Saturday, October 27, 2007

Night in the Hilton Lobby

Our first experience with backpack journalism.


Summit Talks.

One of the greatest hopes (and fears) that I had going into this conference was whether the students going to D.C. would actually get along. Are we all one big happy student media family or actually disparate, discrete groups doing our own thing without much thought about the others?

In faculty meetings, we often speak of convergence and cross-media platforms. However, many of our journalism majors only work for one student media group and have no inclination to contribute to another, unless made to do so via a practicum.

So, the reality is that newspaper people are over here, yearbook people over there, Argus people down the hall or upstairs (see, even I don’t know enough), and radio people downstairs. Even NSU 22, which is technically not student media but instead a student laboratory, does its own thing in its own television production suite. Lauren Sciba, a senior news/editorial journalism major, is the sports editor of the yearbook, the PSA director of the radio station and a staff reporter for the paper. But student media multi-hyphenates like Lauren tend to be few and far between.

Well, don’t give up on convergence just yet. Several of the people on this D.C. trip have said that one of the best things about this experience has been the chance to get to know their fellow student media leaders better.


Watching them interact these past few days, I see that they are creating alliances and striking deals across formerly rigid party lines. Jim of the Sauce promises to write more for Potpourri. Brittany from yearbook is considering writing for the newspaper's sport section. Richelle from KNWD is writing reviews for the Sauce. Chris, Sauce opinions editor, will continue to work with KNWD's political talk show. Andi just might be able to persuade Mary to submit some of her photography to Argus.

Because we are a small department, we must rely on few to make media for many. I can say with confidence that when all of the forces of NSU student media band together, great things can happen. This blog is Exhibit A.

Dr. Lee