NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(Madison, WI) – InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA announces that Urbana Today, the daily newspaper of the Urbana 06 Student Missions Convention, will be staffed by a team of student journalists from colleges and universities across the U.S. InterVarsity’s Urbana 06 Student Missions Convention will be held at the America’s Center and the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis, December 27-31, 2006. Attendance at Urbana 06 is expected to be around 25,000.

To assemble the student reporting team for Urbana 06, InterVarsity is partnering with World Journalism Institute (WJI). WJI’s mission is to train journalists who are Christian to enter mainstream newsrooms. WJI sponsors a number of training events and weekend conferences at locations across the country.

Students who are chosen for this project will work in a newsroom at the America’s Center and in the press box of the Edward Jones Dome during the five-day convention. They will work under the editorial supervision of professional journalists and have daily assignments for Urbana Today. This will be the first time that student journalists will have a major role in reporting the scope of events at Urbana to attendees, as well as to the rest of the world through the convention website, www.urbana.org.

Urbana Today staff will be credentialed members of the Urbana 06 press corps. They will receive free registration to the Urbana 06 convention and be eligible for discounted rates at convention hotels.

Students who are interested in reporting on Urbana 06 for Urbana Today must apply to be a part of this internship program. Urbana Today is in need of print reporters, photographers, editors, and designers who have training and experience in journalism. Applications are being taken at the WJI website: www.worldji.com.

Applications for Urbana Today staff are due by Sunday, October 22, 2006.

The Urbana Student Missions Convention has been sponsored by InterVarsity Christian Fellowship approximately every three years since 1946, to offer each student generation an invitation to participate in God’s global mission. It has traditionally been held on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In 2004 InterVarsity announced plans to move the Urbana 06 convention to the America’s Center and the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis.

Issue #1

For more information:

Gordon Govier
InterVarsity Christian Fellowship
ggovier@intervarsity.org
(608) 443-3688

Kim Collins
World Journalism Institute
kcollins@worldji.com
(828) 232-5436

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