Diversity and Opportunity

I was highly disappointed in this session. The speaker was Marion O'Grady, a 19-year veteran of The New York Times. I thought she would be a great speaker and I was really excited. She ended up being late, and her partner was unable to make it.

She basically gave a general overview on diversity and the importance of opportunity. She told us to embrance each other's personality as a way to keep things interesting. We need to be open to change and differences and to take advantage of opportunities. She says to take advantage of multiple forms of media both print and digital.

It was very repetitive and basically explained topics I already understand.

Brittany Byrd

Sex, Love, and Rock of Ages: Handle with Care

This session focused on the importance of reporting on touchy topics and how to do so tastefully. Topics like sex and love can be awkward for some reporters to write about, but they are newsworthy and we owe it to the reader to cover these stories.

It is important for reporters to be able to rise above pressure and internal conflict. "Hot issues" are interesting to the reader, and ignoring these issues can cause a loss of credibility. Even Christian magazines cover these types of issues because there is a call to understand sex/sexuality more.

Be sure to talk to experts, faculty (because they have more than likely done research on the topic) and health officials. The point is to make sure you have good sources. Administrators usually find these topics uncomfortable so it is important that you are prepared for some confrontation.

These types of stories don't always have to be covered in the opinions section they can be features also. Look for positive vs. negative angles or conflict driven pieces. Use a small group of friends as a focus group to get story ideas.

There are several things to avoid though. Do not use these types of stories for shock value -- that defeats the purpose -- and avoid clichés, hypothetical stories, and condescending (preachy) stories.

Address these topics as news, an important, truthful story that you worked hard on.

Brittany Byrd

What's New on the National Advertising Scene?

Three national rep firms spent about 20 minutes each with our group discussing what they predicted for the upcoming year.

Alloy Media and Marketing

This company represents a lot of government branches, like the Coast Guard, Bank of America, K-Mart, AT&T and (new this year) Walgreens. They did have two large accounts, McDonald's and Wal-Mart, not renew contracts this year, but they believe that they will be back next year. An interesting fact about this company is that they developed the hit book and television series "Gossip Girls." They also worked on the development of "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants."

Campus Media

Significant Accounts: Sprint, Blimpie's, and Carl Jr.'s

This company is expanding and in the beginning stages of working with magazines. There are also job opportunities here. The company is looking for young graduates to fill open positions.

This company prepares a PSA pro bono for a non-profit group each year for college campuses to use. I passed this information on to Lauren so she can look into it for KNWD.

College Media Network

MTV recently purchased this company. They placed over 2000 ads this semester and are ahead from last year due to several major accounts and acquisitions. MTV is moving into the college media market, as well as utilizing MTV U.

Brittany Byrd

Ins and Outs of Resumes and Portfolios

This session was not what I expected. It was set up as a question and answer session. The information was useful and informative, but it could have been more detailed.

The panel emphasized proofreading your resumes several times; as a senior, I know to do that. I am aware of the fact that mistakes on a resume can be a dealbreaker. I was looking for more in-depth information.

The panel also discussed how technology is becoming increasingly important when applying for a job. They suggested creating an electronic portfolio/resume and explained the necessity of listing technological skills so that it can be determined where you stand when you do get a job. The panel even went as far to say that they have not hired applicants because they did not have a Facebook page. They explained they did not want to hire someone who was not up with technology.

They also went on to discuss portfolios. It is important that portfolios look neat. Be sure to use a high-quality copier, adjust the toner, and remove all staples. Limit your samples to five because no one has time to look through a book of samples. Make sure to include a variety of samples and that you can talk about each.

When networking, be assertive and show that you want the job.

The panel also mentioned a Web site similar to Facebook called Linked In. It is a grown-up version of Facebook and can be very beneficial when applying to jobs.

Brittany Byrd

How Do I Get an Internship?

I was so excited about this session. Katie Curcio, director of the CBS Internship program, was the speaker. The session was very informal with the eight people in the room sitting in a circle, just talking. She explained the internship program at CBS and the different departments. There is only one PR internship available and three available within the advertising/marketing departments. During the fall and spring, broadcast interns only work two days a week, and during the summer they are full time. The internships are not paid, but she has set up a partnership with a dorm building to provide low rent housing for interns. Curcio said that sometimes it is hard for participants to balance holding a paying job and getting the full experience of working with the media.

She told our group that the most important qualification to have was to simply love the news! She explained that experience was a Catch-22. Interns need experience, but at the same time sometimes it's best if the experience you have is what you are taught at their station.

Curcio also discussed resumes and interviews. She advised students to research the company that you are applying to before even beginning your resume. When preparing your resume, keep it to one page and include relevant work experience but try to avoid including extracurricular and awards that are insignificant. It is important to include your computer skills as this is becoming increasingly important when applying for a job.

She went on to discuss interviews and the importance of being prepared. In her experience, an interview can make or break an applicant. Curcio emphasized having ideas/story pitches that are relevant to your market lined up for an interview. She also said to keep your options open when applying and not to close yourself off. When asked about areas of interest, be open to any position and just touch on specific areas of interest.

Curcio concluded by summarizing again the importance of the application process and the internship experience and stated that the more you put into it, the more you will get out of it.

Brittany Byrd

Staying ahead of the Digital Curve

College Publisher hosted this session at 12:30 p.m. on Friday and introduced the new edition of College Publisher. The College Publisher 5.0 Beta will be slowly added to newspapers next year.
The biggest news about this version is it will no longer be issue based! This means that the site can be updated as things occur (like a real newsroom).

Another important highlight is that users will have more control of their site's design. Before, you'd have to get in touch with a design expert with College Publisher (which took a while for them to answer their phones) and they would change the site for the user. Now the user can do as they please, with no html knowledge necessary. In the administration screen, all one needs to do is drag and drop. Content can be added to any column.

College Publisher teamed up with a company from Sweden to completely redesign their product. They realized that while their initial product was good, it was not offering college media all that it needed.

Kera Simon

Portfolios and Resumes

On Friday at 11 a.m., I attended a session designed as a question-and-answer panel about portfolios and resumes. This was very helpful for someone like me who has time to improve their resume.

The panel's strongest tip for resume writing was to proofread. They all agreed that the worst thing to see on a resume is common misspellings. They said it is even worse if a person lists "pays attention to details" and has misspellings. One of the panelists said if a person lists that as a quality and then makes spelling errors, "Well, then it is obvious that you don't."

They also emphasized that the copy quality was important. They suggested making a high quality copy to keep and make copies from.

It was also quite emphasized to have an online resume or personal professional website. They said it was very important to show that you are online-savvy. Also, they hinted that if a person doesn't have an online site during this drastic electronic age, it suggests that you are behind the times.

Also, when discussing a portfolio, their suggestion was to be very picky about your selections. The employers want to see your skills as a reporter, so pick the best.

Kera Simon

Column Writing

Bob Levey of the Washington Post emphasized the importance of column writing. The place was packed. Due to an overflow of students, many were forced to find a spot on the floor. Levey spoke with enthusiasm and passion about the "funnest job in the newsroom." He gave tips to overcome writer's block when writing columns, and also discussed the role of the editor and what contitutes a good one.

Chris

When Jail is not an Option

The discussion was about a First Amendment case involving a small community newspaper publishing photos that were vital to a murder case. A 14-year-old male was charged with murder in Santa Monica. A judge forced the publishers to hand over the photos before suffering fines of $1,000 a day. The newspaper turned in the photos, but published them on the same day.

Chris

Covering the Unimaginable: The Collegiate Times Speaks About Virginia Tech Shooting

Amie Steele, editor-in-chief of the Collegiate Times at Virginia Tech gave tips on how to cover a major disaster at your campus. The tips included:

Remember why your’re publishing a paper. Keep the focus on the community.
Communication is the key.
Discuss what should and shouldn’t be published.
Make policies ahead of time for dealing outside media.
Don’t lower your expectations.

Chris

First Amendment and Student Media

Lawyer Adam Goldstein talked about libel issues with college newspapers. He distinguished between the different types of public forums and libel per se and libel per quod. Goldstein also discussed the difference between libeling a public figure and libeling a private citizen. A public figure is anyone who voluntarily includes thrusts themselves into the public spotlight. Actual malice must be proved when libeling a public figure. Only negligence must be proved in a libel suit involving private citizens.

Chris

Convention General Session: Politics and the Media

This was the best session at the convention. Sam Feist, Political Director for CNN, lead a discussion about his job and the 24-hour news channels. Feist was highly motivated and well informed. He led an open forum discussing the war in Iraq and the broadcast media coverage.

Chris

Keeping the dream alive

Friday morning I tried to go to "Thinking like an editor," but it was overflowing with students. So, I went to this one instead. It was about literary magazines, so it didn't really apply to me that much, but it was still interesting. It also helped to hear about business models and publishing, because I know zero about all that. The speaker was very encouraging, though, about continuing to write and to do whatever you're passionate about even if it doesn't seem like a success.

Leigh

Headline writing

One of the more valuable sessions I attended. Because it was led by Tom Pierce -- formerly of the St. Petersburg Times -- it was SRO, but I was able to see a good bit of the slides through a crack in the door. I also received a very informative handout summarizing the principles of good headline writing. To avoid redundancy, Pierce showed bad examples in his slide show and pretty much just pointed out what would be a good idea to avoid. Ambiguity, cliches and headlines that don't come close to encapsulating the story of pulling in the reader are among the things to be avoided. He said he is a strong advocate of making headlines amusing when it's appropriate and using puns. The handout is very detailed and even says which fonts and font sizes to avoid. He suggests first writing out the most important words regarding the story and just playing around with them, never just thinking out a headline in your head.

Jim Mustian

What do you mean you can't find a feature?

I didn't get to see too much of this one as I was behind a door for the first few minutes of the presentation. I was also pretty miffed that Tom Pierce's sessions all seemed to be SRO when they covered an array of topics I think most print journalists attending the conference would have been interested in. They certainly should have given him a bigger room to work with.

From what I could gather, Pierce talked about finding good feature story topics all over campus by looking deeply into what kind of faculty members are on staff as they are usually people who have already gone a lot of places and done a lot of interesting things. He also said international students should necessarily be considered as topics.

He started the session by listing the four types of feature stories: those that are interesting, those that are important, those that are neither and those that are both and said we would be focused primarily on the last category.

Jim Mustian

Bob Levey, the self-declared legend

This session was by far the most entertaining and was also very informative. I went into this session having entertained the notion of someday undertaking some column writing and left sure that I would soon be a part of it.

Mr. Levey was a journalist at The Washington Post for 35 years -- he covered hard news including sports for 15 of those -- and has also written three books. He has a really booming radio voice and also worked in broadcast for eight years. Mr. Levey addressed the responsibility all columnists have and he also praised the opportunity of being a voice to a community. He boasted about having raised $13 million through fundraising for charities in his time and said this demonstrates how a columnist can have an impact.

He went through the daily rigors of coming up with a topic and compared and contrasted column writing to news and feature writing, emphasizing the importance of having first done the latter. He reminded us that -- while the stylistic rules still apply for the most -- columnists are free to address matters that are too unprofessional to appear in a news story and mockingly pointed out that you don't have to have "a nutgraph" as in feature writing where you tie everything together.

Levey joked about his age and told us a few times that none of us should be writing sex columns because we are inexperienced. His l0ve for journalism is still palpable and he claims to read six or seven newspapers each day.

I loved this session.

Jim Mustian

Watching the dogs

Kenna Griffin from Oklahoma was all over the place and in our face from the beginning of this session about better covering student government, but she came with a compelling message. She claimed that keeping watch over organizations in power is the primary role of a journalist. She gave several examples from her own school setting in which officials in charge of financial decsions and acted unjudiciously and at times even stole money. She said their coverage of this issue won several awards.

She gave a few vague tips for keeping an eye on the people in charge:
-don't just cover the administration, as they only release good news
-attend all meetings (which I recently found out we as a paper are not doing)
-know the law in the area
-rotate the beat, at least every semester, to keep ideas and perspective fresh
-remember students aren't always interested in political processes
-focus on related news
-avoid conflicts of interest

The last one was one she stressed for a long time and said that under no circumstances should people in the student government be involved in decision making that goes on in the newsroom.

Jim Mustian

CNN's Sam Feist discusses media's role

The next session I attended was for just about everybody, I believe, and hundreds of people were in the ballroom. CNN's Sam Feist talked for over an hour about his strategies for getting people to watch his programming and how important it is to love what you're covering. Feist is the manager of the program "The Situation Room" and gained the audience's respect when he began name dropping. "I've known Wolf [Blitzer] for 15 years and I still don't know his political orientation," he said at one point while stressing the importance of leaving personal political beliefs at the door. He said sporting bumper stickers or campaign buttons are grounds for being terminated at his company. That's because trust and objectivity are "the most important thing" in journalism, and he said those should at no time be compromised.

He gave as a contrast to being accountable the example of how Barack Obama's education was erroneously reported to have been strictly Muslim. He talked in detail about how CNN got a reporter on the story immediately and broke the news that the claims were completely convoluted, alluding the incompetence of his competitors.

The thing I'll take from Feist's presentation, I believe, is that the press is the "only real check" on the government and that doing your job well in this industry can have a real impact on the world, as has been continually demonstrated.

Jim Mustian

Your news could be too pale

I tried to attend the replacement session for yesterday's "How to get an Internship" but left shortly after the guest speaker arrived ten minutes late and unprepared. Most of the other rooms were packed so I stumbled into one with a few seats open. The topic was diversity and how many different sides are actually being represented and reported in the campus newspaper. Two girls from L.A. discussed the dangers of having only limited perspectives and brainstorming meetings and explored the challenges of establishing long-term relationships with minorities that might be suspicious of your motives for wanting to obtain information. One of the girls told an anecdote of interviewing a black student who refused to comment on the issue saying, "You're just talking to me because I'm black."

Another thing stressed was the need to check stories for typical stereotypes. "We can fulfill the role of journalism a lot better [by doing that]," said one of the girls.

Among the ideas discussed was coverage of holidays like MLK day.
They also suggested affirmative recruitment for opinion pieces.

Jim Mustian

How to Rebirth Yearbooks

How to Rebirth Yearbooks
Kenna Griffin, Oklahoma City University

This was by far my favorite session. Kenna is amazing! I have so many ideas on how to make sure every copy of the Potpourri is distributed this year. I really want to have a distribution party when the yearbook comes in. I plan to have such an event it will put any SAB event to shame. It is definitely going to be a big deal! Again I was reminded how lucky we are to have the yearbook fee included in the price of tuition.

Lela Coker