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.
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).
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.
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.Â
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.
Â
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].Â
The National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) has compiled a list of 50 top journalism internship opportunities with looming deadlines. Don’t miss out on this vital experience toward your journalism career. View the internships.
… that I’ve fallen behind on this blog.
I’m in St. Petersburg, Florida, right now for a workshop of several days at the Poynter Institute, having left yesterday as CNN was contacting Jonathan Mena & Jacqueline Fernandez about their reporting on the protest at the gates of Hofstra University, Long Island, the site of the last presidential debate. Fernandez got roughed up as did several protesters. The New York Civil Liberties Union has issued a statement along with the Nassau County Civil Liberties Union demanding an investigation of the use of horses by the NCPD. CNN eventually published M&F’s broadcast on its iReports.
Mena said that CNN might interview them later. Mena, Fernandez and Kisha Allison – the WORD trio at the Democratic National Convention – have been on a roll unlike any Hunter journalism students in recent memory. And what they do is infectious. I can’t wait to see what other student journalists are or will be doing.
Sometime tonight, after this first workshop, I plan to start catching up.
New America Media — News reports that state officials in the crucial battleground states of Colorado, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Nevada and North Carolina were purging thousands from voter rolls illegally drew a flurry of media and public scrutiny. Yet, the main ploys the GOP will use to tamp down minority votes on November 4th have drawn virtually no media attention. They include letter writing challenges, residence and citizenship challenges of non-native born Latino voters, and reliance on a provision in the Help America Vote Act on provisional ballots.
Worst of all, these tactics are all perfectly legal. Read more here.
Jonathan Mena & Jacqueline Fernandez With NAM – Uh Oh!
November 16th, 2008This is amusing. After reviewing and then publishing on the WORD their Youtube production about the gay rights rally in New York City November 15, Â 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.*Â 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.
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*This hit NAM’s first page November 16. By tomorrow, it might be in the archives.
Tags: Innovative Journalism, Jacqueline Fernandez, Jonathan Mena, New America Media, Student Journalism, student journalists
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