While many high school students kicked off the summer with pool parties and trips to the beach, Seton Catholic Preparatory’s Max Muehlhausen was documenting it all and other news items as part of Arizona State University Summer Journalism Institute at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
Muehlhausen, a Gilbert resident and rising senior at Seton in Chandler, was among 28 high school journalists from across the country selected for the Summer Journalism Institute. Others hailed from Arizona, Missouri, Nebraska and New Mexico. They spent June 4-16 in an immersive journalism program attending classes with Cronkite faculty, touring local media outlets, and producing a newscast and cutting-edge news website.
Program participants received scholarships to attend the Institute from the Arizona Broadcasters Association, the Scripps Howard Foundation and generous gifts from Cronkite Endowment Board members Tom Chauncey and Tim Riester. Scholarships cover the cost of meals, training and housing on ASU’s Downtown Phoenix campus.
“There aren’t very many students that get to do something like this,” said Art Brooks, president and CEO of the Arizona Broadcasters Association. “They get to work with some of the best instructors they could hope to find before they even get to college.”
Classes included in-depth lessons on reporting, writing, multimedia journalism, videography and video editing. At the end of the two-week program, students worked with Cronkite faculty to produce a professional-level, 30-minute newscast.
The students created news packages, wrote scripts and operated state-of-the-art studio equipment for the project. They also experienced the ASU Downtown Phoenix campus, staying at the Taylor Place Residence Hall and visiting the Sun Devil Fitness Complex.
Muehlhausen applied for the Institute because he is considering following his father into the communications field. His father, Timothy Muehlhausen, is a vice president of programming for CBS Radio, which operates three stations in the Phoenix market.
While at Seton, Max has taken classes in photography, Adobe Photoshop and graphic design, and is also interested in music production.
#CronkiteSJI was one of the best group of high schoolers I have ever worked with. Going to miss them so much! ❤️#SJI17 @Cronkite_ASU pic.twitter.com/RKjLzuG7Fa
— Kristiana Faddoul (@k_faddoul) June 16, 2017
