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MIAMI (Dec. 26, 2006)—More than a dozen magazine, newspaper and television journalists from the United States and abroad and several top FIU journalism students participated in a week-long seminar earlier this month that was hosted by the School of Journalism and Mass Communication (SJMC) and co-sponsored by Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) and the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting (NICAR).
Participants in this “Computer-Assisted Reporting Boot Camp” learned advanced reporting techniques to help them produce better stories and how to use high-level computer software to analyze mountains of data and find the stories within.
SJMC Associate Dean Fred Blevens recognized this event as a milestone for the school, as well as the effort of faculty member Neil Reisner.
“We welcome IRE and NICAR to the SJMC and are more than pleased they chose our facility for the boot camp,” Blevens said. FIU is the first site other than IRE headquarters at the University of Missouri to host a boot camp.
“Neil Reisner’s work to establish this partnership is a milestone for our school,” he added. “As a seasoned journalist and CAR trainer for many years, he knows the value of investigative journalism and the important role that computer-assisted reporting plays in the press’ watchdog function.”
Reisner hopes that the relationship between the school and these organizations will continue to grow.
"The boot camp was more than successful,” he said. “We're delighted by our growing relationship with IRE and NICAR. Our current plan is to host a boot camp like this at least once a year; we're talking about expanding the relationship by, for example, offering a Spanish-language boot camp or one aimed specifically at assignment editors in print, broadcast or online media."
The SJMC was recently named the “best qualified school in the nation for teaching bilingual and Spanish-language journalism” by Editor & Publisher. The school currently has approximately 2,000 students, about half of whom study journalism. More than two-thirds of the student body is Hispanic.
—FIU—
— Martin Haro
Editorial Services
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