Josephine Lee, right, participated in the WORLD Journalism Institute shortly after graduating from TMU in May 2024.

This summer, Josephine Lee (’24) and Jeremiah Yonemura (’25) were selected to participate in the WORLD Journalism Institute (WJI). The two-week program, hosted in Sioux Center, Iowa, provided them with a crash course in multimedia journalism.

WORLD is a Christian journalism organization with print, online, and podcast outlets. The company’s training program is integrated with these platforms, allowing participants like Lee and Yonemura to see their coursework published across various mediums.

The program was an opportunity for Lee and Yonemura to get hands-on experience with these different forms of journalism, while being mentored by working professionals who modeled how to think biblically about their field.

“It’s a really concentrated time of learning,” Lee said. “You’re learning to write and edit and think like a journalist over a twelve- or thirteen-hour workday, alongside thirty other students. It’s grueling. But the stories you get to put out — that’s so rewarding.”

Yonemura had two news pieces published in the politics section of the WORLD website. Lee, meanwhile, found success on the podcasting side of the program; WORLD’s “The World and Everything In It” podcast aired a spot that Lee wrote and recorded, telling the story of basketball coach Les Douma.

For Lee, writing for broadcast was a completely new experience. But her program instructors encouraged her to explore broadcast writing, and she says that her previous experience at TMU — which included writing website and magazine stories for the University’s institutional communications department — was foundational.

“It gave me such a solid background in writing good, clean prose,” Lee says. “It really prepared me, even for a totally new medium.”

Both Yonemura and Lee have studied communications at TMU — Yonemura as a journalism student, and Lee as a double-major in communications and interdisciplinary studies. The WJI program served as an opportunity to further explore and refine their journalism skills, equipping them for future writing opportunities.

“Honestly, before coming to TMU, I’d never considered becoming a journalist,” Lee said. “Now, because of the fantastic experiences I’ve had, I’m thinking all the time about the stories around me, and I know I’ll be ready to tell them when the time comes.”

Learn more about TMU’s communications programs here.

Lee’s story on “The World and Everything in It” starts around the 21:40 mark at the below link.