Covering immigration is not easy. It often requires an understanding of public policy and immigration law, an appreciation of U.S. history and our social dynamics, and an ability to convey in a compelling, even-handed way the everyday stories of immigrants. For some, the immigration beat may pose ethical challenges since opinions on this topic are so intense and divided. Indeed, reporters with strong personal feelings about the issue, whether because of their immigrant roots, their religion or other ties, may find their sense of balance and fairness challenged.

This is a basic guide for creating and operating a successful newspaper business. This booklet is intended to be useful for newspaper entrepreneurs in developing countries, and in countries with newly emergent press freedoms or market economies. Most newspapers begin with an idea, a mission or an inspiration. Few newspapers are started in developing societies primarily as a vehicle to make money for their owners. Because most newspaper entrepreneurs get started for non-business reasons, they need a basic guide to the business of running a newspaper.

This manual has been adapted from the International Center for Journalists’ operational handbook and has been used by our trainers for more than a decade. It pulls together long-proven methods of training adults in general, professional journalists and managers in particular, and international journalists and managers especially. It comes from lessons learned (sometimes the hard way) in more than 20 years of training by the Center, its staff, and its hundreds of adjunct faculty and consultants who have made a science out of imparting information and skills to others.

Identifying and weighing the elements that make a story important or interesting to a reader can help you decide whether to pursue a story, what to emphasize in the lead and how to organize the story. Among the elements to consider: Importance/Relevance, timeliness, proximity, prominence, audience, conflict, novelty. This manual provides crucial tips for improving the quality of journalism.

It is essential that journalists in Latin America think about ethics in their profession, talk about ethics with their colleagues and their audiences, and develop ethical standards and guidelines that fit their needs and circumstances. To encourage these things is the purpose of this video and handbook. Ethics for the media in Latin America must emerge from those who write and edit the news, from the publishers and station owners, and from the workers who sell the advertising and subscriptions to sustain their businesses.

This workbook contains advice and practice material for use with the ICFJ videotape/text training program Getting the Story: The Basics of Professional Journalism. The videotape shows various activities being performed in the gathering and processing of news. The 39-minute video has three parts. Each of this Workbook’s three parts corresponds to a part in the videotape. The workbook is meant to be used in a classroom situation or merely as an individual supplement to the videotape.

This manual intends to illustrate the most serious threats to freedom of expression and freedom of the press in Latin America, and it reviews international treaties that guarantee freedom of expression as a fundamental human right necessary for democracy. Some 350 journalists from more than 150 communities in Latin America participated in seminars and shared their individual experiences.