Where can aspiring journalists go to learn how to write?

Freelance writer and journalism teacher Gary Moskowitz has an interesting piece on PBS’s Mediashift about how his students are frustrated by the lack of writing in the curriculum.

Moskowitz teaches online journalism at City University London and London School of Journalism, and he notes that he and his colleagues spend so much time teaching about the new tools of the trade that they don’t have time to work with their students on their writing—even though the students, when asked, tend to say they got into journalism because they love to write.

He writes:

Because students come to me for classes in online journalism—in which writing takes a backseat to widgets, HTML, audio, video, live-blogging, tweeting, and data visualizations—I often feel like telling my students who really love to write: “Sorry, you’ve come to the wrong place. The creative writing lecture is down the hall” …

Their dream to write is easily deferred by a curriculum that leaves little room for discussion about writing style and technique. We’re constantly telling them to write snappier, say what they need to with as few words as possible, and link to the rest, so how can they truly develop a unique writing voice in our classes? They need to do that on their own time or in another class, which inevitably causes some of them to then draw a line between “real” journalism and “web” journalism.

Moskowitz proposes no solution to this problem*, which is severe enough to have caused a minor uprising by writing-deprived students at one of his schools.

I don’t have one either. But I do know of a place where aspiring journalists can work on their writing “on their own time.” Especially if they know anything about sports.

* Update: See the comments, where Moskowitz writes that he does propose a solution to the problem: “Perhaps we, the teachers, need to help find a way to better connect ‘online’ goals and tasks to standard journalism practice so we can mitigate student confusion.”

OK, where do I go to learn reading comprehension skills?