Youthcast Media Group

Virtual workshops/boot camps: ymg conducts paid two-week boot camps on introduction to reporting and writing and also on social Media for journalism with groups of up to 12 high school students. The reporting and writing "101" boot camp teaches the basics of news writing and students work in groups to complete short news articles, which we publish on our website and offer to Media outlets that have included the baltimore afro and the bronx times. The social Media training teaches students how to create factual, grammatical and engaging journalistic social Media posts using canva as well as via tiktok and instagram. Their graphics and video posts promote our work and raise awareness of the disparities and solutions to health, criminal justice and other social challenges in students' communities. We share the posts on our social Media channels and offer them to news outlets with our articles. Ymg also holds virtual six-week reporting and writing workshops for more experienced student journalists, who work in groups to create in-depth articles that have been published in usa today, the miami herald, miami new times, the dc line, the public radio site billy penn, the philadelphia tribune, freshwater cleveland, the Washington blade and the land in cleveland.

Independent content creation: ymg staff, contract journalist-instructors and consultants work independently (outside of schools and in boot camps and workshops) with high school students and college interns. We help them produce articles, videos and social Media content; host school and public events to showcase student work; and provide college and career preparation training students need to succeed in Media, communications and related fields. Top-performing high school students are promoted to "assistant mentor-editors," who work with journalists and high school students in writing workshops, and to college interns.their work helps keep the content on our website - httpswwwyouthcastmediagrouporg - fresh and requires students to understand article components including captions, headlines and pull quotes, social Media promotion and website posting and design. We also promote former high school participants to internships on the operations side of our nonprofit.

In-school training: ymg instructors conduct all-virtual and hybrid in-person/virtual reporting, writing and social Media training for high school journalism classes during the school day, after school and/or during school vacations. Students are compensated for work that meets minimum standards for publication on our website, social Media channels and other outlets. As with our extracurricular training, these students cover topics including mental health, the social determinants of health, road safety, criminal justice and health equity.