About the workshop

The Roanoke Times has conducted an annual Minority Journalism Workshop since 1983, a year after Walter Rugaber became publisher. He wanted to address the fact that the number of minorities who worked in newsrooms nationwide was disturbingly low. It's a situation that still persists today.

The workshop aims to make more minorities aware of job opportunities at newspapers and hopefully entice them to think about careers in the business. By minorities, we mean people of various backgrounds and with different experiences. Having a more diverse staff at The Roanoke Times is important for many reasons. We can better reflect the entire community in our coverage when we employ people who have had various experiences.

The workshop is for rising high school sophomores, juniors and seniors in the Roanoke and New River valleys and the newspaper covers all their expenses during the workshop. Through teaching them about the newspaper, we hope that it will also create a diverse pool of potential employees for the future.

To see the work that the 2010 MJW participants produced, check out their blog.

The dates for this year's workshop, which is free to participants, are: June 17-21, 2013.

Workshop partner

This is the seventh year that The Roanoke Times has partnered with Washington and Lee University to teach the participants the basics of journalism. This year, the students will spend the first day of the workshop, June 17, at the university, which is 45 minutes north of Roanoke in Lexington. We will provide transportation. At W&L, journalism professors cover everything from the basics of reporting to journalism ethics. Workshop participants also get to know one another through team building activities.

Important dates

The dates for this year's workshop are: June 17-21, 2013.

The deadline to apply is April 19, 2013. Applications must be postmarked by that date.

Download the application now. (.doc)