Teaching/Training

Beyond my own journalism, over the past decade I’ve also taught journalists and student-journalists in the U.S., Europe, Asia and now Africa.

While generating my own journalism and trainings today in southern Africa, I maintain a foothold in Asia, where I’m a five-time Visiting Scholar in Hong Kong Baptist University’s International Journalism program; and in Central Europe, where twice a year I return to Prague as Senior Trainer to lead a one-of-a-kind Foreign Correspondent Training Course. Six years ago, I crafted the course’s reporting project and have since helped more than 1,000 trainees from dozens of countries to secure their first foreign-datelined article. This training has proven so effective, I wrote about it for Harvard’s Nieman Reports.

In Hong Kong, I show our mostly mainland-Chinese grad students how to launch and professionalize their own websites, then guide them through two reporting projects: on minorities and NGOs in Hong Kong. For more about my teaching, please peruse my CV.

Regarding my journalism-teaching methodology, I’ve never followed anyone else’s course-guide, but always created my own: from sports reporting to international reporting, from minority journalism to health journalism. My formula mirrors my own research, interview, reporting and writing techniques and strategies of the past two decades. Step by step, I teach journalists and student-journalists how to report and write in a clear, focused, explanatory, contextual, humanized way – the very skills I’ve honed as a foreign correspondent. For recent samples, click here, here, here, here and here. Or, please scroll through this website for my writings from Europe, Asia and Africa.

My teaching began in 2003, at Long Island University in New York, where I was the George Polk Journalist-in-Residence and taught for four years. Then, two years in Central Europe, at both the University of Saints Cyril and Methodius in Slovakia, and just across the Czech border, at Masaryk University in Brno. And now, the past four fall semesters at Hong Kong Baptist. I’ll return in Fall 2013. I’ve also led trainings of Romani minority journalists in Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Kosovo and Slovakia. The Roma (more pejoratively, “the Gypsies”) are Europe’s largest and most marginalized minority. Shoulder-to-shoulder, my trainees and I explored early-teen brides, teen pregnancy, HIV and TB among Roma held in Romanian prisons, the status of Romani refugees from Kosovo, among other topics.

Here in the “Mountain Kingdom” of Lesotho – a country that lacks real journalism education or training, yet is saddled with the world’s third-highest rate of HIV infection (23 percent) and 40 percent malnutrition – I devote my efforts to the most glaring needs within the media: to show Basotho journalists how to produce deep, meaningful Health Journalism.

For example, I’ve led four free workshops on HIV journalism at Kick4Life, an NGO that combines football with HIV awareness. I’ve conducted a three-session workshop on gender-based violence, for 19 Basotho journalists and student-journalists. For UNICEF, I wrote fundraising proposals to reduce malnutrition, encourage immunizations, and eradicate mother-to-child HIV transmission. Most recently, I’ve launched an innovative new student activity at the National University of Lesotho: “The Health Journalism Club.” I’m leading 10 students through the entire soup-to-nuts reporting process, exploring one of six areas: HIV, nursing, pharmacy, nutrition, environmental health and gender-based violence.

As one recent study suggests, better journalism training leads to better journalism, which can lead to better health – and perhaps even save lives. That’s what drives me today.

 

For a complete list of my trainings, please see below. If you would like me to devise and lead any intensive, soup-to-nuts reporting project for your students or young reporters, please contact me at mjjordan23@earthlink.net.

TEACHING

Visiting Scholar, Hong Kong Baptist University (Hong Kong) Fall 2011

• Reprised the role of “Super Tutor,” launching dozens of Chinese students on their own blog.
• Led 55 of these students on a foreign-correspondence reporting project in Prague;

Visiting Scholar, Hong Kong Baptist University (Hong Kong) Fall 2010

• Served as “Super Tutor” to 77 graduate students; launched all on their own journalistic blog;
• Led another 50-plus Chinese students on a foreign-correspondence reporting project in Prague;

Visiting Scholar, Hong Kong Baptist University (Hong Kong) Fall 2009

• Taught four three-credit courses in “minority-affairs reporting” to 69 graduate students
  • Most students from Mainland China; a handful of others from Southeast Asia;
• Held regular tutorials for another one dozen students;
• Hosted a panel during the “Pulitzer Prizewinners Workshop”;
• Prepared, led 55 of my students on a foreign-correspondence reporting project in Prague;

Visiting Professor, University of Sts. Cyril & Methodius (Trnava, Slovakia) 2007 – 2009

• Taught three-credit course in “issue-oriented reporting” to 35 Slovak undergrads in Spring 2009;
• Taught three-credit course in “personality profiles” to 37 Slovak undergrads in Fall 2008;
• Taught three-credit course in “personality profiles” to 28 Slovak undergrads in Spring 2008;
• Taught three-credit course in “issue-oriented reporting” to 30 Slovak undergrads in Fall 2007;

Visiting Professor, Masaryk University (Brno, Czech Republic) 2007 – 2008

• Taught a three-credit course in “personality profiles” to 10 Czech undergrads in Fall 2008;
• Taught a three-credit course in “issue-oriented reporting” to 10 Czech undergrads in Fall 2007;

Guest Professor, Donau (Danube) University (Krems, Austria)

• Conducted “parachute journalism” workshop to 12 Austrian grad students (Aug. 18, 2009);
• Conducted “parachute journalism” workshop to 15 Austrian grad students (Nov. 29, 2008);
• Conducted “issue-oriented reporting” workshop to 20 Austrian grad students (Dec. 13, 2007);

Associate Professor of Journalism, Long Island University, Brooklyn, NY, Jan. 2003 – May 2006

George Polk Journalist-in-Residence, (www.brooklyn.liu.edu/journalism/faculty.html)

• Spring 2005-Spring 2006: Steered LIU Campus Internship Program for editors and reporters.
• Spring 2006: Taught the three-credit Advanced News Reporting course to 12 undergraduates.
• Fall 2005: Taught two sections of the three-credit News Reporting course to 12 undergraduates.
• Spring 2005: Taught the three-credit Advanced News Reporting course to 13 undergraduates.
• Fall 2004: Taught the three-credit News Reporting course to 17 undergraduates.
• Fall 2004: Taught three-credit Case Studies in International Newsgathering to 12 undergrads.
• Spring 2004: Taught two sections of three-credit Advanced News Reporting, to 14 undergrads.
• Fall 2003: Created, taught three-credit International Reporting course to 10 undergraduates.
• Fall 2003: Taught three-credit News Reporting course to eight undergraduates.
• Spring 2003: Taught three-credit Sports Reporting course to eight undergraduates.

Faculty Advisor, Seawanhaka, Student Newspaper, LIU-Brooklyn, Feb.  2004 – May 2006

• Advised staff editors, reporters at the newspaper that serves this diverse, 11,000-student body.

Committee Member, Long Island University, Brooklyn, NY

• 2004-2006: George Polk Awards for Outstanding Journalism. One of 14 committee members who judged winners of this prestigious national honor, which was founded by LIU in 1949.
• 2006: Who’s Who Selection Committee. One of eight members who vetted students for honor.

Adjunct Professor, International Journalism, Spring 2003

College of Mount Saint Vincent, Riverdale, The Bronx, New York

• Created, taught three-credit course in International Reporting to 20 undergraduates.

Teacher of Conversational English, Sept. 1993 – June 1994

Veres Palne Gimnazium (High School), Budapest, Hungary

• Taught 11 different classes of Hungarian students, grades 9-12, each week for a full school year.

TRAINING

Trainer, Foreign-Correspondent Training Course, TOL (www.tol.cz), Prague, 2007 – present

• Created a real-world, pound-the-pavement reporting project for this bi-annual training course: http://www.tol.cz/look/TOL/article_courses.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=23&NrIssue=16&NrSection=10&NrArticle=19743
• In January 2012, guided two groups through my TOL foreign-reporting project:
  • An international group of 13 participants, hailing from Italy to Uzbekistan;
  • A group of 55 Chinese graduate students from HKBU;
• In July 2011, guided another couple dozen participants through the reporting project;
• In January 2011, guided two groups through my TOL foreign-reporting project:
  • An international group of 8 participants, hailing from Russia to Spain;
  • A group of 50-plus Chinese graduate students from HKBU;
• In July 2010, guided 15 participants through the reporting project, from Egypt to Brazil;
• In January 2010, guided two groups through my TOL foreign-reporting project:
  • An international group of 22 participants, hailing from Pakistan to Sweden;
  • A group of 55 Chinese graduate students from Hong Kong Baptist University;
• In July 2009, guided 16 participants through the reporting project, from Syria to Uzbekistan;
• In January 2009, guided two groups through the foreign-reporting project:
  • An international group of 25 participants, hailing from Saudi Arabia to Georgia;
  • A group of 35 Chinese graduate students from Hong Kong Baptist University;
• In July 2008, guided 18 participants through the foreign-reporting project;
• In January 2008, guided two groups through my TOL foreign-reporting project:
  • An international group of 24 participants, hailing from Brazilto South Africa;
  • Forty, mostly Chinese graduate students from Hong Kong Baptist University;
• In July 2007, guided 24 participants through the foreign-reporting project;
• In January 2007, guided 19 participants through the foreign-reporting project;

Lead Trainer, Multimedia, Education-Reporting Workshop, TOL (www.tol.cz), May 2010

• Eight participants from Azerbaijan, Belarus, Czech Republic, Kenya, Macedonia, Romania, South Africa and Ukraine, on how to do in-depth education reporting, multimedia-lly;

Lead Trainer, Shoulder-to-Shoulder Training of Roma Journalists, TOL, 2009 – 2010

• Year-long project to assist marginalized minority media in Romania, Bulgaria and Macedonia;
• Produced a half-dozen pieces of serious journalism that humanized three Roma communities;

Trainer, U.N. Development Program Regional Center, Bratislava (www.undp.sk), April 7, 2007

• Created, led a one-day writing-skills workshop for two dozen UNDP staff.

Workshop Trainer, Dzeno Association, Prague, (www.dzeno.cz/?r_id=28), March 23-25, 2007

• Created, led weekend skills-building workshop for 10 Czech Roma journalism students.

Trainer-Coach, Roma Press Agency, Kosice, Slovakia (www.rpa.sk), Nov. 2006 – Feb. 2007

• Created three-month pilot project to help develop skills of Slovakia’s only Roma news service.
• Guided staff on Eastern Europe-wide evaluation of the “Decade of Roma Inclusion.”

Trainer, U.N. Development Program Regional Center, Bratislava (www.undp.sk), Nov. 6-7, 2006

• Created, led a two-day written-communications workshop for eight UNDP consultants.

Guest Lecturer, Center for Independent Journalism, Budapest (www.cij.hu), Aug. 15, 2006

• Invited to speak about various journalism topics with 15 Roma participants from four countries.