For Immediate Release Contact: Barbara K. Laskin
April 8, 2004 Doug Stone
(651) 696-6203

World Press Institute Fosters International Programs

St. Paul, Minn. - The World Press Institute (WPI), located at Macalester College, is expanding the reach and scope of its programs that promote and strengthen press freedom around the world.

Next week, WPI will present a pair of two-day conferences on transparency reporting for South American journalists in Santiago, Chile, (April 12-13) and in Buenos Aires, Argentina (April 14-15). Both will feature workshops on computer-assisted reporting, sophisticated Web searching using the most comprehensive search engines, links and research tools, and traditional panels on contemporary journalism issues such as ethics, multiple sourcing, fairness and completeness. WPI's partners in the conferences are the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas at the School of Journalism, University of Texas at Austin; Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) which is based at the University of Missouri Journalism School; Centro de Periodistas de Investigacion (IRE-Mexico); along with local journalists in Chile and Argentina. A grant from the United Nations Foundation will cover costs of the conferences.

The events are modeled on WPI's first overseas conference, held last May in Buenos Aires where some 300 journalists attended programs. The second day of this year's conference in Buenos Aires will offer refresher sessions and updates on investigative techniques for last year's attendees and will include reports from journalists on how they were able to use the knowledge gained at last year's conference. In future years WPI plans to present conferences not only in Latin America, but also in Africa, and Asia.

In June, WPI will be launching a pilot project, "Training the Trainers." This two-week program, June 21-July 2, 2004, to be held at the Minnesota Journalism Center of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, is designed to train 10 journalism professors and heads of journalism institutes from Central and South America about the role and responsibilities of a free press in a democracy. A grant from the McCormick Tribune Foundation in Chicago supports this project.

The World Press Institute, established at Macalester College in 1961, has annually brought 10 journalists from around the world to the U.S. for four months of immersion into the governance, politics, business, media, journalistic ethics and culture of the United States through a demanding schedule of study, travel and interviews throughout the country . It has
478 alumni in 93 countries. For program information, contact WPI Executive Director,
John Ullmann, at (651) 696-6360.

Macalester is a private liberal arts college with a full-time enrollment of 1,810 students. Macalester is nationally recognized for its commitment to academic excellence, internationalism, diversity and service to society.