IMC Projects

The Center has many services available to news organizations around the world. These include high level training in your newsroom as well as popular seminars and workshops on topics ranging from computer-assisted reporting to digital photography. Contact Center Director John Virtue for a program tailored to your needs.

The International Media Center has many activities designed to aid professionals in journalism, public relations and advertising. Seminars, workshops and research projects, often tailored for a specific news organization or agency, are offered around the year.
Professional Support for Cuba’s Independent Journalists Under a USAID grant that began in 1999, the IMC has been training the independent journalists, few of whom have had an previous training in journalism. They are former secretaries, economists, lawyers, etc., who became human rights activists and found themselves performing as journalists. The basis of the training is a five-part distance-learning course. This is supplemented by videos and, beginning in 2005, videoconference workshops. Much of the work of the journalists appears on Internet sites. The IMC chooses the best articles, edits them and offers them to newspapers and other media in Latin America and elsewhere. All told, nearly 200 independent journalists have participated in IMC training activities in Cuba.		Paraguay: Improving Journalists’ Understanding of Criminal Procedures During this four-year USAID project– 2000-04 –the IMC held 37 workshops for some 200 individual journalists in Asunción and four interior cities. The project soon expanded beyond the original plan to concentrate on coverage of the justice sector. Besides training the journalists, the IMC organized a civic journalism project for coverage of the 2003 presidential elections, including the most highly rated presidential debate. It trained community radio journalists, including the production of a investigative reporting manual tailored to their specific needs. The IMC also helped the establishment of a new community radio network. The IMC was partnered with Management Systems International on this project.
El Salvador: Improving Public Information Dissemination Policy, Practice and Operator Skills Because of public opposition to a new criminal code, the IMC was asked by USAID in 1998 to work with the justice sector to help cabinet ministers, judges and prosecutors be better prepared to deal with the news media. The IMC also worked with the media and led several round table discussions between journalists and justice sector representatives. These representatives, including cabinet ministers and supreme court justices, participated in mock videotaped media interviews which were later critiqued by experts. This was a two-year program. The IMC was partnered with Chemonics on this project.		Nicaragua: News media participation in anti-corruption activities Funded by the Chamorro Foundation and the Trust of the Americas of the Organization of American States, the IMC in the summer of 2004 held a series of workshops in Managua on investigative reporting and journalism ethics to better prepare the news media to fulfill their watchdog role in a democracy.
McCormick Tribune Foundation Freedom of the Press Project This project ran 1998-2000 and involved the investigation by the IMC of infringements of press freedom in Latin America and the posting of subsequent articles on the Pulso del periodismo Web site.		Radio Martí The IMC made an in-depth analysis of the journalistic content of Radio Marti as part of the station’s efforts to provide better news programming for listeners in Cuba. It then organized a series of workshops, seminars and roundtables to help Radio Marti staff keep abreast of new developments in journalism.
Other projects The IMC held a series of workshops at the university for Haitian journalists selected by the American Embassy in Port au Prince; on behalf of Cisco Systems, the IMC held a series of workshops in the United States and Latin America for Latin American journalists; the IMC organized workshops and other activities for several groups of German journalists; the IMC organized several conferences at the university for Global Public Affairs.
Where do people in Cuba get their news? The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation funded a project under which the IMC arranged for interviews with recently arrived Cubans who were asked that question. Click on the following links to hear their replies. Dial-up (56k) DSL / Cable (Broadband)