A continuación, compartimos con nuestros seguidores un artículo especialmente realizado para el medio de prensa VOXXI de Miami, FL (Estados Unidos). Aquellos que lo deseen pueden ingresar a la aplicación de idiomas que se encuentra a la derecha para conseguir una rápida traducción.
JUST FOR BEGINNERS
Last year, the Embassy
of the United States in Uruguay launched a program for Uruguayan undergraduates
living outside the capital of the country, which was excluded from the
initiative. The program was called ‘Youth Correspondents of Uruguay’, and had
the aim of promoting the journalism among youngsters within the country.
The call up was open to
everybody (within the requirements outlines) and started with a nice challenge:
to write a report linking the province each one comes from and the United
States of America. After this phase, 18 teenagers were selected out of 400. Each
one represented a province. On average, the selected participants were between
15 and 18 years old and shared the same goal: to build a career in journalism.
The mission of each
correspondent was to work as a young reporter in their province and community.
This work implied creating and maintaining a blog with fresh news, performing
interviews, writing articles and doing photographic reports.
To make this attainable,
the staff of the Embassy, leaded by the Press Director, Rubek Orlando and the
Official Photographer, Vince Alongi, organized several trainings along the year
covering different topics and teaching helpful tools and theory concepts for
the field work. Besides, all the necessary equipment was provided to the
correspondents at the beginning for them to able to perform their tasks: netbook,
videocamara, a bag and a jacket with the program’s logo.
The first meeting took
place in Montevideo. Several well-known journalists participated telling their
experiences, and kindly answering several questions. The main topics covered
were related to behavior in the workplace, professional commitment,
credibility, and honesty when performing.
There were also two
visits scheduled for that seminar; the first one to 10TV Station headquarters
in Montevideo and the second one to the industrial plant that produces and
processes EL PAIS newspaper. EL PAIS is the most circulated newspaper in the
country.
The second seminar was held
in Nueva Helvecia. There, the participants met Iscar Blanco, Multimedia
Managing Editor in Voice of America. Blanco provided the correspondents with a
2-day full training about journalism and its relation to the Internet.
The next encounter was
again in the capital. This time, the learners had the unique opportunity
to meet special envoys of President Obama such as Hannah Rosenthal, head of the
Office to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism and William Owen, Politic, Economic
and Commercial advisor who spoke about the importance of journalism and public
opinion as well.
Aside from this, they
met Uruguayans politicians. The vice-president, Danilo Astori, was one of them.
He gave a talk to the youth Correspondents and answered some of the questions
they had. As a matter of fact, those questions were linked to three of the most
relevant topics the country deals with: education, security and health.
Besides, the students were received by two of the Uruguay former presidents;
Luis Alberto Lacalle and Julio María Sanguinetti.
The last seminar was in
Punta Del Este. The focus of this course was on photography and strategic
writing.
The program winners
were announced the 10TH of August during a social event at the
ambassador residency. Casually, the winners were four girls who represented the
provinces of Cerro Largo (Manuela García), Rocha (Cynthia Rocha), Paysandú
(Georgina Kluver) and Colonia (Helen Bernatzky).
The candidate’s prize
was a trip to the United States, where they visited different media outlets such
as Voice of America, The Washington Post and the Foreign Press Center as well.
They also met the under secretary of State, Tara Sonenshine, who was in
financial terms, the main piece to make all of these, possible.
Helen Bernatzky
Youth Correspondent by the U.S. Embassy.
