Archive for November, 2008

A Victory for Student Journalism at the City University of New York

Thursday, November 27th, 2008

The following comes via the “Community List” of Activist Attorney Ronald B. McGuire regarding a federal court ruling against a former President of City College who had the temerity to violate First Amendment rights of a student editor.

Tuesday, November 25, 11:42:27 EST 2008
Youngbloods, Elders and Friends:

After nearly eleven years of litigation, a federal judge has finally held that former City College President Yolanda T. Moses violated the First Amendment rights of the editor of a student newspaper and candidates for positions on a college student government when President Moses nullified the result sof a student government election because she concluded that a special election edition of a student newspaper was a student activity fee funded piece of campaign literature that unfairly favored a slate of candidates running in the student government election.

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Jonathan Mena’s CNN iReport

Tuesday, November 25th, 2008

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The WORD’s Next MM-Teams

Wednesday, November 19th, 2008
   

I posted the following yesterday on Hunter-L, the College’s main listserv for college-wide information:

While F/M putters along trying to resuscitate its journalism effort, Advanced  Reporting, Media 293, is about to go multi-media (as part of an ongoing experiment with the WORD).

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New York Times Spoof

Tuesday, November 18th, 2008

Note: This info comes via Tikkun – Rabbi Michael Lerner: 

We hope the people who did this spoof on the NY Times and Tom Friedman don’t get sued or go to jail because this is some of the funniest and at the same time smartest things that have come down the pike in a long time.

Send it to your friends.

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Letter to an Editor, New America Media

Monday, November 17th, 2008

This is a copy of an email I sent to NAM yesterday, regarding its publishing of two news videos produced by my senior editors, senior producers Jonathan Mena and Jacqueline Fernandez, about the gay rights protest rally at NYC City Hall.

Hi,

Just a note regarding my student senior editors-senior producers’ video that NAM graciously noted on its front page November 16. The “Word” is actually spelled, uppercase, WORD and it is not an official part of my department’s journalism program.

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Savvy Suggestions to Student Journalists: Good Info But Surprisingly Myopic

Monday, November 17th, 2008

UWIRE.com published an excerpt of writer Joe Grimm’s, Breaking In: The JobsPage.com Guide to Newspaper Internships. Grimm, according to the Uwire article, is visiting journalist at the Michigan State University School of Journalism and a Poynter Institute columnist specializing in recruitment.  Now, as many know, newspapers are closing around the country or doing serious layoffs, and many journalists and student journalists are keying on web news sites and web production efforts.

However, Grimm offered some interesting ideas about the importance of newspaper jobs. But I thought his focus on mainstream newspapers – regardless if their closing like crazy or laying off like crazy – was dimmed because he overlooked the importance of alternative and ethnic/immigrant news operations (many of which are scrambling to improve their operations on the web).

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Jonathan Mena & Jacqueline Fernandez With NAM – Uh Oh!

Sunday, November 16th, 2008

This is amusing. After reviewing and then publishing on the WORD their Youtube production about the gay rights rally in New York City November 15,  I told Jonathan Mena & Jacqueline Fernandez that they were doing too much breaking news and that they should focus on more in-depth stuff for their YouTube broacasts (and for their portfolios).

And guess what? New America Media put their production efforts on its front page.* This is exciting. I, with several years of journalism experience and two books and tons of related experience, told two student journalists that I thought what they did was good but they could do better and NAM decides what they did was front-page news.

I love it.

And will address “it” in subsequent posts.

 

*This hit NAM’s first page November 16. By tomorrow, it might be in the archives.

The Institute of Nonexistence

Thursday, November 13th, 2008

They say the blame lies not with them but with shoddiness in the traditional news media and especially the blogosphere.

The above quote was extracted from a November 13 New York Times story headlined, “A Senior Fellow at the Institute of Nonexistence,” written by Richard Pérez-Peña. It’s the kind of story that student journalists should be required to read. Many, I think, would regard what the pranksters did as cool.

“No Room for singled-skilled journalists”

Tuesday, November 11th, 2008

The headline-quote is from a staff member of the Poynter Institute during a five-day workshop in St. Petersburg, Florida, October, 2008. It has, for me, a lot to say about the J-curriculum undergoing review in my department at Hunter. 

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The Denver Trip Still Resonates

Monday, November 10th, 2008

A writer for Hunter’s alumni magazine is working on an article about my students trip to Denver to report on the Democratic National Convention. I’m not sure when it will be published but I thought I would publish the questions she asked of me via email and my responses. I’m still working to document the trip so responding to the query was beneficial for me. And it might be a decent reading for anyone interested in innovative ways of teaching undergraduate journalism, especially in light of this economic crunch that could seriously defer students’ plans to attend graduate journalism schools.

 

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