With only five hours under my belt, I began my day to Roya’s alarm, which she bitterly mistook as my alarm, which I bitterly mistook as Rosemary’s music.
However, after a cream cheese-less bagel and Aaron’s bitching about the bad coffee, I headed to my first “business meeting.”
It was database investigative reporting on campus with Mr. Steve Doig, who is an Arizona State University Cronkite School’s journalism professor. Mr. Doig went over interesting points such as ire.org (which is a site that is, as he said, “journalists helping journalists”), the idea of using Excel for database collecting, and examples of investigative reporting. However, while interesting, Mr. Doig was a little too vague. He talked about ways to collect information via databases but nothing specific or substantive.
My next “business meeting” was what newsroom leaders need to know when tragedy happens and that was really interesting. This “business meeting” was all about examples. The adviser from Northern Illinois University was there to talk about NIU’s newspaper. He talked about the shootings that occurred on their campus in 2008. It was really nice that it was example based because covering tragedies is subjective; it really depends on the situation. Also, the editor-in-chief from a San Francisco paper was there, and he gave a firsthand experience in a similar experience.
Then Rosemary, Roya, Nancy, Andy, Aaron and I went to the key note speaker, Jason Manning. Mr. Manning didn’t really add anything new. What he had to say was basic, which is good, but I didn’t find it helpful. He also kept making references that flew right over my head.
Then we went to lunch! Whoah!
After lunch, Nancy, Roya, Rosemary, and I went to the panel on reporting on a private college. The panelists got feisty, and I liked it. I liked it a lot. I really liked the panelists. I thought they had a lot to say, and I really liked that everyone was so passionate. It was something that I thought every dedicated private college paper could relate to. I also thought it was interesting to find out that The Beacon’s relationship with the administration could be so much worse! It was nice to compare to other schools.
Then I went to investigative journalism in an internet age with John Dickerson, who I really enjoyed minus the fact that he was a bit of a bible thumper. Also, I don’t think Mr. Dickerson mentioned internet once. However, regardless of those two facts, I really enjoyed what he had to say. He had really interesting examples of his own work that I really liked!
Lastly, I stayed in the same room for my last “business meeting,” designing page one for maximum impact, maximum enjoyment. I was really exhausted and a bit nauseous, but it was eye-catching. Mr. Christopher George had a lot to say, and I really liked what he had to say. However, he didn’t use college papers as examples, which I didn’t like.
XOXO Journo Girl
(Hannah Gray)
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