Bolling: The Sound and the Fury

Deborah Bolling brought a refreshingly candid take on the journalism industry to bootcamp. Bolling, a graduate from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, worked for the Philadelphia Inquirer and as a freelance writer for Newsday and the New York Times. She began her journalism career after 20 years in the film industry, where her work in music video introduced her to many music legends, including the inimitable Flavor Flav.

Bolling explained that all new journalists will have to be multimedia producers and she emphasized the importance of sound in that production:

Bolling also she shared her view of contmeporary media. She railed against its emphasis on tragedy and violence, and recounted rebellions against producers and editors trying to control her stories.

Pomfret and Lewis Share the View from their Front-Row Seats to History

For John Pomfret dodging bullets or waking up to an exploding hotel room is all in a day’s work. Pomfret, a Washington Post foreign correspondent, has covered wars in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Congo, Sri Lanka, Iraq, southwestern Turkey and northeastern Iran. On June 4, 1989 Pomfret witnessed the Chinese government’s crackdown on the massive protests in Tiananmen Square.

In another close call, Pomfret suffered a rude awakening one night in Bosnia:

Pomfret came even closer to death during another explosion in Bosnia.

Many people upon hearing these stories might ask themselves why someone would intentionally put themselves in danger as Pomfret did. Several people in our journalism bootcamp, on the other hand, listened to the same stories and imagined themselves pursuing exactly the same career. Pomfret suggests an attraction to adrenaline partially explains this willingness to risk death, an attraction explored in Chris Hedges’s War is a Force that Gives us Meaning.

Yet, a conviction that the world needs firsthand observations from places facing war and turmoil also feeds the desire to experience war and danger. Personally, I would prefer that my drive to become a foreign correspondent comes from these loftier goals, rather than from the same impulse that inspires skydivers.

Investigative journalist Chuck Lewis has been on the front lines of a different kind of war, exposing corruption and abuses of power. Lewis has worked as a producer for 60 Minutes, written five books, and co-founded the Center for Public Integrity. Below Chuck Lewis recounts two of the more famous stories broken by the Center for Public Integrity:

Lewis sees a bright future for investigative journalism, largely because of, rather than in spite of, the industry’s ongoing changes. Due to the internet, today stories are global and can be headline news on several continents at once. “I believe that the heyday for investigative journalism is yet to come,” Lewis said.

American University Graduates Share their Professional Experience with Bootcamp

Prof. Hatch reveals the secrets of SEO.

Our second week of Bootcamp opened with a visit from three American University alums who have gone on to successful careers as professional journalists.

First, we heard from Josh Hatch, himself a graduate of the Masters Program in the School of Communications (SOC), and a multimedia producer for USA TODAY, who will be a regular instructor for the remainder of Bootcamp. Prof. Hatch explained to us the importance of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). A properly constructed blog, or other website, must be formatted and indexed so as to maximize the likelihood of the page coming up as a result in query on one of the top search engines. From labeling images, to writing headlines that directly reflect the referenced content, there are several simple steps one can take to achieve this result. Writing a headline that can catch the attention of both a search engine and a potential reader sounds like the trickiest part of SEO.

Prof. Hatch then introduced us to several social-networking sites such as Delicious, Twitter and Flickr, as well as their journalistic applications.

Next, television broadcaster Rachel Wulff joined us. Wulff, who holds a Masters in Broadcast Journalism from AU, is the weekend anchor and I-Team Reporter at WDSU in New Orleans. In her career she has worked in Salisbury, Md., Toledo, Ohio and Philadelphia. She told us that a journalistic career will inevitably be filled with both peaks and valleys. Anyone expecting riches or to bask in the glow of fame will almost certainly be bitterly disappointed, she explained.

Television Broadcaster Rachel Wulff

Like the speakers at the Associated Press, Wulff stressed the need for journalists capable of working in multimedia and of filling several roles. Many broadcast journalist have had to become “predators,” that is they must be able to act as the producer, editor and writer on any story. Reporters unwilling or unable to handle this new reality will not be employed for long. “You either survive or you die in this business,” she said.

While proficiency in a variety of media are important, Wulff also stressed the need for specialization in a specific subject. “In this day and age you have to be a niche reporter. You have to have something that you excel at, that you know more than anybody else,” she said.

Finally, Wulff pointed out that a good reporter must maintain a strong, professional network, and that as interns we have to be self-motivated. She said she has been amazed by the interns who sit idly by waiting for an assignment to be handed to them. Wulff said that to take advantage of the opportunity presented by an internship, an aspiring reporter has to be aggressive.

Our last lecturer was another American University alum, Laura Pohl. Pohl has a MA in photojournalism from the University of Missouri and has worked around the world as a photojournalist. She explained to us the elements that should be incorporated into a successful photograph, and the approach needed to capture that perfect image. Above all, a photographer must exhibit patience if he or she is going to capture the image they have pre-visualized for a given story. Angle, background, framing, layering, lighting, and the “rule of thirds” are all elements of composition that have to be considered, she said.

Pohl also discussed the ethical guidelines for photojournalism. A photojournalist, just like any other journalist, can’t try to create or recreate anything. No direction or staging can be tolerated. The photograph must be as much a reflection of objective reality as possible. This applies to the editing process as well. Pohl familiarized us with some of the basics of editing a photograph using Photoshop, and at the same time explained that these tools must be employed very carefully.

Laura Pohl explains a camera's aperture, while fellow SOC alums Wulff, Hatch, and Olmsted work busily in the background.

Why We’re Here

“It’s an honor to be a journalist,” Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Stan Grossfeld says in The Pulitzer Photographs, a documentary shown at the Newseum in Washington, DC.

This statement summed up Friday, our fifth day of Journalism Bootcamp. We visited the Rosslyn, Va. offices of Politico, the Washington offices of the Associated Press (AP), and the Newseum. Each stop was an important reminder of why we are in bootcamp.

At Politico we heard from two very accomplished editors: David Mark, the Senior Editor and Pia Catton, the Life Editor. Mark shared what he saw as the reasons behind Politico’s success and what makes an effective online story. He saw the effective integration of both print and online publication as central to their success. Also, they did not have the “baggage” of being a newspaper that added a website, but were a website that added a newspaper. Mark also cited Politico’s niche as a purely political publication as a reason for its success. He sees the continued segmentation and specialization of news as the future of internet journalism. See David Mark describe what makes an effective online story:

Like Mark, Catton felt that specialization and specific expertise are important. She said that these were important skills for a reporter to have. Her input on what an editor looks for in a reporter was obviously incredibly useful advice. For example, Catton said that a reporter who turns in clean copy, on time, will always be recommended highly for work.

Pia Catton

From Politico we took the Metro to the AP, where we were given a tour by Ed Tobias, the Manager of Business Continuity and Disaster Planning. It was exhilarating to walk through the various departments of the AP and among the reporters in the midst of their work. Seeing these professionals in action, all I could think was how much I wanted to be one of them. We saw a live newscast given by Rita Foley, were able to speak with Business Editor for Broadcast Mark Hamrick about a piece on gas prices that he had recently finished, heard from Planning Editor John Resnick, and saw dozens of other journalists busy sending out stories through print, video, and audio. While some of this material would be sent via traditional media such as radio or newsprint, much of it will reach its audience through the internet.

In addition to Tobias, we were given the priviledge of hearing from Jackie Bscharah, the Exectutive Producer of Audio and Radio; Denise Vance, the Director of Video Training and Development; Michah Gelman, the Exectutive Producer of Domestic Video; Jeff Parsons, the Director of Online Video Operations; and Carole Feldman, the Director of News Convergence. It was an honor to have these very busy professionals take the time to speak with us. Each of them offered an important perspective on their medium and the journalistic process, but one theme ran through each of their talks: a reporter in today’s world has to be able to work in multiple media, and to build their work in multiple platforms. Hearing this advice from several knowledgeable sources made me grateful for the time we were spending learning to be multimedia journalists.

The day ended with a trip to the fascinating Newseum. The section on the Pultizer Prize winning photographs and the photographers who took them resonated strongly with me. Although photojournalism is not the area in which I wish to specialize, the photos were stark visual representations of the importance of journalism. Some of the photos capture humanity at its most brutal, and in its greatest moments of suffering. A few show moments of intense joy, and others manage to capture the esssense of unique indiviuals. All them have the power to teach us about our world and ourselves. Journalism brings us closer to remote places, and to people far different from ourselves. By doing so, it makes us an involved part of the human community. In doing so, the journalist is faced with heart-wrenching moral dilemna, life-threatening situations, and moments of despair. Yet, the journalist is willing to face these obsatcles. This is why I want to earn the honor of calling myself a journalist.

The Quiz, the Lawyer, the Alumn, and the Inverted Pyramid

The day began with everyone in bootcamp asking each other how prepared they were for the upcoming quiz. The confident replies seemed in sharp contrast to the frequency of the question. The day ended with everyone asking each other how they thought they had done on the quiz. The replies lacked their earlier confidence.

Before taking the quiz on everyone’s mind, we listened to two guest lecturers and received a quick overview of Journalism 101 from Prof. Jill Olmsted.

Lagan Sebert, a graduate of the master’s program at American University’s School of Communication, currently working at the Huffington Post Investigative Fund, offered advice on beginning a career as a new journalist and taking advantage of the resources at American. Sebert stressed the importance of getting things published in order to build a resume. He worked for free for WAMU, a local public radio station licensed to American University, after some assignments began to be paid for his work and in this way built a portfolio that helped him find employment later. The work he had done that he shared with the class was impressive. It was inspiring to see the success, and quality of work, of which a fellow AU journalist was capable.

Later Jill Olmsted reviewed some of the fundamentals of journalism. We discussed sourcing, nut graphs, different types of leads, the inverted pyramid, and the five w’s and the h.

Our final lecturer, Barbara Wall, shared some of her bountiful knowledge about the legal issues online reporters face. She clearly is one of the top authorities on the subject, and it was impossible to disagree with her statement that, “Frankly, you’re really lucky me to have me here.”

Wall explained that one of the most influential pieces of legislation on web 2.0, and the user generated material that is so critical to online journalism, is section 230 of the Communications Decency Act that states websites aren’t responsible for statements made by third parties.

Wall also helped us understand whether or not something is libelous, whether or not information is protected by privacy, and what material can be sampled under fair use. Obviously, these complex subjects can’t be fully explained in a single session, but Wall did an excellent job of summarizing the most relevant legal questions for a beginning journalist.

All in all a good day. I just hope I didn’t fail that quiz….

Day 3: Webification and Attribution

Today our introduction to journalism included a look at the “webification” of journalistic writing, and lessons on the art of conducting interviews.

Prof. Amy Eisman gave the lecture on web-based writing and the future of journalism. She had very useful advice on what makes effective, web-based writing, and illustrated her points with useful examples. The advice ranged from considering what audience a headline will draw based on search engine operations, to thinking about the f-shaped-pattern of looking readers generally follow on a website.

Her exhortations to write clearly and succinctly particularly resonated with me. Prof. Eisman was a co-founding editor of USA Today and she never found the criticism that the paper oversimplified its subjects to be valid. She made a strong case that writing with concision is much more difficult, requiring more time and skill, than more verbose writing. These are lessons I know I will have to work hard to incorporate into my writing.

Prof. Eisman then gave us an assignment to write a headline, blurb and first paragraph within 30 minutes based upon a 10 minute interview with her. I felt like a true journalist struggling to meet a deadline in a packed newsroom during this assignment.

Prof. Chuang explains how to conduct a professional interview

Prof. Angie Chuang then arrived to help us further hone our interviewing skills. She shared the lessons she gained during her 13 year career, and over 10,000 interviews conducted in that time. It was clear that these are skills we will have to work hard to develop. The most important lesson I drew from her lecture is that the journalist must always do everything in his or her power to make the subject comfortable in order to conduct a successful interview.

Bring on Day 4!

Coryn Leaves the Windy City Behind

Coryn Connelly-Cabreros is living outside of Chicago for the first time in her life. She was born in Chicago; went to elementary school, middle school and high school in Chicago; she graduated from De Paul University in Chicago; and she worked for an educational firm in Chicago. Now she’s leaving her family and friends to begin her journalistic career in Washington, DC.

The aspiring journalist

It hasn’t been easy leaving those lifelong connections behind. Coryn jokes that her friends back home have made fun of her for feeling homesick after one weekend. She misses her 14 and 12-year old brothers, and her mother who wanted her to stay home and enter the more job-secure field of nursing.

Despite all these reasons to stay home in Chicago, Coryn listened to the academic advisers and professors who recommended she gain a broader perspective if she was going to be an effective journalist. She also thought it was logical to follow a fellow Chicagoan who recently made the move East. “I just figured Obama’s from there. I might as well go and see if I can interview him some day,” she said.

Coryn’s passion to become a journalist is what pushed her to follow Obama and her professors’ advice to leave home. She’s always been to drawn to writing, and she loves the “geeky” aspects of reporting, such as fact checking and editing. She wrote for her high school paper, interned on a documentary with NBC and the Chicago Sun Times through De Paul, and worked on the university paper, The DePaulia.

Coryn plans to work and live in Washington after graduation, before moving to New York to work for The New Yorker.

Journalism will Survive

PROFESSOR PREDICTS A BRIGHT FUTURE FOR THOSE WILLING TO ADAPT

Prof. Eisman assures a room of anxious journalism students that their tuition could one day pay off.

Amy Eisman, the Director of Writing Programs and Director of Weekend Interactive Journalism Program at American University’s School of Communication, has no doubt that despite the rapidly changing media landscape, journalists will continue to play a crucial role in our society. The journalists of tomorrow must be more open to change and adaptation than their predecessors. Constant experimentation with new equipment, media and presentation will be a necessity in the coming years. Yet, the greatest difference Eisman sees between the new and old journalism, and perhaps the hardest change for veterans of the field to accept, is the end of the reporter’s role as gatekeeper between relevant information and the masses. Journalists must begin to see themselves as facilitators of a conversation with the citizenry, not lecturers in an ivory tower.

Eisman also recognizes many constants in a field that seems to be morphing every minute. The ethics of journalism remain unchanged. As does the path to becoming a successful journalist. Eisman says, “The best way to move up since time immemorial is to work hard, know your industry, and stay ahead of the trends.” Finally, the function of journalism and the public need for information will never disappear.  “The bottom line is journalism and storytelling will always be there,” Eisman says.

A New Career Begins

My life as a journalist begins here with the first blog posting of my life. As I write, following the second day of “Journalism Bootcamp,” I still find myself in a state of disbelief. After years of dreaming of a career as a writer, of becoming a storyteller, it’s been difficult to get through the first few days of class without wondering when I’ll wake up to discover I’m still dreaming. As reality has slowly begun to sink in, fear has accompanied it. Uncertainty, insecurity, and self-doubt are inescapable, I suppose, when one begins anything for which they feel true passion. Yet, this fear brings with it exhilaration, and the satisfaction of knowing that whatever the outcome, I have had the good fortune to find my passion and the ability to pursue it.

So, it was in this unsettled and dreamy state (in no way abated by the 6 hours of sleep I got Monday night) that I made it through day 2 of class. Associate Dean Rose Ann Robertson opened our day with a discussion of academic integrity and a review of some of the commonly confounding rules of grammar. Prof. Robertson made it very clear that anyone found intentionally engaging in plagiarism, falsification of data, or any other unethical behavior would be expelled from the university. I found it strangely reassuring to know that the School of Communications has such rigid standards. With the abundance of sources of information in the internet age, journalistic integrity is more important than ever. It is rigid dedication to truth-telling, honesty, transparency, and accuracy that separates professional journalists from the armies of “pajama bloggers” willing to post anything to satisfy their audience. Anyone willing to discard these values, for any reason, should never be given the opportunity to earn the title of journalist.

As for the grammar review, I now accept that I will, for the rest of my natural life, be accompanied by a dog-eared copy of the AP Stylebook.

Prof. Johnson explains that the internet is not, in fact, a series of tubes.

The last two-thirds of the day were spent working on web design with Prof. David Johnson. We learned about HTML, CSS, how to upload through FTP and we began to experiment with Dreamweaver. I had some experience with all of this eight years ago and I was thankful to learn that I remembered more than I had thought. Yet, within a few minutes I also remembered just how frustrating the whole experience of trying to figure out why your web page isn’t working can be. While you would have sworn your most solemn pledge that every keystroke was precise, that image still won’t appear, or that hyperlink still leads to the hell of not found servers. My colleague Justin Gibbs seemed certain that these trials would drive him to drink.

So ends day 2.

I can’t wait to wake up to day 3.