The CUNY Graduate School of Journalism is launching an initiative to create the preeminent professional education and training hub for bilingual journalists interested in serving Hispanic communities in the U.S.
The School is seeking regulatory approval to offer a new Spanish-language subject concentration as it continues to develop a more comprehensive master’s degree. While that development work is taking place, it will also be hosting workshops, panel discussions and conferences; performing research; and developing an international exchange program to serve the Spanish-language journalism market.
The CUNY J-School is partnering in this initiative with leading Hispanic media organizations, including the Spanish newspaper El País; La Nación, the Argentine media company which, through ImpreMedia, owns El Diario/La Prensa in New York, La Raza in Chicago and La Opinión in Los Angeles; Instituto Cervantes, the Spanish-government funded organization that offers extensive Spanish-language instruction; and Univision News, the award-winning news division of Communications Inc. (UCI), the leading media company serving Hispanic America.
“We are excited to be developing programs that will enable us to support journalists who want to serve the Hispanic audience, which grows in importance every day,” says Sarah Bartlett, the dean of the CUNY Journalism School. “Doing so with such stellar partners is an added bonus.”
Pending receipt of the necessary CUNY and New York State approvals, the J-School aims to recruit 10-15 bilingual students to its Fall 2016 class who are interested in this new course of study. The students would take required first- and second-semester journalism fundamentals classes in Spanish. They would also take three new courses focused on covering immigration, covering Hispanic communities in the U.S. and investigative reporting. All assignments for those classes would be produced in Spanish.
Students in this concentration will do their summer internship at a Spanish-language news outlet. They will also have opportunities to participate in webinars with Spanish media leaders from around the world and in-person visits to leading Hispanic-market newsrooms in New York City.
For more information, visit http://bit.ly/CUNYJSPANISH1