The WORD Blog

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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Below is a facsimile of a recent email to my department. It’s oblique but I think still informative for anyone cruising this site. But first some background: My department’s journalism initiative has been faltering for years and years. The faltering started as soon as Serafina Bathrick announced her retirement and the chair who replaced her was planning to dump the J-effort. I wouldn’t go along with the plan, disrupted it and got tenure despite my obstinance. But that fueled an internecine  war that continues to this day.

Nevertheless, here is the “memo” to my department as it is reconsidering its program [the College is undergoing a Middle States accreditation review]. 

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