Category: Education

I’ve been selected for the Poynter Fellowship for College Journalists 2009

I learned Tuesday by e-mail that I’ve been selected as one of 40 students to participate in the Poynter Fellowship for College Journalists this summer. It takes place May 17-29 at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla.

poynter_mapI doubt that it needs to be said, but I’m extremely excited. As I wrote in my essay, I’m looking forward to not only learning from some of the most respected journalists in the field, but also to learn from my peers.

Oh, and did I mention, the tuition is free!

After a little research, I’ve found 10 others who have been accepted, nine of whom I found through Twitter search.

One of my tweeps is listed as alternate. We’ve never met, but I hope she has the opportunity to attend because I know she’s a very talented college journalist.

As for how this effects my summer plans, it doesn’t change anything. I will go to my internship at the Dallas Morning News, which I am also eagerly anticipating, soon after the fellowship.

In short, I proclaim this the summer of Greg!

PS. I can’t believe I’m graduating in a little more than two months. Where have the college years gone?

Beyond Bootcamp: Watch NYT multimedia editor Andrew DeVigal live Weds at 7 p.m.

The Beyond Bootcamp livestreaming continues Wednesday night at 7 p.m. with New York Times multimedia editor Andrew DeVigal‘s (@drewvigal) keynote speech, which will begin the second round of workshops.

Watch the keynote here (not visable in RSS feed) or at:

The second set of workshops, which conclude Saturday, includes the following sessions (more about faculty):

  • Creating video narratives by Washington Post video guru Travis Fox and University of Miami visual journalism professor Jim Virga.
  • Creating effective online infographics by University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill visual communication professor Alberto Cairo and New York Times graphics editor Xaquin Gonzalez.
  • Multimedia programming for journalists by NYT senior multimedia producer Tom Jackson and Internet consultant Donny Loflin, who specializes in multimedia and application development.

I am attending the infographics workshops because it’s the area I know the least about, though I wish I could take all three!

Notes

Special thanks to Richard Koci Hernandez for embedding the livestream video player at Multimedia Shooter.

Follow all Beyond Bootcamp tweets:

As I mentioned the other day, please share the livestream and other links on Twitter, Facebook, e-mail, IM, etc.

Sidenote: I received an NBC xylophone-like chime from MSNBC’s Jim Seida for being an “awesome” audio workshop assistant.

I really enjoyed working with Jim and NYT’s Nancy Donaldson during the past three days. They didn’t treat me merely as an assistant (I only fetched water once), but asked me to help participants work in Soundtrack Pro, create their narratives and act as a “third teacher” (Jim’s words).

But, besides helping, I also learned a number of useful tips and tricks. Thanks, Jim and Nancy — you guys rock!

QUESTION: What should I teach myself during winter break?

I have one month to learn a new skill, or skills, during winter break. Therefore, I would like to take a survey to see what skills would most benefit someone graduating in May.

Some background: I will be an online intern at The Dallas Morning News this summer (see related post), a position that focuses on writing and video (mostly breaking news and enterprise).

My career goal is to work as a multimedia reporter.

I have some degree of proficiency in each of the following (in no particular order):

  • Writing and reporting
  • Media law and ethics
  • AP style
  • Video content gathering and editing
  • Audio content gathering and editing
  • Photography and photo editing
  • Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign
  • HTML/CSS
  • Blogging
  • Social media
  • Content and community management
  • SEO (more than basic)
  • Flash (I currently know enough to make this portfolio site)
  • JavaScript (fairly basic, I know how to use libraries)
  • Spanish (studied for seven years)

Here are some ideas for what I could learn:

What do you think?

Or should I simply work on improving some of the skills I already have? I’m taking a video class in the spring to further refine those skills, so I probably won’t focus on video during break.

If there’s another skill you think would be valuable, please let me know. I will probably focus on one, maybe two depending on the intensity of the primary skill.

A couple of my visual journalism professors have recommended learning XML and more Flash, specifically focusing on AS3.

Personally, I’m learning towards database and CAR stuff.

I would greatly appreciate any suggestions in comments below, with a brief explanation of why.

Thanks!

Update, Dec. 22: Apparently one of my plugins broke the comment feature, so no one has been able to respond so far. Fortunately, Twitter came to the rescue!

Almost all of the recommendations have been for learning more about databases and CAR, as well as SEO.

ONA student group: Journalism education discussion round-up

(This post originally appeared here on the Online News Association‘s student journalism discussion group.)

Last week there was an epic Twitter discussion about journalism education.

The conversation continued on the blogosphere and I’d like to offer a few links in the interest of keeping that conversation alive:

Rich Beckman discusses how to reshape journalism education – Greg Linch (me)

J-Schools Now – Emily Kostic

Peripheral education – Daniel Bachhuber

What do you think? Please post a comment or, if you blog about this topic, drop a link here.

UPDATE (Dec. 2 at 11 p.m.): Jared Silfies has also weighed in,

Education 2.0: The Internet makes us the computer wearing tennis shoes

Rich Beckman discusses how to reshape journalism education

I keep forgetting to post these notes, but tonight’s grand conversation on Twitter about journalism education reminded me.

Read the Twitter discussion: Twitter discussion about journalism education or see it as a Wordle visualization.

Context: Rich Beckman, Knight Chair in visual journalism at the University of Miami, gave a presentation on Nov. 11 about how we should reshape journalism education. He spoke as part of the first Knight Chair Lecture Series.

Continue reading Rich Beckman discusses how to reshape journalism education