We are going to be doing more webcasts in the weeks ahead. Coming soon: Sheila Coronel, who heads our investigative journalism program; Betsy West, who teaches in the broadcast program; Joe Cutbirth, who teaches reporting and writing (and is a PhD candidate himself); Larry Fried, dean of technology and his tech team; LynNell Hancock, who teaches education reporting (and is finishing up her term as interim academic dean); and Bill Grueskin, our new academic dean.
Meanwhile, our next session is later today: MEET THE J-SCHOOL: Judith Matloff, adjunct professor, author and war correspondent. Her new book, “Home Girl: Building a Dream House on a Lawless Block,” is about her setting up a new life in Harlem.
TODAY, Monday, June 23, 3-4 p.m. NY time
See local time in your city here: http://snurl.com/2nese
You can send your questions in advance: dos[at]jrn.columbia.edu (subject=webcast) and you can also ask questions via the live chatroom there (another chance to meet some of your new classmates, too).
Judith Matloff has been teaching reporting and writing; covering conflicts and other courses at the J-School for several years. Her latest book: “Home Girl: Building a Dream House on a Lawless Block.” She worked as a staff foreign correspondent for 20 years, specializing in areas of turmoil. She covered a total 62 countries, heading the Africa and Moscow bureaus of The Christian Science Monitor. Previously, Matloff spent a decade at Reuters in various positions in Europe and Africa. She has reported on major world matters including apartheid’s demise, genocide, EU expansion and OPEC.
These are also available as downloadable MP3 files for your personal
collection. If you want to subscribe to these as podcasts on iTunes,
go to “Advanced” within iTunes, then select “Subscribe to podcast” and
type in http://www.blogtalkradio.com/columbiajournalism/feed and hit OK.
Not our graduation, but Prof. Sig Gissler recommends this short AP story about Pulitzer Prize-winner David McCollough’s commencement address at Boston College:
“Please, please do what you can to cure the verbal virus that seems increasingly rampant among your generation.”He said he’s particularly troubled by the “relentless, wearisome use of words” such as like, awesome and actually.”
Photo on right: Wednesday, May 21, 12:10 pm - J-schoolers at the main university ceremony, complete with Reuters-branded beach ball. PHOTO: Craig Hettich. See a year’s worth of Student Affairs photos.
The following awards were presented on May 20 and the winners were acknowledged again at the main graduation ceremony on May 21. Here’s an explanation of how the awards are selected.
PULITZER TRAVELING FELLOWSHIPS & EIBEL AWARD for the top six students in the Class of 2008 (another slideshow below):
PULITZER FELLOWSHIP WINNERS:
Eliza Browning - class valedictorian
Lam Thuy Vo
Robert Jacob Corey-Boulet
Ailsa Wei-tan Chang
Molly Anne Birnbaum
David Marcus Eibel Memorial Scholarship: Srividya Rao
The M.A. Program Prize:
Arthur Harris Award for Best M.A. Thesis: Dorian Sanae Merina
runner-up: Don James Duncan
runner-up: Jacques Solomon Menasche
Award & Winner(s):
Baker Award for Bronx Beat: Katherine Santiago & Stephen Beardsley
Baker Award for CNS: Srividya Rao
Baker Award for Magazine Workshops: Alexa Taylor Schirtzinger
Balakian Award for writing about literature: Adam Weinstein
Blood Award for reporting: Carolina Joan Astigarraga
Brown Award for history of journalism: Rachel Clare Rosenthal
runner-up: Robert Jacob Corey-Boulet
runner-up: Daniel Luzer
Criticism Prize: Ronni J. Reich
Documentary Workshop Award: Aleksandra Halina Michalska
Editing Award: Thomas Arthur McCarthy
Greer Award for financial writing: Richard John McRoskey
Hechinger Education Journalism Award : Elizabeth Cristina Berry
Hechinger Education Journalism: Sarah N. Lynch
Horgan Science 1st prize: Daye Kim
Horgan Science 2st prize: Euna Lhee
Horgan Science 3rd prize: Erin M. Carlyle
Horgan Science 3rd prize: Olga Marie Pierce
Joan Konner Award for Best Broadcast Student: Megan Courtney Chuchmach
Louis Winnick Prize for RWI Writing: Anup Kaphle & Sarah Lynch
Lynton Fellowship in Book Writing: Garin K. Hovannisian
Lynton Fellowship in Book Writing: Jennifer Miller
Mencher Award for superior reporting: Stokely Baksh & Renee Feltz
Lars Erik Nelson Award for national affairs: Ailsa Chang
Lars Erik Nelson Award for national affairs: Eliza Cooke Browning
New Media Workshop Award: Lisa M. Biagiotti
New Media Workshop Award: Anup Kaphle
Nightly News Workshop Award: Eliza Cooke Browning & Megan Chuchmach
Radio Workshop Award: Margaret Julia Messick & Ailsa Chang
Robert Harron Award (”nice guy/nice gal” prize): Alexander James Sundby
Sackett Award for Law Class: Adam Edmund Hirsch
Sander Award for social justice reporting: Alexandra Louise Haugen Horowitz
Taylor Award for best international student: Anup Kaphle
TV Magazine Workshop Award: Sharona Sarah Coutts
Weschler for international reporting: Nadja Drost
Weschler for local reporting: Casey O’Connor Lyons
Weschler for national reporting: Renee Kathrine Feltz & Stokely Baksh NOTE: Part-time students Sumi Aggarwal and Margaret Ballantyne, who are graduating this year, won awards last year.
The winners of the two awards presented by the students:
SPJ Teacher of the Year: Bruce Porter
SPJ Student of the Year: Lam Thuy Vo
List of Students Graduating with Honors
Margaret “Coco” Ballantyne
Elizabeth Berry
Molly Birnbaum
Eliza Browning
Erin Carlyle
Ailsa Chang
Megan Chuchmach
Robert Corey-Boulet
Sharona Coutts
Lawrence Delevingne
Michael Gadd
Garin Hovannisian
Jessica Leber
Thomas McCarthy
Margaret Messick
Jennifer Miller
Neilesh Munshi
Alexis Nunes
Nicholas Phillips
Benjamin Protess
Srividya Rao
Linzi Sheldon
Gregory Simmons
Susan Sipprelle
Lam Vo
More photos of our top six students. PHOTOS: Rebecca Castillo
TRANSCRIPT Commencement 2008
Remarks by Dean Nicholas Lemann
Columbia Graduate School of Journalism
There are two things everybody knows about what they teach in journalism school. One is the five W’s—who, what, where, when, why—that every story must address, and the other is that if a dog bites a man, that’s not news, but if a man bites a dog, that is news. What we teach at Columbia Journalism School sometimes gets a little more complicated than that, but, nonetheless, the old bromides have a certain timeless appeal.
The graduation-speech version of the dog bites man story is telling students who are about to receive degrees that they represent the future. In deference to journalistic standards, I shouldn’t do it here. But I can’t help myself.
This is my fifth Commencement as dean. In that short time, the mood of our profession has changed profoundly. There are a number of reasons why, but the main one is the manifold effects of the Internet. The Internet has a nearly miraculous power to put the ability to publish, and to receive, journalism into the hands of untold millions of people all over the world. For more sophisticated practitioners like many of the people in this auditorium, it gives journalists a greater variety of means of conveying information than we have ever had before. But at the same time, the Internet has clearly eroded the economic basis of at least the corner of journalism into which this school has traditionally sent the plurality of its graduates, the American big-city daily newspaper.
When Columbia Journalism School opened in 1912, most American cities had several daily papers—certainly New York did—and there was no radio or television journalism. Through the twentieth century the newspapers died one by one, casualties of competition or suburbanization or the arrival of new-media competition, but the net result in most cities was a small number of papers that looked quite secure.
The big American newspaper of the late twentieth century was, it seems now, an odd institution, a kind of museum of all the historical phases of journalism, from partisanship (on the editorial page) to pure entertainment (in the comics and horoscopes) to serious political reporting. It was the most efficient way for people to get a big packet of information in one place. Even today’s graduates will remember the days when, if you wanted to find out who had won a ball game, or when a movie was playing, or by how much someone had won an election, you naturally picked up the newspaper. And, in the realm of business, if you were an auto dealer or a department store owner, or an individual engaged in small-scale commerce, the newspaper was the best means of getting people to buy what you were selling. Remember? And, because of the immense plant, equipment, paper, printing, and delivery costs that publishing a newspaper entailed, people who were already in the business were well protected from new competition.
Well, none of that is true any more. Most of the individual aspects of a traditional newspaper are available on the Internet, for free. Newspapers are still producing great quantities of original information, thanks to the hard work of people like you, but they no longer have local quasi-monopolies as sources of information. Their audiences are now primarily on the Internet—that wasn’t the case just a few years ago. And, even more recently, on the Web the lines between the various originating media have started seriously blurring. On the front pages of newspaper Web sites, you’re starting to find what we would recently have taught as television stories—video and audio presentations a few minutes long. Television sites publish what we teach as newspaper stories—stories made up only of printed words, without images. Magazine sites publish animated cartoons. And so on. The tectonic plates underlying our profession—those traditional categorical divisions by type of news, by news medium, by geography—are palpably, and rapidly, rearranging themselves.
Today, more of you have definite plans that entail paid employment in journalism than had such plans when I first stood at this podium five years ago. How can that be? Much of the credit is due to the great work our Career Services office does, but it’s also that employers want you because you’re energetic, because you have skills that people already in newsrooms don’t have, and perhaps also because you aren’t so wedded to doing things the way they’ve always been done in journalism.
You soon-to-be graduates are a diverse lot. You come from all over the world, work in every news medium, and cover the whole range of complicated subjects–but every one of you is a reporter: You know how to gather information, primarily through in-person interviewing, and to present it accurately, fairly, and engagingly. I would urge you, however, not to take it for granted that the best way to present information is an 800-word, all-text, pyramid-style news story—a method of presentation that grew up in the nineteenth century and dominated our profession for most of the twentieth, but may not in the twenty-first. And, as you’re well advised to be creative about how to present each individual story, the news organizations you work for are going to have to be similarly creative about figuring out, in the aggregate, what package of material they are presenting. It is going to have to be something unobtainable elsewhere—a rich mix of information about a community or a subject that the news organization’s Web site puts together more powerfully and efficiently than anybody else. It is not going to look just like the package of material that populates a newspaper now.
Inventing this is your task. You can’t avoid it—the old way doesn’t work any more—but it’s a far more creative, challenging assignment than what was handed to my generation when we went to journalism. Our job was to improve on the old model. Your job is to create a new model. You shouldn’t be daunted by this: newspapers in particular, and news in general, have been changing in non-incremental ways for three centuries. Benjamin Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette and Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World (the profits from which endowed this school) had almost nothing in common except that they were printed on cheap paper and distributed in cities, and neither had much in common with a big-city newspaper today. On your watch, newspapers will be primarily digital, but the primary task for you is not to switch delivery media, it’s to invent a new social compact with a community around the gathering and presentation of information.
I suppose that qualifies as a man bites dog story—but it’s still contained within a dog bites man story, which is that you are leaders who hold the future of journalism in your hands. Sorry, it’s unavoidable. Have fun with it.
- - -
And here are the remarks Dean Lemann made when he introduced the Journalism students at the main university commencement in front of all the other schools, recipients of honorary degrees, etc - the tradition is to have some fun with this introduction (over the top is the norm from the various deans):
Mr. President, surely you must wish sometimes that everybody believed in free speech as completely as you do.
Well, sir, there is an easy way to achieve that happy state of affairs: Just make sure that the entire public discourse is based on the rock-solid reporting produced by the magnificently well-trained, hard-working, brilliant company of women and men I have the honor to present to you today.
Candidates of the Faculty of Journalism.
They are global. They are Webby. They are intellectually confident. Most, or possibly all, of the world’s problems would disappear overnight if only people would give full attention to their hard-earned facts and well-reasoned interpretations.
And they have completed the nearly insuperable requirements for the degrees of Master of Science, Master of Arts, and Doctor of Philosophy.
I humbly beg you, sir, to grant them this degree along with the rights and privileges thereto attached.
o o o o o
TRANSCRIPT
Remarks by Yian Huang, J2008 Class President
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Dean Lemann, distinguished faculty, treasured guests, … and FELLOW GRADUATES OF THE CLASS OF 2008.
Graduates … Graduates … What an exciting world we are being launched into! There are so many great subjects for us to cover: Painful ones, joyful ones. There are disasters, human stories, war, peace and … perhaps even a scandal or two waiting to be discovered.
We are now a part of the best profession in the world—the one that gives us an excuse to ask people to let us into their lives and their homes; to tell us their intimate stories. And if we ask with “Joyful Entitlement,” as Professor Gissler taught us, people say yes.
We are the next generation of leaders of journalists. Right now, we look at journalists who inspire us, and we think we are merely students, or interns. But you know what, they all look at us, and they expect us to lead.
We have been so honored to have spent the last year at Columbia—the best journalism school in the world. We have reported on the diversity of New York City, a place that many say is the center of the universe.
Ok, that’s the fun bit. Now we’re going to discuss the serious part, which is about WORKING TOGETHER.
Our profession gives us a real opportunity—and thus an obligation—to change the world, by deciding what’s news, as Herbert Gans wrote.
So what do we want to change? What are our big dreams? What if we were the heads of the NY Times or CNN, or what if we had a couple of Pulitzers under our belt? What would we use our voice to say then? Look around this room. Look at the person in the seat next to you, the one in front of you blocking your view. In 20, 30 years, we as a class, we’ll have those things. What then? And then the obvious question is, why wait till then? Use our voices now. Yes, we might have to cover community board meetings starting out, but never lose sight of why we got into this in the first place.
For me, as a conflict photographer I’ve found that documenting—and almost glorifying—violence with my photos might not lead to peace, as I wish it might. News is not just about the conventional “If it bleeds, it leads.” We should strive to uncover the greater complexity of the stories we cover and challenge the established view.
So here’s the “nut” of this speech: To accomplish anything great, we need to harvest the power of the group. As individuals, we can only do so much.
So, stick together. Being unstoppable in the face of the adversities we are certain to face is so much easier with the help of our friends. We are our own best resources:
— We have:… the largest ever PhD graduating class of 6 students, who are our resources in macro trends in media.
— We have Knight Bagehot fellows who have enriched our conversations with their experience, and showed us that learning never stops.
— We have M.A. students who have given up established careers to study with us and cover Arts, Business, Politics.
— And we have the diverse and international M.S. class, who are already trailblazing new ways of telling stories.
Find a collaborator from this group. We can’t do everything ourselves. It’s more effective to work together than be the jack-of-all-trades one-man/woman-mobile-journalist/video/photographer/blogger that the industry seems to want.
Look at how the class came together when Ahmadinejad spoke on this stage last September. We got 30 reporters together to create a blog. We had print pieces, we had video, we had audio slideshows. We killed this story. And we got 165,000 visits in 48 hours.
Look at what we’ve survived together this year: the freezing basement and the horrible experience of the toilets there. We survived not having coffee for an unconscionable amount of time. And don’t get us started on the mythical Argentinean glass that’s being flown in from Paris by way of China. Last I heard, the cafe will be ready in Aug. but that’s what they told us last spring too.
PARENTS IN THE AUDIENCE, so sorry to tell you, that while it is true that this has been a tough year for us, WE ARE NOT DETERRED from this profession. Not in the slightest.
As president of the class, I have the privilege of speaking on behalf of all the students. Dean Lemann, a heartfelt Thank You to you, your faculty and staff, for all your time and teachings that you have imparted to us so very generously. May we be as generous to those coming after us.
Ms. Gross, thank you for coming. It’s a wonderful privilege for us. Since 1973, All You Did Was Ask Questions, if I may paraphrase the title of your book. We would like to ask: If you had only one person left to interview and only one question, who would it be and what would you ask?
A special shout out to adviser Rebecca Castillo and the SPJ Board, the tireless students who labored on behalf of all of us to make it a great experience for one and all. Please stand up and be recognized. Thank you.
Last, and certainly not least, we should all acknowledge our parents. I’m going to ask everyone to stand up, turn around, and show them our appreciation.
When you leave today, find something nice to say to your own parents;
(for me): Dad, for pushing me to do my best always;
and Mum, for teaching me the true meaning of love;
I am only here today because of both of you, so thank you.
As you know, we have been doing a series of webcasts to introduce the school to incoming students. Our latest was with Sudarsan Raghavan, Baghdad bureau chief, The Washington Post . The originial announcement is below, but you can listen to the recording here.
AUDIO WEBCAST: Sudarsan Raghavan, Baghdad bureau chief, The Washington Post (bio below)
Friday, May 9, 3-4 p.m. NY time
10 p.m. Baghdad time
See local time in your city here: http://snurl.com/28191
Listen live at the link below (or by dialing 646-915-9583) or listen to a recording: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/ColumbiaJournalism/2008/05/09/MEET-AN-ALUM-Sudarsan-Raghavan
Columbia Journalism School invites you to meet an award-winning foreign correspondent. He has reported from more than 50 countries and nine war zones in Africa (where he was Knight-Ridder bureau chief), the Middle East, Asia, the former Soviet Union and Central America. Raghavan, who has won several major prizes, including the Polk Award, started his career in 1992 freelancing from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. He will discuss the situation in Iraq, his career and what he learned at Columbia. He’ll be calling in from his Baghdad home. You can ask questions via the live chatroom or the listener line, or send them in advance via e-mail to dos[at]jrn.columbia.edu
On April 12, 2007, a couple of weeks after he spoke at Columbia during a brief vacation, he nearly became a victim of one of the countless Iraq bombs we hear about. Here’s how his front-page, first-person story, “In an Instant, a Junkyard of Humanity,” began:
The bomber blew himself up no more than a few yards away. First, a brilliant flash of orange light like a starburst, then a giant popping sound. A gust of debris, flesh and blood threw me from my chair as if I were made of cardboard.
I was lying on a bed of shattered glass on the floor of the cafeteria in the Iraqi parliament building, covered with ashes and dust. Small pieces of flesh clung to my bluejeans. Blood, someone else’s, speckled the left lens of my silver-rimmed glasses. Blood, mine, oozed from my left hand, punctured by a tiny shard of glass.
“Are you okay? Are you okay?” asked Saad al-Izzi, one of The Post’s Iraqi correspondents, standing over me, his face framed by an eerie yellowish glow, his voice distant. I did not reply.
I had always thought about this moment. In Iraq, every journalist does. But I did not expect a bomber to take lives inside the Green Zone, the nerve center of the Iraqi government and its backer, the United States.
Huffington Post’s Eat the Press called the piece “a must-read”: “The pure narrative movement of the piece, full of sudden temporal jumps and shifts in voice, only serves to underscore the nervy panic of the moment and its aftermath as Raghavan struggles to render the disjointed scene into something whole.”
TODAY’S WEBCAST: Listen live at the link below (or by dialing 646-915-9583) or listen to a recording: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/ColumbiaJournalism/2008/05/09/MEET-AN-ALUM-Sudarsan-Raghavan
Friday, May 9, 3-4 p.m. NY time
See local time in your city here: http://snurl.com/28191 You can ask Raghavan questions via the live chatroom, or send them in advance via e-mail to ss221@columbia.edu
- - - -
YOU CAN LISTEN TO ALL OUR PREVIOUS WEBCASTS AND SEE ALL OUR RESOURCES AND FAQS FOR NEW STUDENTS at http://deanstudents.blogsome.com/2008/04/18/prepping/
Prof. David Hajdu [DavidHajdu.com], who teaches arts journalism at the school and is a prolific author, was a guest at Google HQ, for one of their Google Talks events. You can watch the 48-minute video below or at this link.
You can also listen to a web radio interview we did with Prof. Hajdu on April 23, 2008 below or at this link.
It’s an alumni documentary up for the Tribeca Film Festival’s “Best World Documentary Feature” award.
What: “Baghdad High” Screening with Directors Ivan O’Mahoney and Laura Winter When: Thursday, May 1 Time: 4:00 p.m. Where: Stabile Student Center, Columbia Journalism School, 2950 Broadway (at 116th Broadway), New York City
“Baghdad High,” directed by Ivan O’Mahoney ‘00 and Laura Winter ‘96, is up for the Tribeca Film Festival’s Best World Documentary Feature this year. Four classmates (Kurd, Christian, Shiite, and Sunni/Shiite) in Baghdad were given cameras to document their last year in high school, resulting in a rare firsthand view of what it’s like growing up where
sectarian violence rages right outside the classroom window. Variety wrote that “the small, quotidian realities of living in a foreign-occupied, divided city are brought coolly but poignantly to life” in the film. It will screen April 29-May 3 at the Tribeca Film Festival.
All are invited for this; mandatory for full-time M.S. students. No RSVP required. Chip is a fabulous teacher and I guarantee you will learn a lot from him (students raved about his appearance two years ago).
SPRING SEMESTER PREP DAY
Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2008
An annual day of academic, career and writing tips and advice, before the
semester formally begins. Brought to you by Student Affairs and Career Services
With special guest teacher, Chip Scanlan, J’74, one of America’s best-known
writing coaches and author of Poynter.org’s “Chip on Your Shoulder” column - http://www.poynter.org/shoulder (bio below)
Mandatory for all full-time M.S. students; all other students, faculty,
adjuncts and staff are invited.
8:30-9:15: Coffee, tea, breakfast served.
9:15-10: “Surviving & Thriving in the Spring Semester”
- how to excel in the Spring, academically and otherwise
- preparing for graduation (never to early!)
Deans Sreenivasan and Huff
10:00-10:45: “Career Planning Strategies”
- how to make best use of the Spring for job hunting and job planning
Dean Sotomayor and Career Services Team
10:45-11:00: Break (light snacks served)
WORKSHOPS WITH CHIP SCANLAN, J’74 (Poynter Institute faculty member and one of
America’s best-known writing coaches)
11:00-1:00 pm: “Thinking About Stories”
Reporters and editors pay a lot of attention to reporting and writing. But
thinking is the under-appreciated part of being a journalist. This hands-on
session presents practical and quick techniques to strengthen the connections
between creative work, critical thinking and courage that produce the finest
journalism.
1:00-2:15 pm:
STUDENTS - Lunch on your own
FACULTY - Lunch meeting with Chip Scanlan (faculty, RSVP to
StudentAffairsRSVP@gmail.com)
2:15-4:15: “Making Things Happen: A Journalist’s Guide to Getting Things Done”
Are you a procrastinator? Have unfulfilled dreams? This session will show you
how just five simple steps can nip the “I’ll do it tomorrow” mindset, help you
successfully plan and execute any goal from cleaning your room to making your
Master’s Project/Thesis a wild success.
4:15-6 pm: “Chip and Salsa”
Informal reception, featuring Columbia Catering’s famous “South of the Border”
menu - a chance to meet Chip and hang out with your classmates before classes
begin.
ABOUT CHIP SCANLAN
Chip produces “Chip on Your Shoulder,” a writing advice column for Poynter
Online. He spent two decades as an award-winning reporter and feature writer
Providence Journal, St. Petersburg Times, Knight Ridder Washington Bureau).
He is the author of “Reporting and Writing: Basics for the 21st Century”
(Oxford University Press). Co-editor, “America’s Best Newspaper Writing”
(Bedford/St. Martin’s) Edited “Best Newspaper Writing” 1994-2000. Recent
publications include: The New York Times, National Public Radio.
Chip’s teaching specialties are in reporting, interviewing, coaching skills,
productivity, nonfiction narrative, personal essays and deadline storytelling.
With his wife, Katharine Fair, he wrote “The Holly Wreath Man”, a serial
newspaper novel syndicated in 60 newspapers and in 2005 was published in
hardcover. In 2006, the couple produced another Christmas serial, “Mystery @
Elf Camp.”
They have three daughters and live in St. Petersburg Beach, Florida.
Occasionally, Chip gets the remote.
[Another in our “Notes From…” series - short notes by volunteers summarizing various events around the school, to help those of us who didn’t/couldn’t attend. Watch for several other “Notes From…” throughout the year. If you have one, send it in! Or let us know in advance that you’d like to do one; or after the event, too. You can see the master list of all the “Notes From” items here.]
Below, notes from a talk by Hassan Fattah of The New York Times. Many thanks to the volunteer notes-taker Mohammad Al-Kassim. Feel free to post a comment below (free, one-timeregistration required).
NOTES FROM… A Talk by Hassan Fattah of The New York Times
Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2007
Lecture Hall, Columbia Journalism School
By Mohammad Al-Kassim, J2008
Hassan Fattah, Columbia University J-School Class of 2000, and New York Times Middle East Correspondant based in Dubai, spoke to J-School students at the Lecture Hall on Tuesday morning. A former Baghdad correspondent, he now covers the entire region except for Iraq, Israel and Palestine. (more…)
[Another in our “Notes From…” series - short notes by volunteers summarizing various events around the school, to help those of us who didn’t/couldn’t attend. Watch for several other “Notes From…” throughout the year. If you have one, send it in! Or let us know in advance that you’d like to do one; or after the event, too. You can see the master list of all the “Notes From” items here.]
Below, notes from a talk by Brian Ross of ABC News. Many thanks to the volunteer notes-takers. Feel free to post a comment below (free, one-timeregistration required).
NOTES FROM… A Talk by Brian Ross, ABC News Chief Investigative Correspondent
Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2007
Lecture Hall, Columbia Journalism School (more…)
Hassan M. Fattah, NYT Middle East correspondent based in Dubai, talks to Columbia J-school Students. He graduated from the school in May 2000. This is just one minute from a 45-minute talk he gave on Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2007. In the background, you see two of the things that he says are critical for all foreign correspondents to have at all times: a pencil (not a pen, a pencil) and a Nokia phone (in other countries, you can always find someone nearby who has a Nokia charger). Hassan’s bio is below.
Publish your comments below.
ABOUT HASSAN FATTAH
Hassan M. Fattah is the Middle East Correspondent for the New York Times,
based in Dubai. He is responsible for covering the entire region outside
Iraq and Israel/Palestine.
In 2003, he co-founded Iraq Today, an English-language weekly newspaper
written and edited by Iraqis, turning the venture into an internationally
recognized publication before its closure a year later due to security
concerns. In 2004, Mr. Fattah helped found Aswat Al Iraq, Iraq.s first
independent, non-governmental news exchange, funded by the United Nations
and focused on developing a new generation of Iraqi journalists.
He has served as a correspondent for Time, and at various times has been a
regular contributor to the Economist, Prospect Magazine and the New
Republic, among other international publications.
Born in Beirut Lebanon to Iraqi parents, Mr. Fattah was raised between
Lebanon, Jordan and the U.S. He holds a B.S. in Engineering from the
University of California at Berkeley and a Masters in Science from the
Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
[ Another in our “Notes From…” series - short notes by volunteers summarizing various events around the school, to help those of us who didn’t/couldn’t attend. Watch for several other “Notes From…” throughout the year. If you have one, send it in! Or let us know in advance that you’d like to do one; or after the event, too. ]
Below, notes from the 2007 graduation speech by Ben Bradlee of The Washington Post. Many thanks to volunteer notes-taker Phil Wahba, who is a Part-Time student graduating in 2008.
Feel free to drop him note or post a comment below (free, one-time registration required).
Notes From… Ben Bradlee’s Graduation Speech, Columbia Journalism School By Phil Wahba
E-mail: pw2158[at]columbia.edu
LERNER HALL, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, MAY 16, 2007: “Love your job, and work harder than the guy next to you.” With those words, former Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee imparted his advice to the latest batch of Columbia University Journalism School grads setting out into the world of journalism. He is this year’s recipient of the Columbia Journalism Award, the J-school’s highest honor (a recent previous winner was David Halberstam - read his 2005 speech).
After an effusive introduction by Dean Nick Lemann at the school’s graduation ceremony, Mr. Bradlee regaled the audience of graduates and their families and friends with tales from his illustrious career, everything from having President Kennedy for a source to nearly getting deported from France while on assignment
for Newsweek magazine. As he spoke, many of the parents and students in the hall started taking photos of him, their camera flashes going off again and again from all over the room.
His talk also included cautionary tales. Recalling that he was the editor who allowed the publication of Janet Cooke’s 1981 Pulitzer-winning article about heroin addiction that turned out to be a complete fabrication, Mr. Bradlee advised the newly-minted journalists, “When you make a mistake, eat it.” And he cautioned the aspiring journalists that sometimes they won’t get to write the stories they find.
From the outset of his remarks, Mr. Bradlee, 86, made clear his optimism for the profession upon which the 250 or so grads were embarking. “I am flat-out sick of dire predictions for the future of journalism,” he told the audience. “We are the latest of the breed, not the last.” And, he said, people will always want to know
the truth.
He firmly believes that good stories will always be in demand and urged the graduates to be patient when working on a story, because the truth emerges eventually.
The gravel-voiced Mr. Bradlee ended his address by quoting his father’s advice for succeeding. “Nose down, ass up and go.”
Legendary journalist David Halberstam, who was killed in a car crash on April 23, 2007, had a long relationship with the Columbia J-school over several decades.
In 2005, he received the Columbia Journalism School’s highest honor, the Columbia Journalism Award and addressed that year’s graduates.
Much of what has been written about Halberstam in the wake of his tragic
death April 23rd, is about Halberstam the writer. But Halberstam was
primarily a reporter. He took great joy in it and respected others who did it
well. Here, in an article for our November 2006 issue, he salutes the other
great reporters who told a true story of the war in Vietnam.
Many thanks for your input for this year’s Graduation speakers. Two
distinguished journalists will be speaking to you at graduation (it’s just a
coincidence that they are from the same newsroom).
ON TUESDAY, MAY 15, the Pringle Lecture will be delivered by DANA PRIEST,
national security correspondent of The Washington Post, where she has worked
for 20 years. She won a Pulitzer Prize in 2006 for beat reporting (in part
for her revelation on secret prisons run by the CIA). That was the third
year in a row that she had a Pulitzer connection. In 2005, she was a
finalist in two categories - beat reporting, for her coverage of
intelligence agencies; and national reporting, as part of the Post team that
covered the Abu Ghraib abuses). In 2004, her book, “The Mission: Waging War
and Keeping Peace With America’s Military,” was a Pulitzer finalist in
general non-fiction.
Most recently, she helped reveal the crises at Walter Reed Hospital earlier
this year. Read more about her extraordinary work (and watch some of her
appearances as a guest panelist on “Washinton Week with Gwen Ifill” on PBS)
at the Dana Priest Fan Site: http://www.danapriestfansite.com/
ON WEDNESDAY, MAY 16, the winner of the school’s highest honor, the Columbia
Journalism Award (and therefore, the main graduation speaker for you and
your guests) is BEN BRADLEE, the legendary editor of The Washington Post.
During his years as executive editor of the Post from 1965-1991, he helped
transform the paper from a local daily into an internationally-recognized,
world-class news operation. Among the stories he was intimately involved
with: the Pentagon Papers and Watergate. Adjunct professor Betsy West told
me just last night how how great a big-event speaker Bradlee is and that we
are all in for a treat. More on Bradlee at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Bradlee and http://www.gtnspeakers.com/speakers/speakers.php?speakerid=302
The student speaker will be AKISA OMULEPU, your class president - no
introduction required.
Come see one of this year’s Oscar-winning documentaries and hear from filmmaker Tom Lennon about the innovative way the film was funded and produced.
Monday, April 23, 7-8:30 p.m.
“The Blood of Yingzhou District,” winner of the Academy Award for Best Documentary-Short Subject, will be screened on Monday, April 23rd from 7-8:30 p.m. on the third floor of Columbia’s Journalism School, in the Lecture Hall (2950 Broadway, #1 train to 116th St).
The film, a powerful portrayal of children in China’s Anhui province who have lost their parents to AIDS, is 40 minutes long. Adjunct Professor Betsy West will lead a discussion with the producer of “The Blood of Yingzhou District,” Tom Lennon, about the film and about the China AIDS Media project, the non-profit organization he co-founded with director Ruby Yang.
The doctoral program in communications hosts sessions on both novel and vintage communications scholarship. The colloquium is open to all interested. We meet Thursdays 1-3 in the Journalism School, room 602, unless otherwise noted. If you have questions, comments, or suggestions, contact the student organizer, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, at rkn2103@columbia.edu.
SPRING 2007
February 15
Chris Anderson (Communications, Columbia) will present work-in-progress under the title ‘$43,000 and All I Got Was This Lousy Authority: Towards an Epistemography of Journalism Education’.
February 22, room 204 (reservation required, limited to 20 students)
Eric Klinenberg (Sociology, NYU) will speak about his new book, ‘Fighting for Air’, on how corporate ownership and control of local media has remade American political and cultural life.
March 8, room 204 (reservation required, limited to 20 students)
James McGrath Morris (independent scholar), who is in the process of writing a biography of Joseph Pulitzer, will present parts of his research. Morris’ previous work includes ‘The Rose Man of Sing Sing’ on New York Evening World editor Charles E. Chapin’s dramatic life.
March 22 (reservation required, limited to 20 students)
Noted cultural historian Wolfgang Schivelbusch (independent scholar, author of ‘The Railway Journey’ and numerous other books), will speak about new technologies and the experience and acceleration and deceleration.
March 29
Work-in-progress session for doctoral students to discuss upcoming papers and projects.
April 12
Laura Forlano (Communications, Columbia) will present work-in-progress under the title ‘Anytime? Anywhere?: Exploring the Social Lives of WiFi Hotspots’.
April 19
Work-in-progress session for doctoral students to discuss upcoming papers and projects.
All Journalism students and faculty are invited to this public lecture.
Dr. Amien Rais:
Islam and Democracy in Indonesia: Some Major Problems I faced as a Muslim Democratic Activist and How I Addressed Them.
Date: Wednesday, February 7, 2007
Time: 4-6pm
Location: Room 1501, International Affairs Building
Columbia University
Dr. Amien Rais, former chairman of Indonesia’s largest modernist Islamic Organization Muhammadiyah (25-30 million members) became a leading democratic activist in the 1997 and 1998 demonstrations against President Suharto. He later served as Speaker of the People’s Consultative Assembly during the round of constitutional reforms that revived and amended Indonesia’s democratic 1945 constitution.
In his talk, Amien Rais will discuss his role as the leader of a multi-milllion Muslim constituency during the last years of the New Order and address some of the difficulties he faced in his pro-democratic struggle.
Dr. Rais received a PhD from the University of Chicago in 1984 and an MA from the University of Notre Dame.
A reception, co-sponsored by SIPA’s Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion (CDTR), and the Weatherhead East Asian Institute (WEAI), will follow the lecture.
You are invited to this SIPA event. Eason Jordan will be joined by his
colleague, Anna Shen, J-school 1993 graduate. Anna’s e-mail: annashen[at]hotmail.com
Brown Bag lunch on Thursday, Feb 8, 12:30-1:30PM
International Affairs Building - Room 410
420 West 118th St
“Media, Violence and the Iraq War” with Eason Jordan, Former CNN
executive and founder of the IraqSlogger news site.
Jordan will discuss press coverage of the Iraq War, the dangers
journalists face there and what we can expect as the situation
continues to deteriorate.
A frequent visitor to Iraq, Jordan worked for 23 years with CNN,
where he rose through the ranks to become the network’s Chief News
Executive and President of Newsgathering and International
Networks. Jordan oversaw CNN’s news coverage, global expansion, and
international relations. He orchestrated CNN’s award-winning
reporting of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, former Yugoslavia, and
Somalia. He also directed CNN’s coverage of the September 11, 2001
terrorist attacks, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the 1989
crackdown in Tiananmen Square. He traveled around the world on
behalf of CNN and reported on-air himself from such countries as
Iraq and North Korea. After two of his CNN colleagues were killed
by insurgents in Iraq in 2004, Jordan co-founded and co-chaired the
Iraq News Safety Group, and on behalf of the Group met senior
U.S.and Iraqi officials to address the safety concerns of news
organizations whose journalists report from Iraq.
Sponsored by the International Media and Communications
Concentration
This is a public event, feel free to invite others - come meet some
intriguing journalists and other media folks.
Politics & Internet Panel
Tuesday, Nov. 21 / Columbia Journalism School / 7-9 pm
Columbia Journalism School and the Columbia Arts Initiative present
“Politics and the Internet: Is the Web Revolutionary?”
A panel discussion about issues such as
government censorship and the ability of technology to affect politics.
SPEAKERS:
Sheila Coronel, Stabile Professor of Investigative Journalism
http://www.jrn.columbia.edu/faculty/coronel.asp
Hugh Hewitt, blogger and radio host
http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/About.aspx
MODERATOR: Nicholas Lemann, Dean of Columbia Journalism School & “The Wayward
Press” columnist, The New Yorker
http://www.jrn.columbia.edu/faculty/lemann.asp
Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2006
7-8:30 pm - discussion
No RSVP required. No charge. Open to the public.
Columbia Graduate School of Journalism
Lecture Hall, 3rd Floor - 116th St & Broadway
[ #1 train to 116th St or get directions:
http://www.hopstop.com/route?city=New+York&county2=Manhattan&address2=2950+broadway&mode=s
]
This session is part of a series of talks in honor of a seven-week residency at
Columbia University by Vaclav Havel. An online version of this will be posted
on http://havel.columbia.edu
For more information on these programs (or to submit questions that can be
posed to the panelists), please contact Prof. Sree Sreenivasan at sree@sree.net
ABOUT THE COLUMBIA NEW MEDIA PROGRAM: The Journalism School established its new
media curriculum in Sept. 1994 with a Cyberspace Reporting course. The program
now consists of advanced and introductory classes in website production, online
storytelling and new media trends. The emphasis is on journalism, not
technology, though students do learn high-end production skills. More than 275
students have graduated as new media majors and more than 1,200 print and
broadcast students have taken basic new media classes. The showcase site for
the program is NYC24.org, a site run entirely by students: http://www.nyc24.org
More on the Columbia Journalism School: http://www.jrn.columbia.edu
[ Another in our “Notes From…” series - short notes by volunteers summarizing various events around the school, to help those of us who didn’t/couldn’t attend. Watch for several other “Notes From…” throughout the year. If you have one, send it in! Or let us know in advance that you’d like to do one; or after the event, too. ]
Below, notes from a talk in the J-school World Room by Richard Parsons, chairman and CEO of Time Warner Inc. Many thanks to volunteer notes-taker Elisha Sulai, J2007. Feel free to drop him note or post a comment below (free, one-time registration required).
Notes From… Lunch with Richard Parsons
By Elisha Sulai
E-mail: elishasulai[at]gmail.com
WORLD ROOM, J-SCHOOL, Oct. 18, 2006: Richard Parsons, the chairman and CEO of Time Warner spoke at the Columbia Journalism School today, at a Publisher’s Roundtable, which gives students a chance to meet publishers in an intimate setting. About 15 students got to have lunch with Mr. Parsons, one of the most important executives in the media world. The session was chaired by Dean Nicholas Lemann.
Mr. Parsons praised the journalism profession. But he complained that way too often, journalists sacrifice accuracy in their attempt to get a story.
“It’s more important to get it right than first,” he said. Mr. Parsons predicted that the future of journalism would be on the Internet. “More and more of news will be in online digital form,” he said.
Mr. Parsons also said that bloggers will not overtake the “legitimate media” because bloggers are not “authenticated.” Parsons added that we’re witnessing a move towards opinion journalism, as the market for news is “segmenting.”
He also suggested that consolidation in the news gathering business is inevitable, given the fact that newsgathering costs are rising.
Parson’s sounded a warning to YouTube: Unless YouTube finds a way around its copyright issues, it will be “toast” like Napster.
-
BIO: Richard D. Parsons is Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Time Warner Inc., whose businesses include filmed entertainment, interactive services, television networks, cable systems and publishing. He became CEO in May 2002 and Chairman of the Board in May 2003.
Since becoming CEO, Mr. Parsons has led Time Warner’s turnaround and set the company on a solid path toward achieving sustainable growth. In the process, he has put in place the industry’s most experienced and successful management team, strengthened the company’s balance sheet and simplified its corporate structure, and carried out a disciplined approach to realigning the company’s portfolio of assets to improve returns. In its January 2005 report on America’s Best CEOs, Institutional Investor magazine named Mr. Parsons the top CEO in the entertainment industry.
Before becoming CEO, Mr. Parsons served as the company’s Co-Chief Operating Officer, overseeing its content businesses-Warner Bros., New Line Cinema, Warner Music Group and Time Warner Book Group-as well as two key corporate functions: Legal and People Development.
Mr. Parsons joined Time Warner as its President in February 1995, and has been a member of the company’s Board of Directors since January 1991. As President, he oversaw the company’s filmed entertainment and music businesses, and all corporate staff functions, including financial activities, legal affairs, public affairs and administration.
Before joining Time Warner, Mr. Parsons was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Dime Bancorp, Inc., one of the largest thrift institutions in the United States. Previously, he was the managing partner of the New York law firm Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler. Prior to that, he held various positions in state and federal government, as counsel for Nelson Rockefeller and as a senior White House aide under President Gerald Ford. Mr. Parsons received his undergraduate education at the University of Hawaii and his legal training at Union University’s Albany Law School.
Mr. Parsons’ civic and non-profit commitments include Co-Chairman of the Mayor’s Commission on Economic Opportunity in New York; Chairman Emeritus of the Partnership for New York City; Chairman of the Apollo Theatre Foundation and service on the boards of Howard University, the Museum of Modern Art and the American Museum of Natural History. He also serves on the boards of Citigroup and Estée Lauder.
As some of you know, one of the top political writers in American journalism
joined the faculty this fall when Tom Edsall, a veteran Washington Post
reporter was named the first Pultizer-Moore professor in Politics and
Journalism (bio below).
To give you an opportunity to see him in action, Prof. Edsall is going to
give a talk on Nov. 1, during the day. Please see the details below and RSVP
for this session. He is one of the most astute and experienced observers of
our political scene - you won’t want to miss this.
Please join Prof. Tom Edsall
Pulitzer-Moore Chair in Politics and Journalism
For a discussion on “Elections 2006″
Wednesday, November 1, 2006
11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Journalism Building, Room 607A
Light refreshments will be served.
RSVP: JODI LIPPER
Limited seating.
BIO: Thomas B. Edsall covered national politics for 25 years at the
Washington Post. He is now a correspondent for The New Republic and
The National Journal. He is also a frequent contributor to such
magazines as The Atlantic, the New York Review of Books, the New
Republic, Harper’s, The American Prospect, the Nation, the Washington
Monthly, and Dissent. His awards include the Carey McWilliams Award
of the American Political Science Association, the Bill Pryor Award of
the Newspaper Guild, a year-long fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars, and five Media Fellowships at the
Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
One of Edsall’s primary interests is the growth and strength of the
conservative coalition and Republican Party over the past four
decades. He is the author of Building Red America: the New
Conservative Coalition and the Drive for Permanent Power, which was
released in August, 2006. A previous book, Chain Reaction: the Impact
of Race, Rights, and Taxes, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for
Nonfiction in 1992. In 1983, he wrote The New Politics on Inequality.
Before joining the Washington Post in 1981, Edsall worked for 14 years
at the Baltimore Evening Sun and the Baltimore Sun, covering a wide
range of local and national beats. In 1965-1966, he served in the
VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) program, working in East
Baltimore. In 1965, Edsall covered suburban county governments in
South Rhode Island for the Providence Journal-Bulletin. Born in
Cambridge, Mass., Edsall received a B.A. degree in political science
from Boston University. He is married to Mary Deutsch Edsall and they
have one daughter, Alexandra Edsall-Victor, and two grandchildren,
Thomas and Lydia Victor.
Every year, the University awards Maria Moors Cabot Prizes to the best and brightest Latin American journalists and North American journalists covering Latin America. President Bollinger will be conferring these prizes, the oldest international prizes in journalism, in a formal ceremony at Low Library next Wednesday.
But next Tuesday night (the 10th), this year’s four Cabot medalists will appear at the J. school in a special panel designed for you to ask them questions. Attached are thumbnail sketches of the four winners–Mario Vargas Llosa, Ginger Thompson, Matt Moffet, and José Hamilton Ribeiro.
Especially for those of you considering international reporting, this is a great opportunity to meet two distinguished Latin American journalists and two Americans who have made careers covering Latin America. Politics, government, culture and business are hopping in Latin America and, in my view, the region offers opportunities for young journalists.
The theme of this year’s panel, which I will moderate, is self-censorship– a terrible problem both in Latin America and, increasingly, in the United States. An article on self-censorship is attached.
THIS IS THE ONLY PUBLIC APPEARANCE BY THE CABOT WINNERS.
This event takes place on Tuesday, October 10 on the 3rd Floor of the Journalism School at 7 PM. No RSVP is necessary; make sure to be in the Lecture Hall PROMPTLY at 7 PM.
[ Another in our “Notes From…” series - short notes by volunteers summarizing various events around the school, to help those of us who didn’t/couldn’t attend. Watch for several other “Notes From…” throughout the year. If you have one, send it in! Or let us know in advance that you’d like to do one; or after the event, too. ]
Below, notes from an all-class lecture by Prof. Paula Span about the art of feature writing. Many thanks to volunteer notes-taker Jennifer Redfearn, J2007. Feel free to drop her note or post a comment below (free, one-time registration required).
Notes From… Paula Span’s lecture: “The Long & Short of Feature Writing”
By Jennifer Redfearn
E-mail: jtr2113[at]columbia.edu
Paula Span is one of the best-known teachers of feature writing in the country and one of the most popular professors at the Columbia J-school, where she teaches Techniques of feature Writing, among other courses. A former NY correspondent for the Style section of the The Washington Post and staff writer for The Washington Post Magazine, she is now a contributing writer to the magazine. [See her bio.] On Friday, Sept. 1, she gave an all-class lecture for new M.S. and M.A. journalism students - and several professors - about the art of feature writing.
General Thoughts on Feature Writing
1. Feature writing at its best is transporting. It takes you out of your own existence. Away from the breakfast table. Away from the car. Away from the subway. It takes you some place you can’t go yourself.
2. Feature writing is becoming evermore respected and important.
3. It wasn’t until 1979 that a Pulitzer was given for feature writing.
4. It is the future of print and an essential part of the skills that you need as a reporter.
5. We’ve become a more visual culture. We’ve been trained to want to see things not just hear about them through a mediator.
Function of Feature Writing
1. We still convey information, but it’s a different style of story telling.
2. It fills the gap between headlines and what else people want to know.
3. The writer takes the audience to the story.
4. It can be varying lengths and media.
5. Feature writing is less concerned with what happened but why it happened- what is smelled like, what it looked like, who it happened to, why it matters that it happened.
6. Sometimes it’s even about what you think about what happened. Shhh.
Trends of Feature Writing
1. Study results of 20 newspapers by Professor Michele Weldon of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University: In 2001 the percentage of hard news on the front page was 65 % of the entire content, and in 2004 the percentage of hard news stories on the cover dropped to 50%. In 2001, 35% of stories on the cover were features stories and in 2004 features made up 50% of the stories on the cover.
2. This trend is filtering out into the entire MSM. Not just a NYT phenomenon.
3. In most cases, news magazines survive because of analyzing and contextualizing stories.
4. People (readers/audience) want to be behind the scenes and experience things directly.
5. There will always be a need for straight news stories and investigative reporting but we should prepare for more feature stories.
What Counts as a Feature
1. Length doesn’t necessarily define a feature story.
2. They have scenes that tell you what is happening in a place on a particular day.
3. Profiles of people or spotlights of organizations and communities.
4. “Not stories that break but stories that creep,” said legendary editor Eugene Roberts, who was specifically talking about trend stories.
5. Issue, disputes, controversies can be presented in a feature style.
6. Essays are features if they are reported.
7. Memoirs are features if they are reported and factual.
What Distinguishes a Feature
1. Observational, descriptive, they take you there, cinematic, reporting with your senses.
2. Good feature writing borrows fictional techniques.
3. They have scenes like a play or novel.
4. They usually have characters with dialogue. The people in the story are not just talking to you but talking to each other in a way they would do if the reporter was not there.
5. They have action—not just talking heads like Ken Burns’ documentaries.
6. They incorporate narrative.
7. They are vivid and transporting.
8. They have narrative elements that move the story forward.
9. The intent remains journalistic even if the style is different (comic, stylistic)
10. The intent is still to convey information, maybe a different kind of information, but the journalistic values apply- balance, fairness, and accuracy.
Opportunities for Feature Writing at J-School
1. Feature Writing
2. Magazine Writing
3. Narrative Writing
4. Art of the Profile
5. Literary Journalism
6. Personal and Professional Style
7. Book Seminar
8. Science Narratives
9. TV & Radio documentary
10. Photo Curriculum [Dean Sreenivasan adds: New Media Workshop;
Prof. Solway adds: Cultural Affairs Reporting & Writing]
Downside to Feature Revolution
1. If 50% of stories on front page are bad features then there is no gain for the feature revolution. In some ways, features have to justify themselves more than a straight news story.
2. There is the risk of embroidery. There is a temptation to insert details where they don’t exist. Don’t do it.
3. There is the risk of cliché. We all to work at ways to keep our writing fresh, simple and engaging.
4. Feature writing infiltrated by blogosphere voice.
[ Another in our “Notes From…” series - short notes by volunteers summarizing various events around the school, to help those of us who didn’t/couldn’t attend. Watch for several other “Notes From…” throughout the year. If you have one, send it in! Or let us know in advance that you’d like to do one; or after the event, too. ]
Below, notes from a recent visit to an RWI class by Kerry Burke, J2002, a Daily News reporter and star of Bravo’s “Tabloid Wars” (see video link about his famous backpack below). Many thanks to volunteer notes-taker Rubina Madan & Aaron Cahall, J2007. Feel free to drop ‘em a note or post a comment below (free, one-time registration required).
Notes From… Talk by Kerry Burke, J2002
By Rubina Madan & Aaron Cahall
J-SCHOOL, SEPT. 6–Students in Sam Boyle’s RWI class had a great first speaker Wednesday: Kerry Burke, one of the stars of the Bravo series “Tabloid Wars.” Burke is a 2002 Columbia J-school grad who started his career as a co-founder of CitySearch , writing reviews of New York bars and concerts. After graduating from Columbia, he got a job at the New York Daily News as a “runner.” Every day, he is out on the streets trying to get the news however possible. He became somewhat of a celebrity this summer with the premiere of “Tabloid Wars,” a six-part series that followed the editors and reporters of the NY Daily News.
Burke’s session with Boyle’s class was particularly entertaining because our adjunct professor is Billy Gorta, a long-time friend of his who now works for his rival paper, the New York Post. Here are some tips and highlights from Burke’s visit:
How to approach people after a crime (or other breaking news): * When you get to a scene, go into the heart of the scene immediately and work your way outward
* As you go in, make the crowd–look for people standing in a group, talking, crying or in shock. They’ve likely seen something or know someone who has.
* You need to talk to as many of the players as possible; ideally a victim, a family member, an eyewitness, a participant or perpretrator
* Get the names, ages, occupations and neighborhoods of everyone you interview.
Getting a great story:
* Get into the building; visit the incident or key apartment, but also knock on all the doors on the floor. Hit all the apartments in the area.
* Use a police source, but don’t rely on them exclusively. That’s lazy reporting. The cop details will probably be released to reporters at “The Shack” (the media offices at Police Plaza) before they’ll be available at the scene anyway. Also, they’re not necessarilythe definitive version of the truth. Eyewitnesses on the street may have seen more.
* Don’t trust people who are too eager to talk to you. They may not know anything and just want to get on TV/in print.
* Never leave the scene without a “pic of the vic” (photo of the victim) — it humanizes them and helps people relate to the story.
How to treat sources: * Start by introducing yourself, apologize immediately (”I’m so sorry to bother you.”) You may very well be meeting them at the worst moment of their lives. But don’t forget, you still need the story.
* Tell them what you’ve heard and ask them for the real story (”I give a little, I get a little.”) Don’t outline the story for anyone, but give them some info and let them fill in the rest. (”I hear this guy was kind of a scumbag, but I think maybe he wasn’t…what do you know about him?”)
* Keep it conversational. Don’t badger them with questions or bark at them. (”So I heard a kid from the block got shot…” NOT “What’d you see?”)
* Be polite. Shake their hands and make eye contact.
* If you’re talking to someone whose loved one has died, ask them how they want their loved one to be remembered as a person.
* Always thank them at the end of an interview (”Remember, these people don’t owe you anything. And you will see them again.” Especially if it’s a good story, you may need to do a follow-up.)
People you should try talking to for more information: * the “mayor of the streets” — the person who has lived there forever and knows everything about it
* detectives and the “white shirts” — Line officers in blue uniforms are not authorized to talk, and may not have the whole story anyway. Officers in white uniforms are lieutenants or higher, and the duty captain on the scene is completely authorized to speak to media and is usually the central point for info coming in. Detectives will arrive wearing suits and can also be useful.
* homeless people — they’re surprisingly helpful
How to avoid getting burned out in the daily grind of reporting: * If possible, try to write a variety of different stories and try new things (”New situations keeps minds fresh.”)
* Remember that there’s different kinds of reporters. Some love being out on the street, while others would be happy covering the UN, the White House and press conferences.
* “What rejuvenates me is these people. These are gorgeous people; they’ll bring you back.”
* If you get a lot of tough stories in a row, take a break.
* a flashlight, a bottle of water, tons of notebooks, a box of pens, a disposable camera, batteries, an umbrella, a tape recorder, lots of maps (borough, subway and bus), a cell phone charger, business cards, magazines and “stake-out food”
* Kerry’s MUST-HAVE: Hagstrom’s NYC Five Borough map book, spiral-bound.
Another in our “Notes From…” series - short notes by volunteers summarizing various events around the school, to help those of us who didn’t/couldn’t attend. Watch for several other “Notes From…” throughout the year (if you have one, send it in - or let us know in advance that you’d like to do one).
Below, highlights of the Sig Gissler’s talk about how to cover a beat. Many thanks to volunteer notes-takers Sheena Tahilramani and Irene Liu. Feel free to drop them a note or post a comment below (free, one-time registration required).
Notes From… Prof. Sig Gissler’s lecture: “How to Cover Your Beat”
By Sheena Tahilramani, J2007; e-mail: sat2127[at]columbia.edu
and Irene Liu, J2007; e-mail: ijl2105[at]columbia.edu
It is my honor to introduce Sig Gissler, professor and administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes.
Sig Gissler is one of my favorite people at the J-school and one of this University’s treasures. You are all very lucky to have him as a professor - either in RWI or in sesssions like this. When I was a student here, we weren’t lucky enough to have Prof. Gissler on the faculty. But he has been a teacher and guide to me ever since his arrival here in 1994. I have picked
up tips on reporting, on editing and how to be a better professor - but I feel like I am always trying to catch up. He came to the school after a distinguished career as an editor in Milwaukee and brought with him decades of journalism experience - and a bucketful of midwestern, Scandinavian aphorisms. Those aphorisms and a unique teaching style that encourages you
all to “go there” have inspired generations of students and colleagues alike, resulting in his being named the school’s Teacher of the Year in 1998, and his winning Columbia’s highest teaching award in 2003.
[ Despite his folksiness, he has a geeky side. He was one of the first professors here to edit stories with the “tracking changes” in Word and he embraced digital photography, wireless networking and similar technologies long before most of the faculty, as has his wife, the wonderful Mary Gissler, who offers his students brownies and invaluable advice of her own.]
As administrator of the Pulitzers, he has been given stewardship of one of the journalism’s most imporant institutions and he has taken that to another level as well.
Everywhere in the world I go, his former students, friends and colleagues ask me to say hello to him and many of them say to me what I started my introduction with: You are lucky to have him.
Ladies and gents, Sig Gissler…
WHAT IS A BEAT: It’s a topical or geographic area assigned to a reporter for regular coverage.
Examples of topical areas are education, politics and business. Examples of geographical areas are a city, county, neighborhood.
ATTRIBUTES OF A GOOD REPORTER:
Works on the three fundamentals–sources, story ideas and execution plans (the “trifecta”)
Works rigorously on three levels — short range, medium and long — juggling a mix of ideas
Serves as a watchdog — accountability journalism
Shows good organization
- Organize your sources by affiliation
- Get contact info: mobile, work, home numbers, email
- Have these numbers so that if you have to, you can call late at night; you can say that you are “calling in the interest of accuracy.”
- Cultivate sources
- Keep a running list of story ideas, compiled by topic and subject.
Stays in touch with editor (without being a pest) “Don’t interview the city desk, interview the city.”
“BEAT NOTES” Make the best use of your time in August. This is an opportunity to put “hay in the barn” (if you are from the midwest), or “nuts in the nest.” Use this month to find sources, issues, story ideas.
Step 1: See what has already been written
Step 2: Make some initial contacts.
ATTRIBUTION: All you know is what you’ve been told. Attribute everything, over attribute.
HOW TO APPROACH YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD:
Attitude and appearance: Have a positive attitude, one of “joyful entitlement”. Build sources one at a time; don’t get bogged down by the enormity of the work. At the end of a meeting/interview, always ask for additional sources. Polite persistence. Don’t be needlessly confrontational. Be a sponge. We reflect the university and our profession so it’s important to maintain a professional appearance. Men should carry a tie wherever they go because you never know when you may be assigned to cover a funeral or other somber event.
Good start: U.S. Census, “community district needs” handbooks (books created by the 59 community boards that identify “greatest needs” of each neighborhood. Take with a grain of salt, but a good starting resource. RW1 professors have copies), website for Department of City Planning.
Libraries: Libraries provide back issues of community newspapers and other great sources that can be used to learn about this history. The histories of your neighborhoods are important to investigate. Look for defining moments in the history of your community…for example, the burning of the South Bronx.
Community Boards: 59 districts, largely advisory bodies. Try to talk to the district manager. However, don’t despair if you are rebuffed. The community board is not the golden fleece.
Museums in boroughs
Local historians: Residents who serve as informal historians to the area. Can give you a sense of the history, changes in the neighborhoods over time. The burrough presidents’ offices may be able to point you to them.
Elected officials: Know the elected officials in your area… city council members, district attorney, congressmen/women, assemblymen/women, etc.
Police: “Destined to be a murky relationship”. “America’s only fully-armed minority group.” Start at the precinct level. Talk to a community affairs officer or youth officer. Crime statistics by precincts will give you a sense of crime patterns. If referred to the Deputy Commissioner of Public Information, be persistent and you might get lucky. Cops really do like to talk.
Firefighters: Firefighters can be a wonderful source. They’re considered heroes in NYC. They see a lot, they know a lot and they’re often gregarious characters. (if y
With special guest teacher, Chip Scanlan, J’74, one of America’s best-known
