We’re making some changes around here…

Posted on July 25, 2012 by Admin

We’re excited to announce that UPI has very ambitious plans for UPIU as we continue to provide top-quality journalism training worldwide. In the coming weeks and months, keep an eye out for:

  • Improved services and programs;
  • An updated Web site featuring new technology and better ways to collaborate, connect and showcase quality content;
  • New products;
  • Much more!

UPIU is committed as ever to global journalism education. We thank you for your patience during this time of transition.

Do you have any questions? Don’t hesitate to contact us! Send an email to Michelle Betz at mbetz@upi.com.

 

 

 

We look forward to working with you soon!

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UPIU in China: Student finds story ideas in unexpected places

Posted on May 22, 2012 by Sara Jackson

For j-students, story ideas can come from big news events, or even class assignments. But for UPIU’s Freelance Reporting Contest winner, Ye Hou, also known as Carol, her winning story idea came from a sign she saw on her way to class. It’s a textbook case of a young journalist keeping her eyes open and her news judgment at the ready.

Carol hails from Bejing, China, where being a journalist can require persistence and flexibility. She wrote her story about a new stop-smoking campaign ginning up at Peking University, and students’ reactions to it. She’s one of three UPIU student reporters chosen for this round of our Freelance Reporting Contest. As a winner, her story was published at UPI.com and she earned $200 for her work.

We asked Carol tell us a bit about where she’s from, how she found her winning story idea, and what challenges she overcame to bring it together.

Name: Ye Hou (Carol)
Hometown: Bejing, China
School: Peking University

UPIU: How did you get interested in journalism?

One of my best friends is a journalist. I was so curious about her work and then I selected a course called News Writing at Peking University. In the class, I found out that journalism is quite different from what I had expected. A journalist should be very observant and sensitive to details, keep thinking all the time and dig out new aspects of the usual life. It is so amazing.

Why did you choose to attend Peking University?

I think Peking University is the dream for many Chinese students. I had this dream since I was very young. Here I can learn from many excellent professors and students. Also if I didn’t attend Peking University, I might not have had the chance to join UPIU and write my story.

Tell us about your recent UPI.com story. How did you find this story idea?

It is about the new measures in Peking University to ban smoking. This term, I found that there were some new reminders on the water boilers in some buildings. Each time I went to get hot water, I saw those reminders saying “no smoking, healthy and fashionable.” I thought it was interesting to write so I wrote email to UPIU and participated in the freelance contest.

Was it a challenge to find sources?

Yes it was. But sometimes, I was able to change my angle a little and then I found more sources. It is important to think more and pay attention to everything that is happening around us.

How did your UPIU mentor help you in the reporting and writing process?

My mentor Krista Kapralos is so nice and great. Each time I sent her a draft, she would read it very carefully and ask me questions about the content or the sources. Then I would correct them and she would ask more. Sometimes she told me a lot about the details and format, how to quote, how to select sources and how to use the sources. I really learned a lot in the process and appreciate UPIU giving me the chance to write the story and be mentored by Krista.

What was the most difficult part of the process?

The most difficult part I think is to persuade myself that there is always room for improvement. Sometimes I thought the story was OK, but then there would be other problems. There is no shortcut in writing news, and I need to be be very certain about everything I write. And this often calls for further investigation and also patience.

What’s your next project?

I am thinking of writing a story about volunteers who helps migrant workers’ kids in Beijing. Last Sunday, volunteers organized a visit for the kids to the science museum. I participated in the program and felt so great. The visit was organized by a foreign teacher and he funded all the food and buses. I really hoped to write something about this.

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Infanticide in Ethiopia: How one journalist told the story

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Krista Kapralos

There were children – hundreds, maybe thousands of them – being killed in a remote region of Ethiopia. The reason? Their teeth appeared in an unexpected way. Their mothers weren’t married. For the Kara tribe, there are as many signs of a child’s cursedness as there are children.

Matthew LaPlante, a freelance journalist and assistance professor at Utah State University, couldn’t pull his heart and mind away from the rumor he’d heard about the “mingi,” or cursed, children. He and a photographer set out to tell the story, despite warnings from U.S. government and Ethiopian officials that the trip, a long and expensive undertaking, would be a waste of time.

In the end, LaPlante got the story. (Read it here, and here.) His efforts were rewarded when he won, along with photog Rick Egan, an Ancil Payne Award for Ethics in Journalism. 

Listen to LaPlante describe how he got this and other stories, and what he believes are a journalist’s most important tools.

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Investigative reporting in Malaysia according to Malaysiakini EIC Steven Gan

Posted on May 1, 2012 by Harumi Gondo

First, second and third year journalism students put their own questions to Gan during the live Skype appearance.

UPIU investigative reporting students at Malaysia’s Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR) held an exclusive live discussion via Skype with their country’s best-known investigative journalist Steven Gan in March.

The founder and now editor-in-chief of Malaysia’s ground-breaking news Web site Malaysiakini was guest speaker at a workshop on the use of confidential sources.

Gan took over an hour out of his hectic schedule at Malaysiakini’s headquarters in Kuala Lumpur to Skype with students at their campus in the capital’s twin sister city Petaling Jaya.

Gan shared his experiences in exposing major scandals with the help of confidential sources, and had sage advice for students nurturing ambitions to follow in his footsteps: investigate a confidential source and the information they’re offering before using it in a report.

People offering information confidentially to journalists may be motivated by personal agendas, he cautioned.

A journalist needs to explore the would-be source’s motivations and verify the authenticity of their information before deciding to use it. Use common sense, and weigh up the level of authenticity, Gan advised.

Relying partly on anonymous sources, Gan’s portfolio of investigative reporting includes the revelation of a deadly disease outbreak among illegal immigrants in detention in the 1990s, and an exposition of judicial corruption which eventually triggered a Royal Commission.

According to Gan, investigative reporting is challenging in Malaysia because there are no laws to protect confidential sources, and police can force journalists to go to court to reveal their identities.

Potential sources are therefore reluctant to speak to journalists for fear of their identities being revealed. That’s where commitment and persistence come in, Gan said — as does a sense of vocation.

“Journalism is a calling,” he stressed. “If you don’t have that, there is no point to doing journalism. It is something within you. You want to play a role in exposing the truth and hoping that somehow you can make a contribution to make your country a little bit better.”

Gan encouraged the UTAR participants in UPIU’s investigative reporting workshop to “ensure that the people in power are held accountable.”

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What makes a good feature story? A universal experience

Posted on April 26, 2012 by Krista Kapralos

At UPIU, we blather on and on about the importance of solid news hooks, nut graphs, and stories that are useful to readers.

Don’t worry, we’re not changing our tune. But as anyone who has been a journalist for more than five minutes knows, reporting and producing news content, whether hard news, features, or long-form, is all about exceptions. We preach the basic rules because it’s important to know and understand them before you break them. It’s also difficult to explain when and why those rules should be broken.

That’s why I was glad to read this recent story by Tom Hallman, Jr., a Pulitzer-winning feature writer at The Oregonian, a daily newspaper with a long history of great journalism. Hallman is a master at writing about issues that are relevant to everyone, but that don’t hold traditional news value.

In this story, Hallman tells a heartbreaking tale of a decades-old slight by a 12-year-old student against his his teacher.

When he was 12 years old, the boy did something he only later realized probably hurt his seventh-grade teacher. It was minor — he was, after all, a kid — but in time, when he was older and wiser, he wanted to find this teacher and apologize.  Continue reading →

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Meet our freelance contest winners!

Posted on April 11, 2012 by Krista Kapralos

Every other month or so, we offer UPIU journalists the chance to pitch story ideas and win one-on-one mentoring, a UPI.com byline and $200.

Hou Ye (Carol)

It’s always stiff competition, and the people who win are those who come up with sharp, timely news angles on a topic we choose.

This month, we’re covering the issue of tobacco and smoking. Our contest winners are busy reporting their stories – look for them at the end of this month! In the meantime, check them out!

Hou Ye (also known as Carol) is a postgraduate student at Peking University in China. She’s a pro at this cross-cultural linguistic stuff (she’s a translation major!) but also loves news writing. Carol has already participated in a UPIU workshop, and wrote a story about children who must cross a series of flooded streets to get to school. For this freelance contest, Carol’s writing about efforts at Peking University to make smoking unfashionable.

Dayo Ibitoye

Dayo Ibitoye lives in Nigeria, where he recently graduated from Ahmadu Bello University. Dayo studied chemical engineering, but he spends much of his time writing news stories and blogging. Dayo has some experience with success at UPI.com – his story about the rising rates of remedial university programs was published there late last year. Now, Dayo is working on a story about the Nigerian government’s efforts to curb tobacco addiction.

Ratnendra Pandey

Ratnendra Pandey is no stranger to UPIU – in fact, he won a freelance contest last year, when he wrote about a paper mill that uses its waste to power itself.  That wasn’t his first UPI.com byline. He wrote a story in 2010 about poor Indians who own cell phones but don’t have access to toilets. 

For this freelance contest, he’s writing about the lack of government oversight on tobacco farmers. Ratnendra is a graduate student in convergent journalism at Jamia Millia Islamia. He’s a top-notch writer, and he’s also pretty good at audio: Ratnendra produces shows for his college radio station.

Want to join their ranks? Keep an eye on this blog. We’ll announce our next freelance contest soon!

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Covering crime? Hit the streets (even the dangerous ones)

Posted on March 19, 2012 by Krista Kapralos

There’s a major crime story breaking, and you’re on the job. Your editors are waiting for the details, and readers are calling to find out why their neighborhood is crawling with police cars.

But that neighborhood is all the way across town, in an area known more for drug activity than friendly faces. It takes less than five minutes for you to talk yourself out of going: People who live there probably won’t answer their doors, and the detectives are going to send a press release, anyway. It’s okay to stay in the office and call your source down at the police department, right?

Wrong, says Paul Duggan, a longtime reporting veteran who now covers crime for The Washington Post.

Whether new reporters are too nervous to head out into unfamiliar neighborhoods, worried that no one will talk to them, or simply too lazy, more and more, they try to write the story through phone interviews of police officers and lawyers.

If that’s you, forget about winning any awards.

“There’s no substitute for getting out,” Duggan says. “I’ve been doing this for 30 years, and I try to spend as much time as I can out at things, talking to people in neighborhoods. You’re never going to get more off of a piece of paper than you will going out there.”

Duggan’s “office” is the grittier neighorhoods of Washington, D.C.

“I’m a 54-year-old white guy, and I spend most of my working day in inner-city black neighborhoods,” Duggan says. “You just realize, you can’t ever fit in, so don’t try. All you can do is the best that a 54-year-old white guy can do, and find people who like to talk.” Continue reading →

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Earn $200 and one-on-one mentoring!

Posted on March 16, 2012 by Krista Kapralos

Want to win intensive, one-on-one mentoring and earn $200 by producing a freelance story for UPI.com? You’ve come to the right place! We’re looking for up to three student journalists to come up with a text, photo, audio or video story for our wire service. Interested? Here’s how it works:

  • Pitch your best story idea on the topic described below. Be sure to email the story pitch to kkapralos@upi.com by Wed., March 28. In the email’s subject line, write “UPIU Freelance Story Pitch.” Your pitch should be no more than a paragraph or two. Give us a clear, concise description of what the story is, and why readers should care. Also, tell us who you plan to interview. Give us an idea of how equipped you are to complete the story by the deadline.
  • We’ll take a look at all the pitches and select the top two or three. You’ll hear back from us by Fri., March 30.
  • If your story pitch is selected, you’ll work with your mentor to come up with a detailed story outline by Wed., April 4.
  • Once your outline is approved by your mentor, you’ll have until Wed., April 11 to produce your first draft.
  • Final stories will be due on Wed., April 18.

So, what’s this story supposed to be about?  

We’re so glad you asked! This time around, we’re interested in story pitches on a very specific topic: Smoking.

Many U.S. lawmakers have a take-no-prisoners approach to the fight against smoking. Tobacco, a crop that was, and in some cases continues to be, a staple for farmers in the U.S. for generations, now has such a bad rap that it’s illegal in more than two dozen states to smoke in restaurants, bars, offices and other places. Graphic warning labels could soon appear on cigarette packages sold in the U.S., replacing the current black-and-white text warning. Lawmakers in some areas are toying with the idea of banning smoking in cars in which children are riding.

Still, smoking is a cultural mainstay in much of the world. Tobacco in various forms is an integral part of social life in a host of countries, despite global efforts to stunt the popularity of the carcinogen.

If you live outside the U.S., has the government in your area taken steps to ban smoking? Is tobacco use growing? Must cigarettes sold in your country contain warning labels?  What about smoking in films? Is it allowed?

If you live in the U.S., is your area following the national trends when it comes to smoking? Is tobacco still as popular as it once was? Are there trendy new forms of smoking (hookah, anyone?) taking the place of the traditional cigarette?

Come up with a compelling news story idea and send us the pitch!

Is there anything else I should know? 

Yes! Throughout this process, you’ll need to follow some basic guidelines:

  • You must have be a journalism student and have a UPIU account to be eligible for this contest. Professional journalists and people without UPIU accounts are not eligible.
  • If we discover that you have a conflict of interest regarding your story, we’ll discontinue your intensive mentoring, even if you’ve already started working. A conflict of interest exists when a reporter has a personal investment in a story. For example, if you’re writing about a farmer who pays you to help out every weekend, that’s a conflict of interest. If you write about a company at which a close friend or relative is an employee, that could be a conflict of interest. If you’re not sure, ask us BEFORE you start reporting.
  • If you miss a deadline, we won’t submit your story to UPI.com, and you won’t earn a byline or $200. If you think you’ll be too busy to meet the deadlines, don’t apply.
  • We’ll ask the students whose story ideas are selected to give us their contact information, including cell phone numbers and email addresses. If you don’t provide working contact information, we won’t be able to provide you with mentoring.
  • As always, plagiarism is unacceptable. If we discover plagiarized material in your story, you’ll no longer be eligible for UPIU mentoring. If you have questions about our plagiarism policy, please contact us.
Good luck!
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VIDEO: Produce quality radio spots with Audacity

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Krista Kapralos

Are you a radio student? Do you hope to create podcasts or audio spots to accompany your text work? There are tons of great tools out there to get you started, but among the most accessible is Audacity, a free audio editing software. Audio-only journalists usually have access to top-quality hardware and software, but the rest of us often must cobble together techniques based on free programs. Audacity can work great, but there are some tricks to it. In this video, UPIU mentor Elliott Francis, an award-winning radio reporter and anchor at WAMU, the NPR affiliate in Washington, DC, shows how to create high-quality audio with Audacity.

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What we can learn from Anthony Shadid about reporting

Posted on March 9, 2012 by Krista Kapralos

The New York Times published an unusual piece about a week ago. Anthony Shadid, one of the stalwarts of our profession, had climbed through barbed wire to get into Syria and interview rebel fighters. Tyler Hicks, a legendary photojournalist, was with him.

By now, we know the story: The pair spent about a week in Idlib Province. Hicks likely snapped thousands of photographs, the choicest of which have been published in the Times.

Shadid probably filled several notebooks with details and quotes.

We’ll never read the stories he found. He died on his way out of the country, apparently from an allergic attack. The horses Shadid’s guides used to transport supplies triggered the episode. Hicks performed CPR, but couldn’t revive Shadid. The correspondent’s body was draped onto one of the horses and carried out of Syria, into Turkey.

Shadid’s writing taught us much, and while he was alive, we could look forward to regular installments of his work.

Hicks doesn’t have that same golden pen. He’s a good writer, but his talent is in visual arts. Even so, Hicks’ piece on Shadid’s last days sheds light on the reporting that was the foundation of his illuminating news stories. We can learn about writing from reading Shadid’s work. Now, we can learn about reporting from reading Hicks’ recollection of his week in Syria.

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