Diversifying your student media department

Why you should recruit non-communications majors for campus media, and how to get started

By Allison Bennett Dyche
Assistant Director of Student Media, Savannah College of Art and Design

Maybe your university doesn’t have anything resembling a journalism department. Or maybe you do, but those students are historically lazy and impossible to recruit and retain on staff for more than a year.

You don’t have to wait around for your journalism/communications/writing majors to get to their senior year, realize they don’t have a portfolio and are staring down the barrel of an impending graduation to join your staff out of desperation. So how do you convince students from other majors to not only see the value in student media, but to believe enough in what you do to actually become part of your staff?

Amanda Permenter Garlow was recruited for the newspaper staff by her freshman orientation adviser at Georgia Southern University. The double major in English and writing & linguistics ended up holding three section editor positions at the campus newspaper, The George-Anne, and serving as editor-in-chief of it for two years before she graduated in 2005. Continue reading “Diversifying your student media department”

Doing Social Justice Journalism

Why social justice journalism?

By Jeff Jeske
Guilford College

Social justice reporting has distinguished American journalism nearly from its beginnings. Noted practitioners have included William Lloyd Garrison (civil rights), Dorothy Day (poverty), Nelly Bly (asylum conditions), Ida Tarbell (worker’s rights), Upton Sinclair (factories), and later, Rachel Carson (environment), Jessica Mitford (prisons) and William Greider (globalization’s effects on workers).

As the “fourth estate,” journalism has long played a watchdog role with respect to government’s legislative, executive and judicial branches. Should it not also explore the human cost of government policies? Certainly journalism has rich potential for such work.
Continue reading “Doing Social Justice Journalism”

Student and professional journalists dealing with restrictions on sports coverage

By Frank D. LoMonte
Executive Director, Student Press Law Center

Fueled by billions in television and licensing revenues, college athletic departments are increasingly stiff-arming journalists by restricting access to practices and games. Meanwhile, media industry leaders are looking for ways to respond.

The start of football season in August 2012 brought a wave of new restrictions on journalists—professionals and students alike—who cover college athletics. Threatening to revoke press credentials or close practices, coaches at several schools, including the University of Southern California, Washington State University and the University of North Carolina, ordered journalists to refrain from reporting on player injuries observed during practices.

In recent years, colleges and athletic conferences have become increasingly assertive about controlling how media organizations use the information and images they gather at sporting events. Continue reading “Student and professional journalists dealing with restrictions on sports coverage”

College media considered variety of ethical questions in 2012

By Daniel Reimold, Ph.D.
University of Tampa

Who owns the content published by campus media: the outlets that publish it or the students who create it? What should you do when sources want to review their quotes? What are the ethics of email interviewing? And how do you determine when content is controversial or graphic enough that readers deserve a warning?

Throughout the past calendar year, the student press faced these ethical questions and a number of others. Some were especially intense. Others were multimedia-specific. And still others played out in real time.

The quandaries, debates and ultimate decisions serve as potential roadmaps for other student staffers and advisers who may deal with similar dilemmas in 2013.

In that spirit, here is a sampling of student press ethical scenarios or decisions in 2012 worth mulling over. The bottom line: In each case, with the facts presented, how would you respond? Continue reading “College media considered variety of ethical questions in 2012”

Study Abroad offers journalism students unique opportunities

As globalization becomes an increasingly important part of modern life, universities are launching study-abroad programs in ever more remote and exotic destinations

Editor’s Note: The main focus of this issue is study abroad, highlighted by this and another article by CMR Vice President Rachele Kanigel. Kanigel is the executive director of ieiMedia, an organization sponsoring journalism study abroad opportunities this summer in Italy, France, Turkey, Israel and Northern Ireland.

By Rachele Kanigel

In a rural province of Cambodia, a broadcast journalism student from California State University, Fullerton shoots video of a blind man being fitted with a prosthetic hand, a replacement for the appendage that was shot off in the 1970s when he was fleeing the Khmer Rouge.

Continue reading “Study Abroad offers journalism students unique opportunities”

Financing Study Abroad Opportunities

Finding the dollars…and yen, and kroner, and pesos

By Rachele Kanigel

Whether you’re staying in dorm rooms, hostels or host homes, whether you’re traveling by plane, train or camel, studying in a foreign country is expensive.

But that doesn’t mean students have to go into debt to finance their global adventures. Many can find help from scholarships, grants and even their Aunt Agnes. Continue reading “Financing Study Abroad Opportunities”

Combining study abroad and undergraduate research

Make it a double

By Robert Bergland

While combining reporting and study abroad is an excellent way to enhance students’ skills while increasing their understanding of the world, combining research with study abroad is yet another way to double the educational value of a trip to another country.

Study abroad and undergraduate research are often considered two separate facets of applied learning. However, they can be very compatible, and combining them can enhance the learning experience for both activities. For the students enrolled in Spring 2010 in Global Journalism Research, a special topics class offered for the first time at Missouri Western State University, that combination led to an experience they will not soon forget. The goals were simple:

to expose students to media systems in other countries
to teach students about mass communication research methods
to have students undertake full-fledged, publishable-quality research projects
to have as many students as possible present their research findings at an international conference Continue reading “Combining study abroad and undergraduate research”

Journalism Study Abroad Programs

Providing an international perspective

Many journalism schools offer study-abroad opportunities, which may include year- or semester-long exchange programs or shorter-term faculty-led trips.

These journalism programs are open to students from any school:

Continue reading “Journalism Study Abroad Programs”

Editor’s note: Print still lives; Nordin Award modified

Print is dead. Long live print!

The decision by the CMA Board to move College Media Review to an online-only publication in 2011 was a difficult one. As with the publications we advise that are moving to online-first or online-only models, the combination of cost factors and the ability to serve readers with a more timely, converged distribution model weighed into the decision.

Thanks to the efforts of Associate Editor Lillian Lodge Kopenhaver, Managing Editor Debbie Landis and Webmaster Bill Neville, the change in distribution method has not resulted in a drop off in quality. As evidenced by the many fine topical articles and an excellent, Nordin award-winning research article by Holly-Katharine Johnson in this edition, the journal continues to provide very useful and informative pieces.

But, the online-only model does have the potential to have a negative influence on college media research, a concern raised by both readers and contributors. With some administrators and promotion/tenure review committees discounting research published in online journals, it’s understandable that some authors—even CMA members—would choose to first submit their college media research to print journals instead of CMR.

Continue reading “Editor’s note: Print still lives; Nordin Award modified”

First Amendment Mileposts in 2012

Four noteworthy First Amendment cases for college media in 2012

By Frank D. LoMonte
Executive Director, Student Press Law Center

With the 25^th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark Hazelwood ruling approaching on Jan. 13, the College Media Review asked the Student Press Law Center’s executive director, Frank D. LoMonte, to take stock of the state of free expression rights on college campuses –which, as LoMonte notes, “is a frequent source of litigation, as courts try to make sense of a shifting and sometimes muddled area of First Amendment law.”

During 2012, courts decided four particularly noteworthy cases directly bearing on the legal rights of student journalists and bloggers – including one especially significant case recognizing that the Constitution can protect advisers as well as students against retaliation by public institutions.

Continue reading “First Amendment Mileposts in 2012”