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About The Washington Post Young Journalists Development Program

The Washington Post is committed to helping develop the next generation of journalists and increasing diversity in the news industry. The Washington Post created the Young Journalists Development Program (YJDP) in 1997. This program mentors high school and college students, provides scholarships and trains high school newspaper advisers. The Washington Post also has summer internships for college juniors and seniors. There are no internships available for high school students.

Under YJDP, Post staffers visit area high schools to assist students in putting out their campus newspapers. The program sponsors workshops and seminars for area high school and college students. In addition, YJDP donates equipment and funds to help with the printing costs of some school papers and awards scholarships.

The program is led by veteran staff writer Athelia Knight.

The Washington Post has a book about YJDP to help other media organizations develop successful partnerships with high schools. Click here for more information about the book.

Washington Post  Executive Editor Len Downie greets a high school student at The Washington Post. Athelia Knight with students at Eastern High School.
Washington Post Executive Editor Len Downie greets a high school student at The Washington Post.
Athelia Knight with a student newspaper editor at Eastern High School.

“We love this newspaper program.  In the long run it’s going to be good for students and schools. If you work on a newspaper, it helps you write and helps people in school understand how wonderful it is to have a newspaper that helps spread the word of what’s going on in the place. In some long term sense, it has to be good for newspapers.”

— Don Graham, chairman of The Washington Post

“The free press can’t function well without talented good people involved in it.  I wouldn’t want to see — with all the things people can do these days — our profession losing out on the talent that it should have.”

— Len Downie, executive editor

Athelia Knight with students at Eastern High School.

Washington Post photographer Mark Gail teaches a photo workshop for high school students.

“I tried to get the program started because all the studies show that minorities who get interested in journalism manifest that interest very early on.  From my own experiences, the smartest students didn't seem to be interested in journalism.  So I thought if we could start a program that could touch them early, nurture them from 9th grade all the way through college, we could put more minorities in the business . . . . And we need to do this not only to develop a new generation of diverse and dynamic journalists; but to cultivate the next generation of readers.”

— Milton Coleman, deputy managing editor

 



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