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journalism

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20
Sep 12

The evolving journalism pedagogy

“The ‘fundamentals’ of anything are challenging simply because so much else rests on their shoulders,” wrote professor Chris Arnold. It works nicely with the popular line “I don’t teach software, I teach skills.” Professor Mindy McAdams went a step further this week in a Nieman Lab essay, imploring readers to train young journalists to be lifelong learners:

Most of them chose journalism because they like to write. Anything that involves HTML, CSS, code, or programming makes many of them almost shut down, shrink away, move toward the door. We have all kinds of challenges in journalism education, but this one is front and center, right now. It’s not just students’ avoidance of things perceived to be somehow math-related. It’s also:

Reluctance to spend time exploring something that doesn’t have an explicit or immediate payoff

Skepticism or negative attitude toward any task that’s not spelled out in detail

The tendency to give up and say “I can’t” or “I don’t know how”

Preoccupation with a process, such as writing, instead of with stories

This applies to storytelling as much as to technology. Any time a student says “You didn’t tell us we had to do that” in a conversation about a poor grade on a story, you’re hearing evidence of this challenge. The more students insist on explicit instructions, the further they are from independence.

You could do something by rote requirement of a class, but there’s no critical thinking there.

Students can thrive from learning how to evaluate which skills are best for any given story. (I’ve yet to have a sophomore intuitively understand how they might leverage the huge strength of their Facebook account for their journalism, for example.) They need to be encouraged to experiment with new tools. They must learn to overcome the fear of ruining sites or databases or equipment. (You aren’t inclined to tinker if tech intimidates you.) They have to learn how to discern which medium, methods and tools are the best for their particular story. When they do, you get independent thought and critical thinking.

None of these things involve just showing them what is useful here or there. Far better to help students realize those things themselves because a successful career requires a healthy curiosity to stay in the curve. The newsrooms from which they retire in 40 years won’t be anything like the first ones they’ll enter today, after all.

McAdams also mentions Ira Glass, who has some points worth digesting:

I try to encourage enthusiasm among students because it can carry over into their studies and work. Real education comes from understanding the joy of learning.

That’s pretty fundamental.

In other news I’m fighting muscle spasms around my shoulder again. I’ll be fully recovered in another month. And the pain will go away by Christmas, he said. I should have thought to ask the surgeon how long the spasms will last.

If you spend enough time on a heating pad you don’t have much to write about here. Go figure.

So this, a helpful cross section of the people representing us at the presidential conventions.

Clearly video and poking fun at them is the proper way to tell this story. Have a lovely evening.

iPhone / journalism / links / Monday / photo / Samford — Comments Off
17
Sep 12

Know what today is?

We’re getting that autumn light. Bested only by the great relief of spring light — Winter is leaving! — that soft, golden orange of a fall evening is like receiving an invitation for an event you’ve never quite been able to attend. You’ve always wanted to go, but it has always been out of reach, or you’ve always been unavailable.

He said, ruining a perfectly fledgling analogy.

You can’t go to the sun because you’d burn up. So, really, you’ve now received this invitation but realized That’s lovely, though, I remember what happened to Daedalus’ son. I’ll keep my wings undamaged, thanks.

Another Monday, another day of nothing exciting to report. All of my Mondays feel the same: email, reading, making class notes and looking forward to Tuesday. And the sun, always the sun.

A few things elsewhere, then: Florida journalism professor Mindy McAdams: Don’t just teach skills, train young journalists to be lifelong learners:

The ability to learn on your own and teach yourself new skills depends on your willingness to play, experiment, make mistakes, and stick with things that take much longer than you had expected.

This will actually come up in my class tomorrow, the joy of learning.

The 150th anniversary of the bloodiest day in U.S. history, Antietam. And there’s also a series of then-and-now photographs, using the same photographic techniques.

Finally, today is Constitution Day. Celebrate with a First Amendment quiz. If you make it all the way through and ace every answer you can call yourself a real party animal. And you will have also passed the bar in Maryland.

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13
Sep 12

High School Journalism Workshop

Each fall we host several hundred students from across the region for a day on the Samford campus. We bring in industry leaders, mix them with our faculty and try to give the high school students a day of fun and a little learning.

Here are a few pictures.

Dr. Dennis Jones talks about newspaper design:

Samford alumnae, and CBS 42 reporter, Kaitlin McCulley leads a large session on broadcast reporting:

Kyle Whitmire, who recently joined The Birmingham News and al.com, talks about online journalism to this group:

Samford’s senior photographer, Caroline Summers talks about digital photojournalism. (Naturally I take a shaky picture of this.)

Buddy Roberts of The Leeds News & St. Clair News-Aegis has a full house for his sports reporting session.

Birmingham News business reporter Marty Swant discusses intermediate reporting.

Finally, and joined in progress, here is Dr. Julie Williams, who leads a session on beginning writing. She illustrates her first point by making peanut butter sandwiches. The people in the session have to help her.

What you don’t see is their order to open the bread. She grabs the back and rips it apart, flinging the bread everywhere. They tell her to tear off a paper towel, and she pinches off a corner of one sheet.

I edited that on my phone, while walking from one building to the next. This technology still amazes me.

There were other sessions, but they were all opposite mine, so I could not visit them. I talked about building an organization, staffing the newsroom and the various challenges and successes you have in school newsrooms. It was so gripped my room stayed three extra minutes.

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12
Sep 12

Volume 98 begins

It was a late night. About 2:30 or 3 this morning, I think, when they finished their newspaper. Much faster than the first night last year. Not as fast as they’ll be later in the year, of course. And of course time doesn’t matter so much. Work on it until the sun rises if it means the quality is good.

And the first paper is pretty good. This is a young staff, with only one returning section editor from last year. They’re learning as they go, and we’ll make sure they learn a lot. But for a first edition, this is promising. You can see it online here.

We had our first critique meeting just after lunch today. Four members of the editorial staff were there, and we laughed and told jokes and asked questions about this or that in the paper. There are errors to correct, but there are many things to brag on. Later in the day they received compliments from two big titles in the university’s administration. That’s a nice pat on the back, too.

Spent part of the afternoon unpacking a few new cameras for the department.

We have added a large handful of new high definition equipment this year. When they handed me this part of my job a few years ago it was a mess. As of today we are an all-HD shop.

A great plan from the faculty, great support from the university’s administration and attention to detail have made it happen. The digital video center is a part of the program we are proud of.

Hard working students, smart planning among the faculty and an administration that is taking part. No wonder Samford is a great place to work.

Pretty, too. This is one of our lovely buildings, as the afternoon is winding down:

And this is west campus, from Talbird Circle, looking back toward Seibert Hall:

This came up on Twitter. Someone we know from Alabama, and from Auburn, is back at Alabama for law school. But before she returned to Tuscaloosa she came to visit the Cumberland School of Law at Samford. She’s jealous, but, you know, they are all beautiful campuses.

Chick-fil-A now wants your name, for when your order is ready. The guy at the cash register asked. Threw me for a loop. Why does everyone need my name? This is probably a good idea at lunchtime. For now I hope I can hear them over the din of the … three people in here at dinner.

Also that manager is working. That guy. You know the one; he moonlights as security at concerts so he can get his authority on. One night I saw him almost work his way into a fistfight over what time he closed his store. He’s a bit aggressive with his employees, too. Just a bit intense for a chicken place.

Remember, during the week of Chick-fil-A Week of Free Publicity, that after the I Eat Mor Chickun campaign, there was to be a kiss-in after that. Some wondered if that would devolve into a nasty scene. If there were going to be fisticuffs it wouldn’t have surprised me to learn it involved him.

Here’s why you love Chick-fil-A, though: the guy who took my order gave me a coupon for a free sandwich for the delay. I’d waited an eternity, three minutes.

More rehab tonight. I’m sore, but that’s more muscle sore than injury sore. Seems I can easily overdo it, that’s progress. So, yes, let’s do that again.

And then I did an hour of intervals on a bike, clocking 19.5 miles and showing watts and METs I don’t understand. I’m just waiting for the muscle spasms to go away. A few days after that — I have to make sure they aren’t trying to trick me — then I’ll try to really ride again. It has been a while, but my shoulder says no rush. So far I’ve been inclined to agree, which seems odd. I try not to think about it.

Arms are too sore, you see.

journalism / links / Samford / Tuesday / video — Comments Off
11
Sep 12

How turtles talk

I taught a class on Associated Press style and on visual journalism this afternoon. I showed the students this video:

I use it a lot. It is very touching and incredibly moving. It is relatable. It has a lot of great production elements, video and photographs. Color and black and white. It tells a story from beginning to end. There is music, which I see as a mileage may vary kind of thing. I don’t think it is really necessary, but it is clear where they are going with it.

The best parts are where the producers interject in the story and where they are smart enough to stay out of the way. There’s an art to that.

We watched this unembeddable slideshow from NPR, too. In it we meet Steve Campbell and his Iraqi bride as they negotiate the day to day struggle to make a life for themselves in Missouri. Natural sound, coordination of the audio and the visual, and the everydayness just make an interesting story.

We tend to overlook those sometimes.

Therapy this evening, pushing small weights up and down, or left and right as the circumstance required. Rode a bit on a bike. Cleaned up, had dinner, went back into the office.

Tonight the student-journalists at the Crimson are putting their first paper of the year to bed. We start the school year a bit later than most, and we’re a weekly, so it feels like a late beginning, but we’ve used most of the time well.

There is a lot to learn, we have a young staff this year, but they are all eager to do good work, and that’s the key. Also, having fun. They introduced me to mershed perderders which, approaching midnight, was funnier than it should have been. I did not know turtles have such poor diction.

Tomorrow the students get to see the fruits of their labors. Just as exciting as the first night of layout is the unheralded first critique of the year.