Telling Factual Stories Through Text & Video

Location: Rachel Carson Center, fourth floor, Conference Room, Leopoldstr. 11a, 80802 Munich, Germany

Guest Speaker: Mara Van Ells

How often do you get your news from Instagram, TikTok, X, or YouTube?

If you get at least part of your news from these platforms, you’re not alone. In the US, the Pew Research Center found that 53 percent of adults get at least some of their news from social media. In Europe, 42 percent of people between the ages of 16 and 30 rely mainly on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube for news about politics and social issues, according to a 2025 European Parliament Youth Survey.

In this workshop, we’ll learn to write short-form scripts for news and feature videos that are published on social media. We’ll cover tips and best practices, from choosing which stories work best for video to creating intrigue with your opening line in order to hook your audience.

Participants will receive a news story and video elements and practice writing their own scripts.

The workshop is limited to 15 people. To sign up, please email pauline.kargruber@rcc.lmu.de.

Mara Van Ells is a freelance video journalist and producer. Her specialty is in creating engaging news videos for social media. Most recently, she edited social news videos for Politico during the 2026 Munich Security Conference.

As a senior producer at AJ+, she created short-form news videos that earned millions of views across social-media platforms. Her daily grind included pitching stories, interviewing subjects, writing and fact-checking scripts, gathering video assets, and editing the pieces together. Her video “Lessons from a Holocaust Survivor” won the People’s Voice Award in the Documentary: Individual Episode Short Form category in 2018.

Prior to working in video, she wrote for the Minnesota Star Tribune, the Bismarck Tribune, Newsday, The Atlantic, and more. She holds a Master of Journalism degree with an emphasis in new media from UC Berkeley and a Bachelor of Arts in theater and journalism from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.