About our workshops

The Center offers two types of workshops for community journalists:

• One-day workshop: One day of intensive learning. Some are free and others require a nominal registration fee. Workshops have included a crash course in Photoshop, selling advertising for your Web edition, how to use the resources of the Internet in your reporting
• Three-day workshop: Wednesday night through Friday noon workshops, offered free through the generosity of the Texas Newspaper Foundation. No tuition, room or food charges while you're at the workshop on the TCU campus. Workshop topics have included photojournalism, writing and editing, advertising sales, management, page design, developing an effective Web edition, sportswriting, and circulation.

For our workshops, we bring in top specialists in community journalism from around the United States-people who are successfully doing whatever we're teaching in that workshop.  No recycled here's-what-we're-doing-in-the-metro-papers in these workshops, just practical information from top community journalists.

Workshops begin with a dinner and social hour at 6 p.m. on Wednesday.  We ask that everyone who applies to attend a workshop also be available for dinner on Wednesday.  You should arrive in Fort Worth sometime Wednesday afternoon and be checked into our workshop hotel and be ready to leave on our bus at 6 p.m.  On Thursday, we leave the hotel at 8:30 a.m. and put in a full day - you don't get back to your room until 10:30 that night.  On Friday, you leave the hotel again at 8:30, and the workshop ends with lunch at noon on Friday.

See what people are saying

We regularly gather feedback from our workshop participants. This page has some feedback from some of our recent workshop participants.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who attends our workshops? More than 150 newspapers from around Texas have sent staff members to our workshops. See the list here.

How do I find out about the workshops?  Emails are sent to every community newspaper in Texas.  Also, we email all alumni of previous workshops.  If you want to be on our mailing list personally (the email going to you in addition to one to your publisher or editor), just notify us at [email protected] and we'll add you to our mailing list.

Can I suggest a topic for future workshops?  Absolutely.  Email us at [email protected] with your ideas.

Once I have attended a workshop, can I return?  You cannot repeat the same workshop, but you can attend another workshop.  In every workshop group, we have alumni of previous workshops.