What we do.
Workshops
Assignment workshops focus on projects that are already in the early stages of development. Those of us who serve as Assignment mentors and instructors—a diverse group of preeminent writers, reporters, editors, producers, and educators—share critical tools, techniques, and processes, and work with our fellows to shape both their reporting and the storytelling that follows. And we make ourselves available to them through the journey to publication and beyond.
Beyond
The way we see it, the workshops are just the start: Our aim is to build long-standing creative and professional relationships and establish a lasting community that Assignment alumni can rely on for mentorship and support in their continuing efforts to publish work that brings the moral force of outstanding reporting and writing to bear on ignorance and abuses of power, wherever they may exist.
Assignment aims to help our fellows develop expertise in a wide range of areas, including:
Finding the big idea, and the real story
Proving—or disproving—those ideas through the intensive, ethical gathering of facts
The use of advanced technology, data reporting, open records laws, and FOIA requests
Advanced interviewing techniques
The practice of immersion journalism
The architecture, rhythm, and pacing essential to compelling storytelling
Essential narrative techniques, scene setting, and character development with an emphasis on artful, nuanced writing that engages a wide audience and has a tangible impact on the reader and beyond
The critical work of
self-editing
Finding—or creating—avenues for publication that have the potential to generate sustainable income while contributing to the greater social and political good
Working collaboratively with editors, producers, fact-checkers, and agents
And last
but not least:
Speaking truth to power, even when confronted with efforts to intimidate, stonewall, censor, silence, or marginalize.