Let us know how the TCCJ can help you

We are winding down a busy summer at the TCCJ and looking ahead to the upcoming school year at the university.

As we celebrate our successes, we are looking ahead and need your help to plan future workshops.

By Austin Lewter, TCCJ director 

Before that, it always behooves me to remind folks who are and what we do. 

The Texas Center for Community Journalism exists to provide training, support and resources to Texas community newspapers. 

We host workshops and training for Texas newsrooms at no cost to them. 

If it’s an overnight workshop; we cover your hotel costs. We cover your meals; we cover the training cost. 

Most of our workshops occur at the Tarleton State University Fort Worth campus. 

So, we just ask you to get to Fort Worth. After that, we cover all your expenses.

We can do all this thanks to generous annual grants from the Texas Newspaper Foundation and Texas Press Service. 

No organization elsewhere in the country does what we do.

The center was founded 15 years ago at Texas Christian University. It came to Tarleton in 2019, and I have been the director since 2021. 

Many of you already know this. If that’s you, I appreciate your patience.

I realize this may be old news, but I meet professionals all the time who have never heard of the center. So, there is always a new audience to learn our story. 

On average, 60% of our workshop attendees are visiting for the first time. This tells me that we are still viable and still serve a purpose in the industry. 

It tells me the future is bright. 

This summer alone, we have hosted two overnight workshops in Fort Worth — “Broadcast News for the Community Newspaper” and “Finish Strong: Ad Sales Power Workshop.”

We have also hosted two traveling news writing workshops — one in Spur and one in Taylor. 

We also made the rounds at the TPA and Panhandle Press Conventions, and all this was just June and July. 

During my time at the center, we have hosted workshops in podcasting, sports writing, page design, news writing, ad sales and newspaper management, just to name a few.  We design our programs based upon your needs and bring in the experts to provide the training. 

We are always looking ahead and need to know how we can help. It’s time to plan our fall and spring and we want your input. 

Please take a few minutes to visit the survey here: https://forms.gle/eh1QcYgLBCpJ1Liu5. 

Business needs change over time and we are want ensure we are up to speed.  Check out the survey and let us know how we can help. 

My email is alewter@tarleton.edu and my door is always open. We are here for you. Let us know what we can do.