Free journalism workshop on May 31

Former NMI students Rachel Ramirez and Thomas Manglona will be co-facilitating a workshop called “Journalism to Empower Communities,” in collaboration with Mount Carmel School and made possible by support from the Northern Marianas Humanities Council, a nonprofit, private corporation funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The workshop, which will be hosted at the Latte Stone Room in Kanoa Resort on Friday, May 31, 2019, from 10am to 4pm, aims to create the next generation of journalists and media scholars from the Northern Mariana Islands. 

Ramirez and Manglona note how the make-up of newsroom diversity in the U.S. mainland lacks representation from Pacific Island communities, which, as a result, tends to lack or gets misrepresented in national news coverage.

Thomas Manglona

In their first-ever journalism workshop, with the help of local newsrooms and everyday citizens in the CNMI, they plan to discuss the national news coverage of the Pacific Islands, particularly media coverage of natural disasters. They hope to provide the basic tools of journalism and media practices in this one-day workshop.

They will prepare reporting and journalism packets with the objective to teach the structure of a news story, how to prepare visuals, conduct interviews, find sources and more. Participants will leave with a multimedia skill set and published materials in print and broadcast.

Participants can register online at bit.ly/islandjourno. No prior experience is required. All are welcome from all backgrounds and walks of life. The event is absolutely free. 

About the facilitators

Rachel Ramirez

Ramirez is an alumna of the University of Portland with a bachelor’s degree in communication studies with a focus on journalism. She is also a Saipan Southern High School alumna. She previously reported for local news outlets in Portland, Oregon such as the Willamette Week and Oregon Business magazine. After college, she landed an internship with the Dow Jones News Fund program and became a reporter with the Financial Times. She is currently on a six-month reporting fellowship with Grist media. 

Thomas Manglona is a Gates scholar, Truman scholar, and media studies major at the University of California Berkeley and alumnus of Mount Carmel School. He has previously reported for the Marianas Variety, Saipan Tribune, and Pacific News Center. He is currently the executive director of CalTV, UC Berkeley’s online TV station serving over 30,000 students and managing over 100 student staff. (PR)