Students, specifically student journalists, are at the heart of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists’ programs.
NAHJ has a broad mission – to increase the number of Latinos in the news and to ensure fair and accurate coverage of Hispanic communities. Getting there means ensuring Latino journalists are the best qualified for any journalism job opportunity and that work starts with students.
Our focus is on the next generation of Latino journalists. They are the ones who will benefit from all the work we are doing now, and they are the ones who can transform the media industry to be a successful, enduring pillar of our multicultural democracy.
NAHJ has invested more than $2 million dollars in scholarships for Latino journalism students since our founding in 1984, including $70,000 this year through our Next Gen Initiatives.
That is just part of our strategy to support dedicated NAHJ student members as we guide them along their collegiate path until they ultimately begin their careers in journalism.
That support ranges from financial aid to professional work experience to matching them with mentors to help them through the process. We work with professional chapters to identify potential mentors. We connect students with prestigious internships that often lead to jobs.
Journalism is a profession where you learn by doing. Through our student projects, we bring a dozen student journalists each year to cover the NAHJ annual conference. Their hard-hitting reporting is published daily in The Latino Reporter.
We offer students the option of either being awarded scholarship dollars towards their school year or a sponsored trip to the NAHJ national conference, which will include registration fees, travel, hotel, and meals. Attending the conference is a valuable experience that often leads to more opportunities for our students.
It’s important that we prepare the next generation for their careers in journalism, which aligns with our mission — to promote more Latinos in the news. The more we help our students become qualified, experienced candidates, the more likely they are to be hired in newsrooms around the country.
Julian Berger was one of them. Now a production assistant at NBC News, he recalls: “It was amazing to finally be in a newsroom with so many other Latino students and just share our ideas, our opinions. We share the same experiences. The NAHJ student project is something that changed me.”
Christian Galeno is another. From South Central Los Angeles, his parents immigrated from Mexico, and he is the first in his family to graduate from college. He’s now an Emmy Award-winning multimedia journalist at Spectrum News 1 SoCal.
“There are no words to describe the experience of being part of The Latino Reporter and just meeting so many journalists of color, so many Latinos, that if you ever second-guessed yourself about being a journalist, your mindset is just going to totally change,” Christian says. You’re going to be so motivated to pursue journalism. If you’re willing to put in the work and, if you’re willing to grind, there is a spot for you in journalism.”
“We were able to speak English, Spanish, or Spanglish without feeling judgment,” adds Eddi Blanco Cabrera, a former news producer and now the multimedia communications manager for Guilford County, NC. “We all came together as one team … to ensure that The Latino Reporter had top-notch journalism.”
NAHJ offers half a dozen scholarships each year, including the Ada Lourdes Vigo Afro-Latino Scholarship and the White House Correspondents Association Scholarship. One scholarship is named for Maria Elena Salinas, the TV anchor who has been called the “Voice of Hispanic America,” and another for Ruben Salazar, the crusading journalist whose killing by a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy in 1970 catalyzed the Hispanic media movement that led to the creation of NAHJ.
In addition to scholarships, NAHJ selects candidates each year for internships with ABC News, ESPN, and several other news organizations. A range of major news organizations join NAHJ conferences each year to provide hands-on training in multimedia journalism.
Support for student journalists comes not only from NAHJ’s national organization, but also from various chapters and affinity groups. The AAJA Sports Task Force secured $20,000 in scholarships from CBS Sports and MLB.com to bring approximately 50 students and professional members to the NAHJ 40th Anniversary Conference and Expo, held in July 2024 in Hollywood, CA.
Student chapters exist at nearly 25 colleges and universities, and the rivalry among them is fierce to be named Student Chapter of the Year. In 2024, that honor went to NAHJ Mizzou, at the University of Missouri, which created De Veras, a Spanish news-gathering site serving local Hispanic communities.
NAHJ Mizzou’s initiative confirms our strategy: NAHJ supports students, students advance journalism, journalism informs communities, and informed communities strengthen democracy. We’re committed to students because the work of building the future is happening right now.
About the author
Yaneth Guillén-Diaz is the executive director of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
