Education

Curriculum

This is a tentative schedule as of November 2024.

Saturday, July 12th, 2025
Arrivals – Check in from 15:00 (Marriott Courtyard Prague Flora, Lucemburska 46, Prague 3, 13000)
Free time

Sunday, July 13th
09:50 – 10:00 Meeting point: hotel lobby and registration of participants
10:00 Departure from the hotel
10:00 – 13:00 Walking Tour: Prague sightseeing with Lucie Lackova
13:15 – 14:30 Lunch (venue: NA ČEPU – Ovocný trh 1096/8, 110 00 Prague 1)
14:30 – 14:45 Break
14:45 – 15:00 Welcome and Introductions (Jeremy Druker, Transitions)
15:00 – 17:00 Life as a Foreign Correspondent (Raphael Minder, The Financial Times)

• “Welcome to a dying trade,” or how to become a foreign correspondent
• “How to find stories (a clue: they are rarely on page one of the local press)
• Dealing with editors at long distance and pitching stories
• Differences between European and American journalism
• Ethics of Journalism, journalism and the law, boundaries of plagiarism
• Being a foreign correspondent for The Financial Times.

Free time in Prague

Monday, July 14th
09:15 Meeting point: hotel lobby
09:20 Departure from the hotel and arrival at the venue
10:00 – 12:30 Panel Discussion: “What Is Actually a Foreign Correspondent?” (moderated by Jeremy Druker, Transitions, with participants: Vojtěch Boháč + Jana Ciglerova, Denik N).

• The news cycle for foreign correspondents: news agencies vs. other media outlets
• The different kinds of foreign reporters: staff positions vs. stringers vs. freelancers
• The specific challenges of being a female foreign correspondent
• How does motherhood affect the career of a female journalist?
• Finding stories in a foreign city: how and where to look
• Interviewing people in foreign lands (some of whom may be suspicious of journalists from other countries)
• Tips for staying safe and the necessity (sometimes) of special security precautions.
• Covering war as a foreign correspondent
• The ethical and moral responsibilities associated with covering conflict

12:30 – 14:00 Lunch break

14:00 – 16:30 News-Writing Lab (Michael Winfrey)

• Introduction to writing and reporting with a special focus on writing for an international audience
• Writing and developing feature stories for news agencies and general publications
• Tips for writing for an audience that knows very little about the history and culture of the location
• When to file a story
• How to source a story.

16:30 – 18:00 Pitching session for story proposals (Jeremy Druker, Transitions, Michael Winfrey; and Mark Harmon, University of Tennessee)
All participants will pitch their ideas for their two stories to the panel for feedback. The assignment for the first week will be a print/web story or a photo essay for print or web (first draft due Friday); the assignment for the second week will be a video or audio story (due at the end of the second week).

Tuesday, July 15th
09:30 – 12:30 Writing Lab: Getting Out Into the Field (Michael Winfrey and Mark Harmon, University of Tennessee)
Participants will be divided in groups and work intensively with the faculty, focusing on the following subjects:

• Finding stories and conducting research for stories before hitting the ground
• Finding sources and interview subjects
• Interviewing techniques, especially in a foreign land, including mock interviews for practice
• Integrating quotations from non-native speakers.

12:30 – 14:00 Lunch break

14:00 – 17:00 Practical-writing exercise (Michael Winfrey and Mark Harmon, University of Tennessee)
Participants will have two hours to write their stories with faculty then review the results.

Wednesday, July 16th
All-day reporting and interviewing in the field for feature stories.

Thursday, July 17th
09:30 – 10:30 The Life of a TV Foreign Correspondent (Dana Zlatohlavkova, Czech Television)

• The challenges of unplanned deployments to cover foreign stories versus prepared trips
• Tips on quickly getting up to speed after assignment to a foreign post
• The differences in reporting for television from abroad compared with just print
• Moderating and editing reports from the field
• Telling stories through independent documentaries.

10:45 – 12:15 The Power of Solutions Journalism in International Reporting (Jeremy Druker, Transitions)

• Just showing the problem is no longer enough. What is solutions journalism and how does it work?
• The four pillars of a classic solutions journalism story
• Where to find solutions stories as a foreign correspondent
• What questions to ask
• How does solutions journalism increase engagement and civic participation
• Examples of Transitions’ solutions stories.

Afternoon reporting and interviewing in the field for feature stories, preparing the first draft of print stories.

Students finalizing their stories.

Friday, July 18th
9:30 – 12:30 Writing and Reporting for TV (Mark Harmon, University of Tennessee)

• Writing to video
• Selecting sound bites
• Stand ups
• Types of stories
• Types of video packages.

Afternoon preparing the first draft of print stories.

16:30 – 19:00 Finish first draft of print stories, deadline 19:00

Students finalize their stories and submit.

Saturday, July 19th
Free day

Sunday, July 20th
Free day
19:00 – 21:00 Individual feedback on first draft of stories (Michael Winfrey; Jeremy Druker, Transitions; Mark Harmon, University of Tennessee)
Each participant will have a 15-minute slot to discuss the drafts with Michael or Jeremy during a meeting in the hotel lobby.

Monday, July 21st
9:30 – 12:30 Multimedia Reporting: What is a Video Story and How to Give Every Story a Classic Story Structure (Will Tizard)

• Breaking into video journalism
• How even the most basic of shots tells a story
• Classic story-writing structures and how they can be incorporated into video-sequencing (inverted pyramid, diamond, stories without the classic structure)
• Shot-by-shot case studies
• Shooting video for news stories: framing, sequencing, perspective, lighting.

12:30 – 14:00 Lunch break

14:00 – 17:00 Exercises in the field

Participants will individually shoot videos in downtown Prague. The group will then congregate back at the venue and Will review the video that they have taken. Points to be covered:

• In-the-field demonstration shooting
• Raw-video review (put camera card in the computer, play, and review – a technique some employers use in broadcast news to judge a prospective camera person’s field work in a real-life, real-time situation).

Tuesday, July 22nd
Participants will spend the day working on video/audio stories, i.e. lining up and starting to shoot interviews and other footage.

Wednesday, July 23rd
08:45 Meeting point: hotel lobby
08:50 Departure from the hotel
Seznam.cz (Venue: Seznam.cz, a.s., Radlická 3294/10, 150 00 Prague 5)
9:30 – 11:15 Tour of Seznam.cz with Veronika Geltner and session on innovation with Peter Jancarik

Participants will spend rest of the day working on video/audio stories.

Thursday, July 24th
Trip to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (please bring your passport)
09:40 Meeting point: hotel lobby
09:45 Departure from the hotel
10:00 – 10:30 Group security check at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – (Vinohradská 159A, Prague 10)
10:30 – 10:45 Introduction to RFE/RL
10:45 – 11:30 Meeting with Pete Baumgartner, editor in RFE/RL’s central newsroom

• Working for RFE/RL in Munich and Prague and how things have changed
• The importance of the RFE/RL mission
• RFE/RL’s transformation from a radio-only media outlet to a multimedia organization (TV/video and Internet)
• Some samples of RFE/RL’s work, including those distributed through social media

11:30 – 11:45 Break

11:45 – 12:30 Meeting with Amos Chapple RFE/RL Senior Photo Correspondent, Central News

12:30 – 13:00 Tour of the building
13:00 – 14:00 Lunch in RFE/RL cantina (on your own)

Free time

17:00 Deadline for final version of print story and posting it to WordPress site

Friday, July 25th
All-day shooting and editing final video stories
17:00 Deadline for video story and posting it to WordPress site
17:00 – 19:00 – Individual feedback on final version of stories (Michael Winfrey; Jeremy Druker, Transitions; Mark Harmon, University of Tennessee)
Individual story feedback on the final version of print story – each participant will have a 15-minute slot to discuss the final version with Michael and Jeremy during a meeting in the hotel lobby.

Saturday, July 26th
10:00 – 12:00 Reporting-project critique session for video/audio stories (Will Tizard and Mark Harmon, University of Tennessee)

Led by Will Tizard and Mark Harmon, the panel will provide detailed feedback on the video and audio stories.

12:15 – 12:30 Evaluation

13:50 Meeting point: Dvořákovo nábřeží, Na Františku, Prague 1 (pont nr 11)
14:00 – 16:00 Farewell boat cruise with lunch.

Free time

Sunday, July 27th
Departures