Kerry McCluskey
Northern News Services

IQALUIT (Mar 01/99) - Just days after hundreds of reporters and media officials flood into Nunavut to cover its official birth on April 1, a course is scheduled to begin at Arctic College that might just change the way news is covered -- at least in the new territory.

According to Gordon Wainman, the instructor of the media communications program at Nunatta campus in Iqaluit, the program was developed because different groups in the North identified a need for trained, local media.

"They did a needs assessment and they tapped into government, private business, educational institutions and different organizations and they all came back that there's a big need," said Wainman.

While there has been a push across Nunavut to develop the population's capacity in all sectors of the workforce, the need to build a group of journalists who speak Inuktitut and understand the North and its people has been specifically expressed.

The need was then taken to the funding body known as the Nunavut Unified Human Resource Development Strategy and after considering the proposal, dollars were granted to run the program for a trial period of one year.

Wainman, who's received extensive training as a journalist, an educator and a lawyer, and has worked in numerous cross-cultural settings, will teach most of the three-semester program himself.

As well as teaching the students to write press releases and news stories through daily writing assignments, Wainman will teach a current events class by utilizing local people familiar with politics.

"Somebody from the new government or the journalist from CBC, Paul Quassa, who was instrumental in getting the land claim negotiated."

The afternoon portion of the first and second semester will be dedicated to modules that teach the students about desktop publishing and introduce them to electronic, print, radio and televised media.

"Hopefully we'll put out a newspaper or possibly a magazine. The aim is to have a newspaper on the Internet."

With four confirmed students in the program to date and several applications in the works, Wainman said he would also be looking for co-op placements in Iqaluit for the students in the third semester. Because the program will train students to work either as reporters or as communications officers, their choice of placement will reflect their intended career choice.

"There will be job placements where you will be in the real world, writing press releases, news stories, whatever area you're going into," said Wainman.

The deadline to apply for the course is March 5 and classes are scheduled to begin April 6.