A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications

News Team: some assembly required

October 5, 2011 — 1 Comment

I’m not a huge fan of group projects. In fact I wrote an editorial about group projects around this time last year. They stick in my craw and I think on the whole they are unnecessary. I can’t seem to go a single semester without having at least one. The problem never lies in working with a group. I think group work is great. It will be impossible to be successful in the professional world of news media without being able to collaborate. The problem I continually see is scheduling conflicts. Trying to sync the schedules of three independent college students has proven to be rather difficult, if not irritating for everyone involved. These last two weeks alone, my media convergence group has tried to meet two times and failed to do so (not because we are blowing each other off, but because things just seem to keep hindering the process).

We may not even up to Ron Burgundy's standards of journalism, but we're getting there.

Luckily for us, the professor of the class has decided to cancel classes for the next several meetings to allow us to work on the project. Today, after another failed attempt to meet up, we all agreed the best time to work together is going to be during Thursday’s class meeting time. It is probably the only commonality among our schedules.

The good news is we do have a very well thought-out convergence package; we will be telling a sequence of stories about Fake Patty’s Day here in Manhattan, a fake holiday that dates back to the mid-2000s’. Currently, the City Commission in Manhattan is trying to change the way the holiday is regulated in the local bar district, Aggieville. We will create a print story outlining the history of the fake holiday and recent development surrounding it’s regulation. Additionally, we will do a podcast and standup package to go with the print story.

This is a set of stories I really want to do. I think we have the potential to tell them in a way that will captivate our audience.

Fake Patrick, pray for us. In Ron Burgundy we trust.

In A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications, College Students, Fake Patty's Day, Group Projects, JMC, Journalism, K-State, Kansas, Kansas State Collegian, Manhattan, MC580, Media, MHK, Newsrooms, Nick Weller, Student Media

A post from Burt Hall

September 21, 2011 — Leave a comment

Wow. I cannot believe it’s already week 5 of the fall 2011 semester at K-State. I also cannot believe I’m stuck in another boring lecture here in Burt Hall. The football team is 2-0 and has a huge game coming up this weekend against the University of Miami. I also happen to be tied for second place in the Collegian’s weekly pick ‘um. Talk around the newsroom has been about the collapse of the Big 12 and EMAW for the last 5-6 days. I’m closer and closer to graduation. The newspaper is getting more and more streamlined and the design just gets better and better. You can see a great example of that here on the EMAW front page of Monday’s Collegian:KSU-9-19-11 pg01 I’m very close to finishing my first project for MC 580. (There will be more to come with that as soon as I finish the sound slide.) I can’t help but wonder what happens next…

I can barely plan past next week let alone December or God forbid May. There is one thing I do know: Biochemistry in society has to be the most interesting/boring class I have ever taken at K-State. I suppose I should work on that.

In A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications, Big 12, College Students, Editors, Football, JMC, Journalism, K-State, Kansas State Collegian, MC580, Media, Newsrooms, Student Media

Podcast: Complete

September 21, 2011 — Leave a comment

Nick Weller is a senior in journalism and digital media at K-State. In the podcast I recently made he tells the story of his first time on air.

Let me start by saying I felt very uncomfortable using Audacity to edit this podcast. The program fought me the whole way through, but I think must have been merely the growing pains of learning a new program.

I made this podcast for my MC 580 – Media Convergence class, the capstone course in my program today. Nick Weller, a senior in journalism and digital media at K-State, tells the story of his first experience on air in this podcast. I interviewed him last week and strung this podcast together during my downtime here in the Newsroom. I’m not going to take all the credit, Nick did show me a thing or two about the Audacity program before I began to start cutting this podcast. I owe him a big thank you. Anyways, I hope you all like it.

Here’s the link to the podcast.

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Off to Hale…

September 15, 2011 — Leave a comment

This afternoon I’m going to put my interviewing skills to the test as I interview, Nick Weller, senior in mass communication. I’m meeting him in Hale Library today to work on a soundslide/podcast project I am supposed to create for my media convergence class. Basically we’re supposed to ask each other questions and come up with a story to put into a both a soundslide and a podcast. As I was trying to find more information on Nick I discovered he’s a very private person. I could not find a Facebook page and tweets are protected. Luckly he gave me permission to follow him. He listed his website on his twitter page and from looking at that I’ve come up with a number of questions to ask him. I hope everything goes well…

In A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications, College Students, JMC, Journalism, K-State, Media, Uncategorized

Some self reflection

September 9, 2011 — Leave a comment

I am currently sitting in my Biochemistry in Society lecture, bored out of my mind, reflecting on what I’ve learned three weeks into the fall 2011 semester. For some reason this student presentation on dieting just isn’t holding my interest. Go figure. Things seem much different than they were only two weeks ago. For instance when I started school classes were the last thing on my mind… in some ways they still are. However, this week I have been able to sit through an entire class without thinking about Kedzie Hall or even the Collegian. Week one brought me almost an entirely new staff with a huge learning curve, but the content of the paper has been fairly solid, we’re reporting on things ranging from the weather, to teacher’s salaries, to the Big 12 fiasco.

I’ve really been impressed with how fast my editors have taken responsibility for their duties and taking ownership of their parts of the paper. Things were touch and go for a while, but things are finally starting for really click and come together. We’ve consistently beat deadline for the last two weeks. They all bring such interesting perspectives to the Collegian. I do wish they’d be a little bit more vocal at daily meetings, but I think that will come with time.

On Sunday the editorial board went out to get to know each other a little bit better. What a fun group of people. It was really cool to hang out with them in a non-work situation and not talk about the paper.

More importantly more and more people seem to be coming into the newsroom interested in writing for the paper. I owe a big thank you to the Professors in the A. Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications who have either made writing for the Collegian a class requirement or are offering extra credit for doing so.

I really enjoy working with the new writers and talking to underclassmen interested in writing for the paper. Their energy, in many cases nervous, reminds me of my freshman year.

This week the first project for the my media convergence class was assigned. I’m supposed to make a sound slide and a podcast. (I’ve written news articles, feature stories, made television packages and stand-ups, but for some reason I have never dealt with strictly audio.) The professor gave us the project yesterday and basically pushed us off the deep end and said go make a podcast. I guess it’s time to give it the old college try.

In A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications, Big 12, College Students, Editors, JMC, Journalism, K-State, Kansas State Collegian, Media, Newsrooms, Student Media, Uncategorized, Weather

The ups and downs of student media

September 7, 2011 — 1 Comment

I have really enjoyed working for the Kansas State Collegian. That being said, it hasn’t always been a cakewalk.

There are days, like today when I feel like a babysitter dealing with unruly, others where I feel like a proud parent. What I love and hate the most about working in student media can be found in the name itself: students. Don’t get me wrong I love working with my fellow K-Staters, we’re just not all on the same level. At times that can be really frustrating. Most of us are learning as we go, and a great deal of what we do is learned through trial and error. Sometimes I merely yearn for less guess work.

It was really exciting to meet new people as a freshman reporter and learn from the upperclassmen editors. Working as a desk editor taught me how the importance of patience, newsworthiness and the importance of teaching others. Being the Editor-in-Chief has taught me more about working with people and meeting their needs than any other job I think I have ever had. Basically everything I have done in one way or another for the Collegian has been a baptism by fire because everyone I have worked with, including myself, is learning a skill as we put together a daily edition.

Last fall a journalism professor approached me to congratulate me for being hired for a second time as Editor-in-Chief of the Kansas State Collegian. He told me that I would do an excellent job and then decided to let me in on a secret of his:

“Working at a college paper will be the hardest job in journalism you ever have.”

There are days like today when that couldn’t ring more true.

I’ve dealt with many problems: missing ads, poor communication between editors, stories falling through, angry sources, entire sections of the paper needing to be redone in only a couple hours time. No big deal. It has been stressful at times, but I’ve also had so much fun hanging out in the newsroom with my fellow staff members. These people are more than colleagues to me. I have spent so much time with many of them that they are practically my extended family. I don’t regret working for the Collegian one bit.

It's the small things that make this job enjoyable.

In A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications, College Students, JMC, Journalism, K-State, Kansas State Collegian, Media, Student Media

Tim Schrag

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