Faring Well Despite Uncertain Times

Editor’s Note: This is the first in a two-part series on college media advising. This first article discusses the role of the adviser, salary/compensation packages and job  characteristics. Part 2 will appear next week and profiles student media operations, including demographics, budgets, financing support, and staffing.

By Lillian Lodge Kopenhaver
Associate Editor, CMR

As the song says, “The times they are a-changin’”(1964). And that is true of the college and university student media scene as well.

The three decades since this survey was first conducted have witnessed tremendous changes in the way student media advisers do their jobs and in the way the media themselves deliver the message. The biggest change, of course, is in the media themselves which these individuals advise.

In order to trace those changes, over the past three decades the College Media Association has regularly surveyed its membership to provide longitudinal data on the role, responsibilities, working conditions, compensation and status of college and university student media advisers in the U.S. These surveys request data about the media operations they advise as well. This is the eighth survey in that series; the first was in 1984, followed by replications roughly every four years up to this one in 2014. Continue reading “Research (Vol. 51): College Student Media Advisers Fare Well”

Observations of 15 media scholars from seven countries

Hardcover: 240 pages; Publisher: Routledge (Sept. 18, 2014)

Reviewed by Carolyn Schurr Levin

Because the ethics of online journalism has created so much debate, hand wringing, and frustration, and because I teach a course in Media Ethics every semester, I was especially anxious to read the collaboration of “emerging best practices,” set forth in the recently released Ethics for Digital Journalists: Emerging Best Practices, edited by Lawrie Zion, associate professor of journalism at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, and David Craig, professor and associate dean at Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Oklahoma.

In this thoroughly researched work, 15 journalism professors and media scholars from seven countries have joined together to connect ethical principles with in-depth guidance on best practices in a wide range of areas. Each contributor has a chapter, with chapter titles including “Fostering and Moderating Citizen Conversations,” “The Case for Curatorial Journalism…Or, Can You Really Be an Ethical Aggregator?,” “Live Tweeting: The Rise of Real-Time Reporting,” and “Data Journalism.”

Continue reading “Book Review: ‘Ethics for Digital Journalists: Emerging Best Practices’”

Award is memorial to James Foley

In honor of the courageous men and women who risk their lives in order to report from the world’s most dangerous places m eiMedia has established the James Foley Memorial Scholarship in memory of the photojournalist who was tragically executed while covering the war in Syria.

This $5,000 photojournalism scholarship covers tuition, program fees and meals for participation in our Urbino program, jointly sponsored by James Madison University and Iowa State University. The winner will work with two award-winning photojournalists in an experiential program that runs through the month of June 2015. The recipient is responsible for his/her own airfare. Continue reading “Scholarship for photojournalists to study abroad”

Debra Chandler Landis is College Media Review editor

Dear Colleagues,

A few years ago when I began writing for the College Media Review—thank you, Robert Bohler, for saying yes to my ideas and publishing my work!—being asked to edit the College Media Association’s flagship journal was not on my radar screen.

But, as we tell our students, be open to change and new ventures.

I felt humbled and honored when Bob Bergland asked me to become managing editor for CMR. And now, as Bob has moved to the CMA Executive Board as secretary, I have assumed the editorship.  Thank you, Bob, for your kind words and support!

Because CMR is now online—when I started writing for it, it was a print publication—CMR is evolving.  We are striving, for example, to update popular articles more frequently on the CMR site while continuing to have a strong research publication presence. Also look for greater use of social media.

Continue reading “New editor takes helm at CMR”

Bob Bergland says Aloha as he moves to CMA board

Aloha.

In Hawaiian, the word is used for both “hello” and “goodbye.” So, fellow CMA members, I say to you “Aloha,” both greetings and farewell.  I have been appointed to serve you on the Executive Board, so I greet you as its new Secretary, effective at the fall convention in Philadelphia. But, because of those duties and a conflict of interest (the Board votes on College Media Review matters), I bid you farewell as CMR Editor, having served since replacing Robert Bohler in April of 2012.

In that time, we’ve published many useful sourced articles and essays that are relevant to all of you, ranging from college media legal issues to making the transition to online, thanks to the work of Managing Editor Debbie Landis and our many contributors. For my part, I’m proud of the number and quality of refereed submissions and the fact that early this year we were able to publish an inaugural issue of the Research Annual, a print compendium of scholarly work published electronically since CMR went online at the end of 2011. Right now we are putting the finishing touches on the second Research Annual, which will be completed over Christmas break. Continue reading “CMR editor transitions to organization’s board”

Covering Suicide on College Campuses

Jena Heath
St. Edward’s University
Brooke Blanton
St. Edward’s University

Abstract: Student journalists and their faculty advisers face particular challenges when confronted with covering suicide on their campuses. We examine these challenges by analyzing coverage and interviewing student journalists and their advisers about their editorial decisions. The interviews are designed to assess how often college media outlets comply with recommended professional guidelines for covering suicide and to shed light on the decision-making process. The results point to the need to better educate student journalists and advisers about the interpretation and use of these guidelines and to help them navigate pressures to minimize even coverage that conforms with them.

The student media groups at Western Kentucky University and the University of Arizona both benefited from developing powerful relationships with people who cared about safeguarding their student media programs

By Susan Smith
South Dakota State University

Several cups of coffee, and strong relationships with a committed alumni base, helped to build a new home for the student publications of Western Kentucky University.

“We focused on not big numbers,” said Chuck Clark, director of student publications.

“We focused on if you could find a way to donate $10 a week – skip two Starbucks – this is what it could buy.”

The School of Journalism and Broadcasting was relocated across campus from the traditional home of WKU’s student publications with no room in the new building for the twice-weekly College Heights Herald and the Talisman Yearbook and specialty publications produced by College Heights Media. Continue reading “Fundraising efforts lead to strong student experiences”

Daniel Reimold book a journalism textbook and newsroom resource

By Debra Chandler Landis
Managing Editor, College Media Review

It’s time for the news meeting, and the story ideas from the college journalists are lackluster.

“There’s not a lot going on” seems to be the prevailing sentiment.

But, of course, more seasoned journalists would say, “There is always something going on and stories to be told.”

Speaking somewhat metaphorically, Daniel Reimold said he wants journalists to “jump and sing about their story ideas.”

Reimold challenges journalists to look below the surface of stories and brainstorm ideas for new coverage—and provides hundreds of ideas from multiple sources  in “Journalism of Ideas: Brainstorming, Developing, and Selling Stories in the Digital Age” (Routledge, 2013).

Continue reading “REVIEW: Journalism of Ideas: Brainstorming, Developing and Selling Books in the Digital Age””

Economics is a driving force in the digital only transition

By Miriam Ascarelli
New Jersey Institute of Technology

Two words: Digital first.

That was the trend of this 2013-2014 school year as a parade of student newspapers from the University of Missouri Maneater to The Daily Egyptian at Southern Illinois University Carbondale announced plans to scale back print publication days and ramp up their digital presences.

For some newspapers scaling back on print editions, the changes were part of a proactive strategy to stay ahead of the iGeneration, which already lives on the web, according to Bryan Murley, an associate professor of new and emerging media at Eastern Illinois University. But for others, Murley said, digital-first was an imperative motivated by a double whammy: declining ad revenue as national advertisers use social media instead of print ads to target college students and declining print readership as indicated by too many newspapers remaining on racks.

Continue reading “For some college newspapers, it’s not digital first. It’s digital only”