Power of Diverse Voices: Writing Workshop for Journalists of Color

The Power of Diverse Voices is a transformative, four-day seminar that helps journalists of color find their voices and build skills for writing opinion pieces and personal essays.

With the support of expert instructors and fellow journalists of color, you’ll develop the confidence and skills to share your unique perspective in persuasive writing. 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.

The seminar is led by Tom Huang, a senior editor at The Dallas Morning News who has been a champion of diverse storytellers for 35 years and who has taught at Poynter for 20 of those years.

The Power of Diverse Voices workshop grew out of a collaboration between the Association of Opinion Journalists and The Poynter Institute. The original writing workshop for journalists of color ran for nearly two decades at Vanderbilt University before coming to Poynter in 2015. The curriculum was revamped in 2016 under lead faculty Tom Huang.

Learning Outcomes

In this course, you will:

• Develop and hone your arguments, presenting these arguments effectively and persuasively.
• Support your arguments using solid research and reporting.
• Strengthen your reporting skills with an emphasis on fairness and accuracy.
• Maximize your journalistic success on digital and social media platforms.
• Generate strong ideas for your opinion pieces, broadening your access to diverse points of view.
• Focus your ideas, developing a compelling pitch to editors.

Eligibility

Enrollment is open to new- and mid-career journalists of color based in the United States looking to add effective opinion writing to their tool kit, as well as those building a career path toward opinion journalism. Journalism students, journalism educators, freelancers and opinion journalists who work online or in social media are also encouraged to apply.

Registration guidelines

For more information about this opportunity and to apply, please click here.