OSU and The Oregonian host the Newspaper Institute for Minority High School Students.

This June, Oregon State University and The Oregonian invited 18 high school students to the OSU campus to take part in the Newspaper Institute for Minority High School Students. The Institute had been a longtime dream of Frank Ragulsky, OSU’s director of student media, and a grant from the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation in Oklahoma City made it possible.

The teenagers, who are all from Oregon or Washington, spent a week reporting for and producing their own newspaper, The Pride. They also delved into new media — blog posts, video and photos — that chronicled their experience.

“Why a journalism camp for minorities? Why not open it up to everyone,” wrote David Austin, a reporter for The Oregonian and the camp’s director, in the 2008 issue of the Pride. “The answer is simple: Those camps already exist,” he writes. “But many of them are expensive or not easily accessible to many minority high school students. In some cases, minority students don’t know about the opportunities because some educators don’t see them as potential journalists.”

For more about the students’ and camp counselors’ stories, experiences and work, visit the Oregonian’s Journalism Camp 2008 blog.

Photos courtesy of The Oregonian.