Purpose of the Program

The purpose of LAJP was to strengthen the free press in Latin America through education, training and research. The program sought to encourage journalists, journalism educators and media owners to make a critical examination of the role of a free and independent press. All of the program's training, education, research and technical assistance activities were based on the professional standards of the free press operating separately from and independent of the state in the democracies of the modern world.

Seminars and workshops:

LAJP offered up to 65 seminars or workshops a year on topics from ethics to newsroom management. There was a special emphasis on ethics and on better writing through critical thinking. The program organized workshops on environmental reporting, investigative reporting, covering human rights, understanding women's issues, the role of the press in a developing democracy and others. The seminars and workshops ranged from two days to two weeks and usually were limited to 15-18 participants because of the hands-on nature of the training.

The International Media Center was born out of a 10-year project funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development through a cooperative agreement with Florida International University in Miami: The Latin American Journalism Program. LAJP was administered by the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, under the direction of the then dean. Dr. J. Arthur Heise. Charles H. Green, a former Associated Press foreign correspondent and business executive, was the founding director of the LAJP and the IMC, a post he held until his retirement in 2005. The LAJP ended on March 31, 1998, but left behind a self-sustaining journalism training center, the Latin American Journalism Center, in Panama City, Panama.

Components of the Latin American Journalism Program

All components of the Latin American Journalism Program were conducted in Spanish.

Seminars and workshops: LAJP offered up to 65 seminars or workshops a year on topics from ethics to newsroom management. There was a special emphasis on ethics and on better writing through critical thinking. The program organized workshops on environmental reporting, investigative reporting, covering human rights, understanding women's issues, the role of the press in a developing democracy and others. The seminars and workshops ranged from two days to two weeks and usually were limited to 15-18 participants because of the hands-on nature of the training.

1. Publication of a series of Spanish-language journalism text books. Assessments done by the LAJP showed a woeful shortage of relevant, professionally-oriented textbooks available to journalism educators in Latin America. LAJP published in Spanish 10 books in the series "Journalism in Latin America." These books, written by professional journalists, cover ethics, in-depth reporting, writing, television news production, use of the language, interviewing techniques, investigative reporting, radio news production, writing for broadcast, and business writing.
2. Publication of Pulso del periodismo magazine. This journalism review has become the most important periodical for journalists in Latin America. Its articles and columns are used in university classes and in newsrooms. The magazine appears on the Internet at http://www.pulso.org. New stories are posted frequently. Regular features are ethics cases, where the readers are invited to participate, and a yes-or-no query on a journalism subject. The magazine has a special interest in publishing solid, documented stories on press freedom in Latin America. Studies indicate that about each issue is read by at least 50,000 people throughout the world.
3. Certificate Program in Spanish-Language Journalism. This six-week program, on the North Miami campus of FIU, brings together journalists from Latin America for an intensive, practical program designed to sharpen their critical thinking as well as their writing and reporting. Classes are held only by special arrangement.
4. Journalists in the Andes. Publication of a 235-page study of journalists in the Andean Pact countries. Over a four-month period, a team interviewed 461 working journalists, media executives and academics on their training, work conditions and ethics. It remains the most thorough study of its kind conducted among Latin American Journalists.
5. Media Directory. This began as an effort to help Central American journalists network by compiling for the first time the names and positions of all journalists working the news media in Central America. It has expanded to include national historical data, names and telephone numbers of government and diplomatic news sources and other information useful to journalists. The Latin American Media Directory has been so successful that we have expanded the concept to the entire hemisphere and now publish all the Spanish- and Portuguese-language news organizations in the Americas.

Centro Latinoamericano de Periodismo:

On May 25, 1996, the IMC inaugurated the Centro Latinoamericano de Periodismo in Panama City, Panama. On April 1, 1997, the IMC turned the center over to a board of directors formed mostly of Latin American journalists.