National Public Radio correspondent Sonari Glinton will serve as a guest instructor in June for the digital media summer camp offered by Mercer University’s Center for Collaborative Journalism.
 
Glinton is a familiar voice to NPR’s 30 million weekly listeners, covering the auto industry and other business topics from the NPR West bureau in Culver City, California. He appears regularly on NPR’s flagship programs “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered,” on NPR’s economics podcast “Planet Money,” in NPR’s hourly newscasts and has made memorable contributions to the public radio show “This American Life.”
 
Glinton will join Mercer’s journalism faculty June 11-17 as they host about 40 high-schoolers from across the country in Macon for the fifth annual CCJ Digital Media Camp, an intensive boot camp where students are exposed to the broad portfolio of skills demanded of today’s multimedia journalists – video, audio, photography, social media, web development and the core skill of writing. The camp is supported by the Knight Foundation, and most students attend on scholarship.
 
“My most gratifying work in the last decade has come from collaborating with the young people at [California-based] Youth Radio. Journalism is a trade. And there is nothing more fun or subversive than giving a young person the tools for a career. I’m excited that Mercer has offered me another opportunity to work with talented young people. I’m hoping to stack the deck by training my next boss,” Glinton said.
 
For the second consecutive year, the CCJ Digital Media Camp will be a collaboration with the Otis Music Camp offered on Mercer’s campus by the Macon-based Otis Redding Foundation. CCJ campers will produce multimedia profiles of the gifted young musicians attending the Otis Music Camp.
 
The Otis Redding connection is a particular enticement for Glinton, he said. “People familiar with my work know about my obsession with American popular song. I am humbled to get to spend time in Redding’s hometown and to help tell the stories of young musicians who are inspired by his legacy.”
 
Having a journalist of Glinton’s caliber and national profile on campus for the week will make this year’s camp a special experience for students, said CCJ Executive Director Tim Regan-Porter. “Sonari is the embodiment of everything we’re trying to help our student journalists become: a true multi-media correspondent with great hard-news chops and a strong personal brand that shines through particularly well on social media.”