Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the normal in-person weeklong OIDJ workshop at Gaylord College shifted to a one-day virtual event conducted via Zoom.
From the OIDJ directors, Yvette Walker and Melanie Wilderman
COVID-19 changed so many planned events starting in March, and the Oklahoma Institute for Diversity in Journalism was not excluded from the shuffle to make changes for the safety of our participants and staff. Normally, OIDJ is a solid week or more full of experiential journalism and media training for high school students. Normally, these students stay on the OU campus and experience an introduction to dorm and college life. However, there has not been much normality in 2020.
For the program this year, we pivoted to a one-day seminar on July 18 via Zoom and focused on four lessons: news writing, feature writing, media ethics and issues of diversity and inclusivity in media. These lessons were led by Yvette Walker–OIDJ director and assistant dean of students at Gaylord College, Melanie Wilderman–OIDJ assistant director and associate professor of journalism and Seth Prince–adviser for OU Student Media and longtime OIDJ coach.
Fourteen high school students, one middle school student and one scholastic journalism teacher participated in the virtual event. Their locations included Oklahoma, Texas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Missouri, and two students joining in from Vienna, Austria.
About half of these students were able to spend additional time after the workshop working on stories focused on the pandemic, and their work is published on this site in the 2020 section.
The OIDJ staff and students continue to express thanks to both the Dow Jones News Fund and the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation for their funding to support this program, as well as to Gaylord College and the University of Oklahoma for hosting the event and providing a variety of resources. We have high hopes that the OIDJ program will return to its full schedule and in-person experience for summer 2021.
