DENTON (UNT), Texas — The Scripps Howard Foundation, the philanthropic arm of The E.W. Scripps Company (NASDAQ: SSP), today announced that the University of North Texas Mayborn School of Journalism has been awarded $300,000 from its Emerging Journalists Program fund. The Mayborn School will use the funding to put in place a variety of active initiatives for high school students designed to help newsrooms better represent the broader population.

The Mayborn School created a three-year curriculum that joins the school’s faculty together with various local and regional media outlets to produce a rigorous in-field training program designed to produce top-tier journalism graduates who are ready to occupy important entry-level jobs from Day One.

“This opportunity aligns perfectly with our vital mission of helping to pave the way to a more diverse and inclusive world of journalism and communication in the years ahead,” Mayborn Dean Dr. Andrea Miller said. “As a majority-minority and Hispanic Serving Institution, we’re excited to partner with the Scripps Howard Foundation to provide a real pathway forward.”

The Mayborn School’s five-part program will create a strong mentor network between students and working journalists, a series of high school workshops that will encourage and recruit new cadres of students, “career bootcamps,” in partnership with the national associations for Black and Hispanic journalists, opportunities for students to have their work published by major news organizations, and outreach and continuing education programs for regional high school teachers.

“Newsrooms are best when they reflect the communities they cover,” Liz Carter, president and CEO of the Scripps Howard Foundation said. “We believe these programs and their focus on real-world experience are an important step toward advancing equity, diversity and inclusion in the journalism industry.”

The Emerging Journalists Program, designed to roll out beginning in late spring of 2021 and carry through over a three-year period, will include funding from the Scripps Howard Foundation for all on-the-road programs, student participation in various associations, all needed equipment and supplemental faculty, the program’s director said.

“The Scripps Howard Foundation grant is an extremely generous investment and elevates UNT's Mayborn School of Journalism. We share a commitment to developing emerging journalists and diversifying the talent pipeline for the news media and communication industries,” Dr. Dorothy Bland, one of the program’s key coordinators at the Mayborn School, said. “High school students, our UNT Mayborn students and teachers will benefit from expanded mentorship opportunities as well as access to more news gathering tools, training, and technology.”

Last summer, the Foundation hosted a competitive application process to select two programs as the recipients of the grants for its new Scripps Howard Emerging Journalists program. The main criteria were as follows:

• Introduce high school students of diverse socio-economic, racial and ethnic backgrounds to journalism through interactive programming and reporting experience
• Legitimize and amplify student voices by providing a platform to share their stories
• Create relationships and open educational pathways that potentially lead to careers in journalism
• Provide ongoing access to mentors and professional support in the field of journalism
• Bring together a community of organizations and individuals – including universities, news outlets and high schools – to support the development of program participants

About the Frank W. and Sue Mayborn School of Journalism

The Mayborn School of Journalism, the only named and endowed school at the University of North Texas, trains more than 1,100 students in print/digital journalism, broadcast journalism, photojournalism, advertising and public relations. The Mayborn School, currently celebrating a tradition of 75 years of journalism instruction at UNT, is also home to the nationally known Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference.

About the Scripps Howard Foundation
The Scripps Howard Foundation supports philanthropic causes important to The E.W. Scripps Company (NASDAQ: SSP) and the communities it serves, with a special emphasis on journalism education, excellence in journalism and childhood literacy. At the crossroads of the classroom and the newsroom, the Foundation is a leader in supporting journalism education, scholarships, internships, minority recruitment and development and First Amendment causes. The Scripps Howard Awards stand as one of the industry’s top honors for outstanding journalism and the Foundation’s annual “If You Give a Child a Book …” childhood literacy campaign has distributed more than 352,000 new books to children in need across the nation since 2017. In support of its mission to create a better-informed world, the Foundation also partners with Scripps brands to create awareness of local issues and support impactful organizations to drive solutions that help build thriving communities.