Mid-Career Course 2025
If God is in control, how should Christians report on current events?
WORLD Journalism Institute's annual mid-career course trains experienced and novice reporters in their thirties and up to explore their calling and sharpen their reporting skills with a Christian worldview. Over this five-day course from March 2 to March 8, we will explore how Scripture informs the craft of storytelling.
Throughout the week, participants will:
Report on local stories in multiple, boots-on-the-ground reporting exercises
Have the option to broaden their broadcast journalism skills by interviewing, scriptwriting, and recording an audio profile or news story
Receive line-by-line editing from experienced reporters who work for WORLD
Have the opportunity to publish their work on WORLD platforms
Discuss how a Biblical worldview can inform a journalist's work
Connect with others who share similar values and desire to sharpen their writing skills
The course leads to opportunities for those with talent and drive to report for WORLD within their metropolitan area or field of expertise. Grads will also have access to WJI Network, WJI’s alumni community. Since 2012, approximately 140 people have attended WJI's Mid-Career course. Many have become reporters, editors, or occasional correspondents for WORLD and other major media outlets.
Attendees will stay at a local hotel, will meet for class and discussions in classrooms, and will venture into town for reporting exercises. WJI Mid-Career typically is hosted in Asheville, North Carolina, but confirmed details are coming soon. WJI extends scholarships to cover the cost of tuition, housing, and most meals. Participants will provide their meals during field reporting assignments.
Applications for WJI Mid-Career 2025 are open. The deadline to apply is November 1, 2024. APPLY NOW!
The next course will be hosted from Sunday, March 2 to Saturday, March 8, 2025. We will begin with a welcome dinner on Sunday, and end with a farewell breakfast on Saturday morning.
Required Reading
- Strunk and White: The Elements of Style
- Marvin Olasky: Reforming Journalism
Required Items
- Gmail account (we will be doing group editing and document sharing through Google Docs, so every student should have a basic understanding of Google Docs)
- Smartphone for taking photos and recording
- Individuals who are invited to RSVP will also be informed about additional equipment that would be necessary
Curriculum:
The course emphasizes news feature reporting and writing, based on principles of Biblical objectivity. It’s not for those whose goal is to write columns, op. eds., devotionals, exegetical essays, memoirs, fiction, or poetry. It is for those willing to learn about pavement-pounding, phone-calling, document-reading reporting, and about writing with strong verbs and nouns in the active voice. Only those prepared to absorb tough criticism of their writing should attend. The courses will also touch on the history and current state of Christian journalism.
Instructors: *may include but are not limited to the following journalists
Lee Pitts
As Washington Bureau Chief for WORLD magazine for more than five years, Lee's assignments sent him from Capitol Hill to the White House to the Supreme Court. But his reporting also has taken him beyond the Capital Beltway. Leading up to the 2010 elections, Lee embarked on a 10-day, 4,225 mile cross-country trip through competitive congressional districts in 16 states. In 2004-2005, as a reporter for the Chattanooga Times Free Press, Lee embedded with a National Guard Regimental Combat unit in Iraq for nearly 7 months, going on humanitarian and combat missions. Before joining WORLD, Lee served as press secretary for U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander. Now in his fifteenth year in the media world, Lee earned a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University and currently leads the journalism program at Dordt University.
WORLD Reporters and Editors
Experienced reporters and editors for WORLD News Group will lead instruction and offer line-by-line feedback on students' work during the course. They will teach students how to report with excellence for print, digital, audio, and video platforms.
Program Price
WJI covers the cost of tuition, housing, and most meals.
What have alumni said about this course?
The mid-career writing course expanded my horizons: It taught me to write in new ways, for different audiences, and on topics that need attention from a Christian worldview. Sometimes a well-meaning amateur tries to coach your batting swing or tennis serve and ends up disrupting your natural rhythm so badly that you can’t even hit the ball! The mid-career writing course had an opposite effect: coaching by experienced writers sharpened my skills and led to opportunities that I had never anticipated.
I draw from what I learned at the mid-career course on a weekly basis. It was a practical exercise in how to think, write, and edit like a journalist. As a small class, we walked through each step of writing and were able to make mistakes, correct them, throw out ideas, and bounce questions off expert journalists. The mountain of journalism became a hill I could climb because of the mid-career course.
I loved the classes and found the seminar to be very helpful. I especially enjoyed being able to critique each other's writing and do the line by line editing together. The hands-on experience was unbeatable.
WORLD’s mid-career course is fantastic! The course content is outstanding, but even more valuable is the opportunity to learn from one of the Christian world’s most experienced journalists and editors. I gained tremendous confidence through the–fearful–process of Olasky-led group edits. Watching clunky first drafts forged again and again into tight, bracing prose transformed my writing and inspired me to greater success as a writer. I was also impressed by the high-caliber students in the course, men and women who loved the Lord and were serious about improving their craft. Make every effort to attend this course - you won’t be disappointed!
It was immensely helpful for me to be publicly edited and educated at the same time during the course.
My prior opinion about World's high regard for truth and clear understanding of the journalist's calling were confirmed. The week flew by and sometimes it felt like drinking from a fire hose, but I managed to hang onto a number of the pearls that Marvin and Susan so graciously shared with us. Best of all, I have been given the opportunity to write on a regular basis for WNG. I must be making progress, because my word processing program rarely corrects my spelling and grammar anymore.