“Youth on the Beat” is a broadcast journalism training program that we plan to launch in conjunction with our Gateway to the Industry of Film and Television (GIFT) project. Cinema Ed and ValleyArts, Inc. are collaborating on GIFT, which is a multi-faceted, experience-based film education program for underrepresented youth in the greater Essex County area. This training hub will be located in the ValleyArts space, which is part of the Kelli Copeland Artists Co-op, a mixed-use former industrial building with affordable artist live/work units. Youth on the Beat will provide hands-on training for broadcast journalism and documentary filmmaking. Young adults will take classes and work with professional mentors to learn the basics of journalism as well how to translate these classes into actual production of news stories via various broadcast outlets like tv, film, radio and internet..

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As a part of our GIFT strategy, Youth on the Beat will be an expansion of ou FilmBoot24 weekend film training bootcamp where students from Orange and Newark High Schools are invited to Drew University to participate in an intensive weekend workshop, creating films in just 24 hours. This expansion to the ValleyArts brick and mortar location for classes will be conducted after school and on weekends. We hope to provide a broadcast journalism curriculum at ValleyArts and include visits to a participating university to conduct a “NewsBoot24” weekend workshop with their broadcast journalism department. We are already planning with Drew University to conduct in-school documentary workshops at Orange High School in 2022 and hope to work with Drew or another university to widen our focus to opening broadcast journalism to the youth of the wider Essex County area via the Youth on the Beat program.

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