A study of campus media organizations’ convergence practices
By Lindsey Wotanis, Ph.D., Janice Richardson, B.A.,
and Bowei Zhong, B.A. Marywood University
Convergence polychrome (cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine) by Jean-Pierre Dalbéra via Flickr Creative Commons
Abstract: Scholars disagree on how to define “media convergence,” but in the past 15 years, literature suggests many newsrooms have shifted toward convergence, and they’re looking to hire journalists who understand it. Many university journalism programs have updated their curricula to emphasize convergence. However, students often learn journalism best by practicing it at campus newspapers, television and radio stations, or on web platforms. This paper asks: Are college media organizations practicing convergence? Researchers surveyed 142 campus media advisers to learn about convergence practices in campus newsrooms. Findings show that while half of advisers report their campus media organizations are practicing convergence, most are only practicing cross-platform publishing. Findings also suggest a correlation between campuses reporting converged media organizations and those reporting convergence-focused curricula.
Young journo is a strong advocate for value of internships
By Bradley Wilson CMR Managing Editor
Vinny Vella is a journalist from Philadelphia. He graduated from La Salle University in 2012 with a bachelor’s in communication and a minor in marketing. He is working as the night cops-and-crime beat reporter for the Philadelphia Daily News.
But at age 22, while working as a Dow Jones News Fund intern at the Denver Post, Vella participated in editing stories on the theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado and got his name on a Pulitzer Prize. In the submission for the prize, Editor Gregory Moore said, “Once again, Colorado would be ground zero to mass murder.”
His story just isn’t that different from many recent college graduates completing internships, job hunting and discovering the power of quality journalism. Except, of course, he has his name on a Pulitzer Prize.
Follow Vinny on Twitter @Vellastrations and read some of his impressions on the importance of gaining real-world experience outside the classroom.
Vinny Vella of La Salle University listens during the tour of the post-production room. Vella will be doing his internship at The Denver Post. Austin American-Statesman, Thursday, May 24, 2012. Photo by Bradley Wilson
“Redesign. The mere word can strike fear into a veteran adviser.”
By Ron Johnson
Indiana University
The adviser to The Maroon, said he was looking to give the newspaper a boost.
Michael Giusti, Student Media Adviser at Loyola University New Orleans, said the newspaper had a strong tradition, but it was time for an upgrade.
Before the redesign: “Crackdown on alcohol,” The Maroon, Loyola University, Feb. 21, 2014.After the redesign: “Smoke signals,” The Maroon, Loyola University, May 2, 2014.
“We have traditionally done well in many areas — ones that I am personally strong in as a professional journalist — writing, editing, story selection,” Giusti said.
“But we were missing the whole package. We found that people didn’t tend to consume that great coverage because they weren’t drawn to it.”
Design was the piece that would pull it all together, Giusti said. “But I wasn’t the guy to lead it. I joke that when it comes to design, I am a technician, not an artist.”
The Plot Against Student Newspapers? David R. Wheeler, University of Tampa, published a piece in The Atlantic on how college media organizations always seem to be targets of the ire of officialdom. At many colleges, budding journalists and their advisers are still fighting for freedom of speech. http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/09/the-plot-against-student-newspapers/408106/
The critical moment. How a reporter captured the moment a fifth grader found out she was HIV positive – Columbia Journalism Review. You can view it here http://www.cjr.org/the_profile/telling_jj.php
Why aren’t there more minority journalists? Columbia Journalism Review pece examines diversity in the journalism classroom and transition into the workforce. http://www.cjr.org/analysis/in_the_span_of_two.php
From the contest coordinator’s notebook: change, evolution the constant in student photojournalism
By Bradley Wilson CMR Managing Editor
Twice a year, photojournalists come to the College Media Association’s national conventions to share ideas, to meet other college photojournalists and to visit another part of the country. And twice a year about 60 of them choose to learn by doing, participating in the CMA Shoot-Out, an on-site photo competition and critique, an event that has helped students as they begin their work as visual communicators.
CMR Managing Editor Bradley Wilson is entering his second decade of work with CMA’s on-site “Shoot-Out” for student photojournalists.
Mark Watkins, a participant when he was a student at Georgia College and State University said, “Winning ‘Class Favorite’ at the Shoot-out in Chicago in 2012 was the moment I decided to pursue photography as a career. It was a challenge, and I remember thinking not just how a photograph communicates something, but for the first time how I can communicate something through a photograph. It seems a small distinction, but I think it makes all the difference.”
When I first started helping out with the Shoot-Out, in 2004, students still used film. The contest was limited by how many rolls we could afford to develop, 30. So it didn’t take long to move to a digital paradigm. In 2005, to be precise. Kansas City. The theme for the contest was “Kansas City Portrait.” Then as now, we challenged students to “to get outside that box.”
FIRST PLACE 2005: Nathan Lang, Johnson County Community College (Anne Christiansen-Bullers, adviser) — Kansas City’s 106th homicide of 2005
Campus journalism that serves a bilingual audience heads into third year
By Marcy Burstiner Humboldt State University
When I came up with the idea for El Leñador, a Spanish-English student newspaper, at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California, I hadn’t spoken Spanish since high school.
Bilingual press serves students at Humboldt State
Moreover, I taught on a campus with one of the least diverse student populations in the California State University System, and my idea came at a time when The Lumberjack, the student-run weekly newspaper I advised, was struggling for advertising revenue. And, the university was looking for programs to eliminate to make up for state budget cuts.
But there were reasons to proceed with this new publication. Among them: The university had been named a Hispanic-Serving Institution, a designation that would make it eligible for new funds, and the Latino student population had doubled as a percentage of the overall student population between 2009 and 2013. At 28 percent, it was now about three times the percentage found in the rest of the county. Humboldt State’s enrollment is about 8,485.
I hoped that for a newspaper for and about the Latino student population, the administration would help me find the money I needed. I teamed up with Dr. Rosamel Benavides-Garb, the chair of the World Languages and Cultures Department, who taught Spanish. We tapped into a fund our dean had for faculty-student research projects and secured small stipends for six students from our two majors to research models for bilingual newspapers.
Few jobs can be more challenging — or more rewarding — than that of the student media adviser. Walking the tightrope between preparing courageous student journalists and satisfying wary school administrators is seldom easy. The guides below can help advisers navigate those challenges.
More changes in the media advising duties on campus as reported by the Butler Collegian online where the replacement for the displaced adviser is replaced.
The College Media Association is dismayed to learn that Loni McKown, the adviser for The Butler Collegian student newspaper and website, has been removed from her advising duties at Butler University. Read more on CMA website.
From the Student Press Law Center
Click SPLC Logo (Above) for Link To Story.
INDIANA — TheButler Collegian’s faculty adviser has been dismissed from her position and replaced with a university spokesman, prompting concerns among the student editors and college media watchers.
Loni McKown, who had just started her sixth year as the student newspaper’s adviser, said she received a letter dated Sept. 4 that said she was no longer the Collegian’s adviser and could not advise any Collegian staff in any capacity. The letter said that if she failed to abide by that directive, she would face additional discipline up to and including termination. Read More at the SPLC website.
CMA members team to help facilitate continuation of Reimold initiative on Sunday evenings
The #CollegeMedia Twitter chats started by Dan Reimold are expected to continue Sundays at 7 p.m. EST.
The weekly #CollegeMedia chats on Twitter that Dan Reimold started to highlight the myriad positives in college media are continuing, thanks to the work of Brett Fera, interim director for Arizona Student Media/The Daily Wildcat, and Candace Baltz, director of Oregon State’s Orange Media Network.
Baltz was the “real catalyst” to continuing the popular chats, according to Fera.
“This is without a doubt ‘by committee.’ Candace and I have each hosted one of the two #CollegeMedia chats since Dan’s passing, and I can pretty much guarantee that it won’t be just the two of us moving forward. There is a core group who have been regular contributors in recent weeks,” Fera said. Continue reading “#CollegeMedia weekly chats on Twitter to continue”
For Dan Reimold, fostering a college media “revolution” was a a favorite and frequent topic. He preached this gospel coast to coast. Shown above, he addressed students and faculty at Elon University last year. The noted scholar, frequent contributor to College Media Review, and founder of of the influential website College Media Matters, died in August at age 34. (Photo by Colin Donohue)
34-year-old scholar provided an internationally recognized voice as an advocate on behalf of college media
As colleges and universities start their new academic years and college media begin new production schedules, College Media Review salutes the late Dan Reimold by recapping some conversations with those who knew him, as well as summarizing a few of the myriad online toasts to the College Media Association member, widely recognized as a gifted educator and expert on college media.
Dan Reimold
Reimold died August 21. The 34-year-old was an assistant professor of journalism at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia and adviser to The Hawk student newspaper.
Reimold was a frequent contributor to College Media Review during its days as a print publication through conversion to a digital first format and thereafter.
“Dan was smart, edgy, engaging and a helluva reporter in his own right. We corresponded and talked frequently over several years that I edited College Media Review, and I always knew if Dan was contributing a story package to the magazine, it would be well anchored,” said Robert Bohler, Texas Christian University, past editor of CMR.
Cover story by Dan Reimold; cover art by Ryan Honeyman
“His first piece for CMR was the Carnal Knowledge cover story in 2007 that depicted how sex columnists had aroused interest and rancor — depending on whether or not you were a student or an administrator— on college campuses. Dan was a doctoral student at Ohio U. at the time.”
Reimold contributed numerous story packages for CMR, including annual reviews of college media and the magazine’s first podcast. (See partial list at the end of this story).
“He was always a reporter who knew how to promote, and his talent revealed itself in his CMR articles. He always met deadline, always pushed sidebars and visuals. The book on journalistic sexual revolution he fashioned from his research, and his expansion into the general blogging on crises in college journalism. Wow, what a talent, and what a loss to our profession and to the students from all walks whom he mentored,” Bohler wrote in a message to the CMA discussion group. Continue reading “Colleagues offer tributes to an ambassador for college media — Dan Reimold”
