… of what I would like to think is a burgeoning informal student/alumni-alumna networking for internships and jobs.
Archive for the ‘Journalism Education’ Category
Charlotte Cusumano [another example] …
Thursday, July 24th, 2008Anecdotes of Eccentricities: MEDP 292, FALL
Sunday, January 6th, 2008Grade Distribution, MEDP 292 – AKA Basic Reporing – Fall, 2007:
A’s (2)
A- (1)
B+ (2)
B- (3)
F (3)
IN (1)
WU (1)
This class requires out-of-class interviews for articles that must be submitted for publication in the WORD at hunterword.com. Its publishing imperative causes course requirements and demands and expectations to be higher than the other MEDP 292 classes. Students who earned Bs in MEDP 292 have said that this class required more effort than many of their other classes, but not appreciably more, just more than students were accustomed to doing. It has, however, helped many students to earn internships and jobs at some of the best news media in the country.
Sputtering Program Promises to Be One of the Best
Wednesday, November 28th, 2007“Hunter is in an enviable position compared to most journalism programs. Its location in New York, its access to ambitious students, and its excellent faculty have enabled it to come very far already. With strong leadership, greater pedagogical definition, and additional resources, it has the chance to become one of the best undergraduate journalism programs in the country.”
Antediluvian Thinking
Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007So many students are using blogs (for commentary and opinion), myspace and facebook (to communicate), Youtube (can you believe documentaries and broadcasts), cell phones (to communicate and to make pictures and videos to disseminate) that I’m planning to revise my journalism writing/reporting courses.
I plan to add to my course syllabi that students who take my classes can learn to write scintillating and compelling commentaries and opinion pieces for their peers to review and admire as well as develop a sharper edge – a news edge – for their other media activities.
It seems to me that many students engaging those endeavors described above believe they are involved with forms of enterprise journalism or that they are involved in making news. They are most certainly involved in disseminating and receiving disseminated information in this period when the concept of news is undergoing radical change.
There was this intense discussion at a department meeting many months ago over my using the word “multimedia” for this multimedia ethnic journalism class I wanted to teach. One colleague (obviously out of touch with reality) announced that students in my reporting/writing classes should not be using recording devices because that kind of activity was reserved for a particular film/video course. As images flashed in my head of students using MP3 recorders and digital voice recorders as well as cell phones for digital imagery, single and moving, I didn’t have the presence of mind to say something witty like, “That kind of antediluvian thinking should cost you a …”
Gregg Morris
Crunch Time
Saturday, October 20th, 2007Several years ago, Hunter started ranking in the top five colleges with students receiving paid summer internships with the Business Press Education Foundation. Hunter at times raked in more internships that the journalism programs, graduate and undergraduate, at Ohio State University, NYU and Columbia University. There were usually 50-60 campuses represented in the competition, and Hunter for years ranked in the top five.
Hunter students awarded the internships at the best of the trade publications (AKA business-to-business media) had been required to have stories published in either student-run news media like the Hunter Envoy, or, subsequently, as things turned out, in a faculty-supervised, student-written online zine, the WORD (now temporarily located at hunterword.com). Other students who had published portfolios from those J-classes that required students to publish, won journalism internships that had direct effects on their careers. And, it has to be said, many who did not win the so-called prestigious internships, did well. That is, got on career paths because of their portfolios which helped get them internships and jobs.
Then, of course, a new sheriff came to town a few years ago, and “things” begin to jump. One has to wonder why the Department of Film and Media Studies was and has been sooooo slow about getting with the program.
Anyway, it’s crunch time, that period when students must begin applying for the best of the J-internships offered in the country and also that period when students in my classes are realizing, if they haven’t already, that the deadlines and requirements for my writing/reporting classes are for real.
Gregg Morris
The New WORD
Tuesday, October 16th, 2007If the Department of Film and Media Studies is really serious about journalism education as well as improving student writing, it should seriously consider requiring students in its approximately 15 journalism-related and dozen-plus media theory classes to submit articles and papers to the student-run news media for dissemination. This initiative could be a significant educational catalyst, and F/M could nurture independent student journalism without being intrusive.