash course in real-world reporting,” wrote Maxine Park, an ASU student who participated in the fellowship program and who was since hired as a multimedia journalist at usatoday.com, in her evaluation. “The things we learned here can’t be taught in a classroom.”
Nadine Yanes, a participant from University of Florida, concurred in her assessment.
“I thought that much of what I was going to learn was just ‘polishing’ stuff that I need to know for my first job,” Yanes said, “but it exceeded that and was getting me prepared for my second job.”
Paul Karpowicz, president of Meredith’s Broadcast Group, said the program gives promising broadcast journalism students a major-market experience while allowing Meredith “to preview talented students for possible work at our 14 broadcast stations.”
Edward Munson, the KPHO vice president and general manager, said the fellowship gives participants “an unparalleled experience in a professional newsroom.”
Meredith Corporation is one of the nation’s leading media and marketing companies, with holdings in magazine and book publishing, television broadcasting, integrated marketing and interactive media. Meredith owns 14 television stations that reach nearly 10 percent of TV households across the country. In addition to CBS 5 in Phoenix, Meredith owns WGCL-TV (CBS), Atlanta; KPTV (FOX) and KPDX-TV (UPN), Portland, Ore.; WFSB-TV (CBS), Hartford-New Haven, Conn.; WSMV-TV (NBC), Nashville, Tenn.; KCTV (CBS) and KSMO (WB), Kansas City; WHNS-TV (FOX), Greenville-Spartanburg-Anderson, S.C.-Asheville, N.C.; WNEM-TV (CBS), Flint-Saginaw, Mich.; KVVU-TV (FOX), Las Vegas; WFLI-TV (WB), Chattanooga, Tenn.; WSHM, (CBS) Springfield, Mass.; and KFXO-CA (FOX), Bend, Ore.
How to apply to the 2011 Meredith-Cronkite Fellowship Program, Jan. 2-8, 2011:
Send a cover letter, resume, a DVD with samples of your work, and names and contact information for three references to:
The Meredith-Cronkite Fellowship Selection Committee
Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication
Arizona State University
555 N. Central Ave., Suite 302
Phoenix, AZ 85004-1248
Application materials must be postmarked by Oct. 11, 2010.