KNOXVILLE — An institute that trains journalism professionals from across the United States and Canada will hold its 10th annual session today through Saturday on the University of Tennessee campus.
The Institute of Newspaper Technology is sponsored by UT’s School of Journalism and Electronic Media in the College of Communication and Information and the Tennessee Press Service. Nearly 500 professionals have completed sessions at the institute since its inception.
“The 10-year partnership between the School of Journalism and Electronic Media and TPS is an excellent example of what happens when industry and academia work together for mutual benefit,” said Mike Wirth, dean of the College of Communication and Information.
The institute, considered by many to be the industry’s leading training program related to newspaper technology, provides newspaper production specialists with three days of intensive training focused on the newest trends and software in newspaper and online publication. Participants learn about photography, design layout, and how to create video and maximize picture and sound quality for the Web.
Session instructors include experts from Adobe, Quark, MultiAd and the UT School of Journalism and Electronic Media, as well as leading trainers from the publishing world.
The institute includes lunches sponsored by Adobe and Quark, a roundtable dinner with professionals from the Knoxville News Sentinel and a 10th anniversary graduation banquet. The roundtable dinner is sponsored by MultiAd. The anniversary banquet is sponsored by MediaSpan.
The original idea for the institute came about in meetings between Kevin Slimp, then owner of AdTech Consulting; Larry Smith, then president of the Tennessee Press Association Foundation; Dwight Teeter, then dean of the College of Communications, the forerunner of the College of Communication and Information; and Jim Crook, former director of the School of Journalism, the forerunner of the School of Journalism and Electronic Media.
At the time, Slimp was receiving hundreds of invitations to speak at publishing industry events each year. He proposed the institute as a way to bring people to Knoxville to receive the training they wanted. The TPA Foundation approved funding to build a new lab in the College of Communications to house the first institute class.
Slimp, director of the institute and adjunct faculty member in the College of Communication and Information, is a nationally recognized speaker and trainer in the news production industry. He is best known for developing the remote printing method using the PDF file, now the industry standard for file creation.
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Contacts:
April Moore, (865) 974-0463, amoore9@utk.edu
Amy Blakely, (865) 974-5034, amy.blakely@tennessee.edu