DC profile: Two-time Pulitzer winner Clarence Page (BSJ ’69)
- Posted by Robert Stewart in From the Director on 09/1/2010
On my recent trip to Washington DC I was bound and determined to talk with 1969 JSchool graduate Clarence Page. The hour-long interview touched on a wide range of topics, from his first journalism experiences in high school to making sense of Marshall McLuhan.
Because of youtube’s limitations on how long a video can be, I broke up the interview into five parts. In part 1, Page shares his views on how to balance the academic demands of college with the need to gain hands-on experience.
Part 2: Page’s early interests in journalism, and why he chose to study at Ohio University.
Part 3: Page, on the need for journalism students to be flexible when they come out of school. Of particular interest to me is his discussion about an international opportunity early on in his career.
Part 4: Page, on the changes he has witnessed in journalism and media during his career.
Page 5: Page discusses his contributions to journalism.
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DC profiles: Zapotosky (BSJ ’08) and Louttit (BSJ ’08) discuss recent changes at WashPo
- Posted by Robert Stewart in From the Director on 09/1/2010
On my recent trip to Washington DC, I interviewed two relatively new graduates who share the distinction of landing first jobs out of JSchool at the Washington Post.
Matt Zapotosky and Meghan Louttit (twitter: @mlouttit) have been full-timers at the Washington newspaper for a little more than two years. Yet, as these interviews indicate, they already have first-hand experience when it comes to the organization changing how it operates.
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DC profile: Andy Alexander (BSJ ’71)
- Posted by Robert Stewart in From the Director on 08/28/2010
- tags: alumni
I recently returned from Washington DC, where I interviewed eight JSchool alums. Today I’m featuring the second of those eight, Andy Alexander (BSJ 715), ombudsman for the Washington Post.
I’ve known Andy for many years, and had heard several legendary tales about his time as a student. I was determined to track him down on my recent trip to DC to ask him about some of these stories. What I learned about his experiences while a student at OU was far more compelling than even the legends. In the first video, Andy explains why he didn’t spend as much time in the classroom as he should have (hint: The Post). He also describes his three international "internship" experiences, starting with the summer between his first and second year.
In this video, Andy describes his long-standing commitment to diversity in media.
In this final video, Alexander discusses his commitment to giving back to Ohio University.
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DC profile: Phil Ewing (BSJ ’05)
- Posted by Robert Stewart in From the Director on 08/27/2010
I recently returned from Washington DC, where I interviewed eight JSchool alums. Today I’m featuring the first of those eight, Phil Ewing (BSJ ’05), a reporter for Navy Times.
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Downing (BSJ ’10) hits the ground running
- Posted by Robert Stewart in From the Director on 08/26/2010
- tags: alumni
Garrett Downing graduated from the JSchool this past June. He already had landed a position with WEWS in Cleveland. I recently received this email, which he has given me permission to republish.
Life in Cleveland for me is going well.... I’ve adjusted to the early hours (even though it still takes about three cups of coffee to wake up) and I’m getting the chance to do a number of different things.My first month on the job, I was in the middle of our team’s coverage on the LeBron James fiasco. It was a great way to get thrown to the wolves, and we ended up setting all kinds of traffic records for our site with that coverage. It was great to have a hand in that, and some of my work ended up getting picked up nationally. I couldn’t believe it when I went on yahoo.com and my byline was the main story on the site!
Recently, I’ve been covering the Browns training camp and pre-season, and the plan is for me to continue covering the team for the website throughout the season. I definitely did not think I would be covering the NFL two months into my first job. Here’s an article I wrote for our site.
Also, I am going to have a big role in high school football. I’m basically in charge of the web product for our high school football coverage, and I’m building relationships with local schools to have them send us video to put on our TV broadcasts, and online. As part of the high school coverage, I’m also going to get some on-air opportunities. If things go according to plan, then I should be making my Cleveland TV debut this weekend!
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Hyperlocal Sports Sans Community Context?
- Posted by Bill Reader in Community Journalism on 08/19/2010
- tags: cj, newspapers, online, sports
Gannett recently announced its plans to expand its prep sports site, Highschoolsports.net, to provide "hyperlocal" coverage of 100 distinct schools. That coverage would then be "co-branded" with Gannett’s community newspapers serving those schools.
That may be a good move financially, as prep sports are a big deal in American culture and represents one of the most important sectors of coverage for community-focused media. But removing prep sports from the context of the whole community may be the achilles heel of the idea. The cultural capital of prep sports is directly connected to the broader context of the community; the role of prep sports in community life is diminished when it is not presented alongside coverage of other community news and information.
Community newspapers and local radio stations often provide breadth and depth not found in other media, even relatively small regional media outlets. That is because many community media serve small geographic regions with only a handful of local institutions, such as high schools. Some community media cover a single school district.
As such, community media tend to cover more than just the major high school sports (in the U.S., that’s football and basketball). Tennis, golf, field hockey, soccer, and many other "minor" sports often get star treatment in local sports pages. That’s the breadth.
The depth is found in how much local high school sports are covered -- not just game stories of prep sports, but game previews, athlete profiles, analysis columns, off-season features, etc.
Done well, community journalism provides such depth and breadth to the coverage of many other aspects of community life, including local government, local culture, and local issues. What results is a rich and complex image of community life, and a means for people to engage in that life on a regular basis.
Isolating one aspect from that broad context, such as having a site devoted just to local high-school sports, diminishes its role in community life. It also can fragment the community according to constituents’ preferred topics of interest.
That raises some important practical implications. Sports coverage tends to attract a lot of local advertising, and the revenue can underwrite coverage of less-attractive topics such as local government.
There also is a philosophical aspect, tied to the role of community journalism in a democratic society: If prep-sports fans can get all of their news about a local team from a sports-centered site, will they even bother to scan headlines for news about local government (including the school boards that make many decisions affecting high-school sports)?
Prep sports is a vital and important part of life in many communities, and often is directly tied to civic involvement and civic pride. Isolating that from other community issues will be detrimental to both, I believe.
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A Fifth are Offline
- Posted by Bill Reader in Community Journalism on 08/16/2010
- tags: cj, newspapers, online
One in five U.S. adults do not use the Internet, according to a recently released survey report by the Pew Internet & American Life project.
Applied against U.S. Censure Bureau data, that means about 47.25 million American adults do not use the Internet.
What’s interesting is that we appear to have reached a point at which the digital divide in the U.S. is a matter of choice rather than a matter of access. Many people can get reliable Internet service in their homes, but choose not to. According to the Pew study, a third of offline Americans have no interest in the Internet, compared to a tenth who think it is too expensive.
Where do offline Americans get their local news? The Pew project didn’t go there. But the National Newspaper Association’s most recent readership study found that 81 percent of those surveyed are regular readers of their local newspapers. They share their physical newspapers with more than two other people, on average. And 30 percent of community-newspaper readers do not have Internet access in their homes.
I am not a romantic about newsprint. I recognize that ’dead tree’ journalism is expensive, dirty, wasteful ... and stubborn. Online communication is superior in so many ways, not the least of which being its minimal environmental impact compared to print’s ginormous carbon footprint. Yet ink-on-paper publishing remains a strong part of the community journalism sector, and should remain a part (though certainly not the emphasis) of journalism education.
That’s often a hard sell on college campuses, where high-speed online communication is very much the norm, and online publishing provides an easy, versatile, and far-less-expensive platform for producing student work than print and broadcast. But as we train the next generation of journalists, we should not let our focus on the online world overshadow the fact that the offline population numbers in the tens of millions.
It’s hard to tell when the population wedge marked "offline" will shrink to insignificance. For now, we must operate knowing that millions of Americans still get most of their local news from wads of paper delivered to their porches or plastic tubes at the ends of their driveways. Teaching students to produce "print" journalism is not a matter of clinging to the past or fearing the future, as some might argue, but of being realistic about the present.
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Scholars convene at AEJMC in Denver
- Posted by Robert Stewart in From the Director on 08/14/2010
- tags: research
Back in May, grad director Mike Sweeney wrote a blog post about the faculty and grad students who were headed to AEJMC in Denver to present their research.
We’re all safely back from Denver now, and I’m happy to say that OU, the Scripps College, and the JSchool in particular, showed up in impressive form. In addition to the participants noted in Mike’s blog, I was struck by the number of alums from our program who not only attend but present their research. In addition to all of those folks I’ve been privileged to meet and know in the past 20+ years, former director Ralph Izard pointed out a number of key individuals in the AEJMC organization who got their doctorates from the JSchool before my arrival in 1987. Made me very proud.
Here are some photos I took at the convention in Denver:
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Top jschool graduates for 2010
- Posted by Robert Stewart in From the Director on 08/10/2010
Selecting top graduates has never been an easy job, yet every year since I’ve been on the faculty we’ve collectively rolled up our sleeves to select students from each of our sequences, a top "overall" senior, as well as top masters and doctoral graduates.
I’ve sometimes wondered over the years if this was such a good idea, given how many outstanding graduating seniors and grad students we have each year. Sure, there’s always a "top" GPA, but rarely does that translate into who wins top graduate awards. After all, a journalism education is more than just about grades.
On the other hand, our winners invariably are in the top 5-10% grade point averages. They also have had the kind of impact outside the classroom that means they will be remembered for years to come. So, once again, we used the occasion of our annual awards banquet to recognize top graduating seniors. The text below borrows heavily from the script that Tom Hodson read from at the banquet.
This year we salute the following top graduates:
Advertising: Lauren Miller
From day one, Lauren Miller hit the ground running in the Scripps School of Journalism. Lauren graduated with 40 hours more than the minimum of 192. That says much about her intelligence, motivation and focus.
Lauren has been active in the American Advertising Federation National Student Competition every year, including presenting for the Coca Cola team in her freshman year. She served as Ad Club’s treasurer, was a member of the executive board of directors, marketing and research director and campaign director during her time at Scripps. It’s no surprise that due to her commitment and hard work, Ohio University won the National Competition in 2008. And the 2009 Ad Club’s campaign for the Century Council will launch this year.
During her time at OU, Lauren was also a sales representative for University Directories and was ranked number one on the team. According to her professors, no one has done so well in the advertising sequence and accomplished so much for the OU Advertising Association.
Broadcast: Drew Schaar
Drew walked into WOUB radio and TV his sophomore year and never looked back. He’s been extremely active with WOUB’s Newswatch program, radio newscasts and websites as an anchor, producer, and reporter. He recently finished producing an hour-long live program on the Diabetes Crisis in southeast Ohio.
Drew interned at WBNS-TV in Columbus and two television stations in Dayton. He’s also been a peer mentor the last three years for the Learning Community program and he has done an outstanding job. He’s active in the student chapter of the Radio Television Digital News Association, and recently attended the national convention in Las Vegas. Drew also is involved with Omicron Delta Kappa, a community service and leadership organization.
Carr Van Anda: Bethany Williams
This is the first year we’ve given an outstanding senior award in the Carr Van Anda sequence. We felt the need to do so because we now have quite a number of students electing this inter-disciplinary option.
Bethany Williams transferred into the Scripps Journalism School after her freshmen year. Using the Carr Van Anda option, she has pursued her interest in documentary journalism, blending courses in broadcast journalism, Media Arts & Studies as well as courses from the Film School. And she did all of that while maintaining a near perfect GPA.
Bethany interned with the NPR program "Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me" last summer and plans to pursue her career as a documentary film maker.
Bethany graduated in March and recently returned to the U.S. from a six-week writing trip to Europe.
Journalism HTC: Emily Grannis
Our outstanding HTC senior, Emily Grannis, was campus senior writer for The Post since March 2007, reporting on the OU administration and Faculty Senate as well as student affairs and the Student Senate.
Emily has had a number of internship opportunities during her years at OU. During the summer of 2007, she worked at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C. Since Fall 2007, she has worked with me when I’m serve as a visiting trial judge, doing independent work in legal research and writing.
She’s contributed print and online content to the Legal Times, a weekly Washington, D.C. newspaper, and she’s worked in the Public Information Office (PIO) of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Her outstanding honors thesis on the development of the Paraguayan press is titled "Hard Pressed: The Paraguayan Media and Democratic Transition, 1980s-1990s."
Magazine: Sarah Binning
The Outstanding Magazine Senior, Sarah Binning, knew without doubt that she’d chosen the right career path after she served as editor in chief of Southeast Ohio magazine for the Spring 2010 issue ??" In case you haven’t purchased your copy yet, look for the issue with the cover featuring three child ballet dancers. She was also the magazine’s copy chief for the Winter issue, adeptly supervising a staff of eight copy editors.
Sarah has immersed herself in a variety of journalism experiences outside Scripps as well. She was an intern at Teen Voices Magazine in Boston, an alternative publication whose staff and college-age interns mentor some eighty Boston teen girls as editors each year. During winter breaks she interned at her hometown paper, The Bryan Times, reporting on farm and education news, creating online videos and designing the paper’s entertainment pages.
Sarah also minored in English, and earned a near perfect GPA.
News Editorial: Emily Mullin
Emily Mullin, just couldn’t wait to jump in to her chosen career.
In the summer before she started classes at OU, Emily worked as a freelancer for her hometown paper in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. That fall, she adopted a new hometown paper and started a four-year stint writing for The Athens News. During that time she’s been an opinion columnist, campus reporter and editorial assistant.
Emily didn’t limit her experience to newspapers, she also worked for The Government Channel in Athens and was a talk-show host for the All Campus Radio Network. And she served as one of our Student Ambassadors.
Emily has had internships with the Tribune-Review newspaper of Greensburg, Pennsylvania; the Scripps Howard Foundation Wire in Washington, D.C.; and Columbus Business First. Most recently, she has worked as a freelancer for the Cincinnati Business Courier.
Along the way, she earned a First Place SPJ Mark of Excellence Award, and last fall she was one of only 40 college students nationwide chosen to attend the Business Journalism Consortium in New York City. Emily recently learned that she’s been named a Pulliam fellow, and will work on the business desk at the Indianapolis Star this summer.
Online Journalism: Ryan Lytle
Our top online journalism senior is Ryan Lytle. Ryan transferred into the Scripps Journalism School after his second year at OU.
In the past two years he completed three internships with the Cincinnati Enquirer’s website, the washingtonpost.com, and most recently with the Today Show. Ryan was fortunate to be working at the Today Show when OU defeated Georgetown in the Big Dance. And of course Today Show co-host and alum Matt Lauer wanted to celebrate, so Ryan made his network debut, chest bumping, and nearly knocking out Matt on live TV!
When Ryan wasn’t off in New York or Washington, he worked at The Post, WOUB, and Speakeasy, all while maintaining a terrific GPA.
Public Relations: Adria Courtot
Our Outstanding PR Senior’s accomplishments become even more impressive when you know she only transferred to Ohio University two years ago and then still had to transfer into our program.
From the moment she stepped foot on campus, Adria Courtot was determined to achieve her goal of transferring into Scripps. She joined PRSSA and ImPRessions right away and made a big impact with both. She served as PRSSA’s Vice-President of Internal Relations and she previously edited PRSuccess, the chapter newsletter.
In ImPRessions she served as an Account Executive where she supervised ten other students on the Up ’Til Dawn account. Adria interned with the Athens Area Chamber of Commerce.
Adria was an excellent student who maintained a high GPA and was on the Dean’s List and was the recipient of the Dean’s Scholarship.
Overall Outstanding Senior: Chelsea Toy
Chelsea Toy exemplifies the entrepreneurial spirit necessary to succeed in the modern media business. She produces hard news, long-form features, press releases, and marketing plans. She blogs, tweets, and shoots video. She speaks Spanish and Swahili and has basic conversational skills in German and Malay.
She interned with a magazine and a PR firm in South Africa, and Amnesty Int’l in Washington, D.C. She worked as a senior campus reporter for the Athens News, covering OU politics and the ongoing budget crisis.
During the past four years, Chelsea won 10 journalism awards and scholarships, including the competitive Roy W. Howard National Collegiate Reporting Award and the David L. Shashower Visionary Scholarship in Communication from Liggett-Shashower in Cleveland.
In her free time, she competes in rodeos and has earned national and Canadian barrel-racing titles. For her senior honors project, she launched The Barrel Racing Blog, which receives 3,000 hits each month and she explored the ethical issues involved when journalists cover communities of interest in which they participate.
Not surprisingly, she already has a full-time job as an assistant editor for Horse & Rider where she will produce content for its four-color glossy consumer magazine and companion web products, as well as develop a social media strategy.
Chelsea also has excelled in the classroom, transferring into the Honors Tutorial College as a sophomore and earning a near-perfect GPA. She served our school as a Scripps Ambassador and helped recruit dozens of top ranking prospective students by leading tours and sharing her college experiences with them. We wish continued success as she moves into full-time professional life.
Masters student: Aisha Mohammed
Aisha Mohammed wrote what Pat Washburn considers to be one of the top five papers in his two and a half decades of teaching the historiorgraphy class. She wrote about magazines produced by sex workers for sex workers.
Doctoral student: Jen Lovejoy
Jennette Lovejoy has a history of publishing and presenting academic articles that would be impressive for a tenure-track assistant professor, and she has yet to defend her thesis. She already has a job with the University of Portland. And she throws a football with a nice, tight spiral.
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IIJ Successfully Concludes International Summer Program
- Posted by Yusuf Kalyango in Inside the IIJ on 08/8/2010
- tags: International Journalism, Journalism Educators, SUSI
The E. W. Scripps School of Journalism’s Institute for International Journalism (IIJ) successfully completed the 2010 summer scholars’ program of journalism educators from 17 countries: Austria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Ecuador, Finland, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Macedonia, Mexico, Nepal, Nigeria, Rwanda, Thailand, Vietnam, West Bank and Zambia.
The U.S. Department of State selected the IIJ at Ohio University to run the 2010 Journalism & Media summer program! It is called the 2010 Study of the United States Institute (SUSI) for Journalism and Media scholars. The school and IIJ scheduled innovative research and pedagogy sessions to enlighten the educators to think in new ways about teaching journalism, media research, and other principles of this ever-changing profession.
The SUSI Journalism and Media program was funded by a grant from the Department of State’s Study of the U.S. Branch of the Office of Academic Exchange Programs. This year’s program runs from June 30 to August 12, 2010.
Participants in Study of the U.S. Institutes are among the approximately 30,000 individuals who participate in exchanges managed by the Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) each year. Other ECA exchange programs include the Fulbright Program and the International Visitor Leadership Program. Through a range of academic and professional exchanges, the Bureau seeks to increase mutual understanding between the United States and other countries.
The 17 scholars were also introduced to Athens local community through tours and cultural activities. They visited media outlets and cultural attractions in Columbus, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh, Atlanta and Washington, D.C. They also visited the Amish community in Ohio and the Native American Indians... among other highlights!
The academic program covered a wide range of topics, issues, and practical skills in journalism and media, with four main themes: the U.S. media, ethics and society; U.S. legal frameworks for media freedoms; scholarly research in international journalism and media; roles and responsibilities of journalism in a democracy; the changing media business models in an era of technological change.
Participants in Study of the U.S. Institutes are among the approximately 30,000 individuals who participate in exchanges managed by the Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) each year. Other ECA exchange programs include the Fulbright Program and the International Visitor Leadership Program. Through a range of academic and professional exchanges, the Bureau seeks to increase mutual understanding between the United States and other countries.
Participants used social media platforms, including the IIJ Blog and Twitter @scrippsiij to share their experience to the rest of the world.
