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| The NAA Foundation focuses on Newspaper In Education, newspaper youth content, scholastic journalism and diversity. In this blog, you'll learn about products, programs and resources that emphasize the use of newspapers and other media by young people. You'll also learn about programs and activities that can help news media companies transform their cultures in order to grow business and increase readership and audience. |
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March 2009 - Posts
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A journalism instructor recently wrote to Salon.com's advice columnist Cary Tennis and expressed the concern that he was preparing his students for failure. Tennis replied that as long as students are learning good journalism skills, the professor is doing a good job. Read the exchange here.
As a journalism student, I can tell the professor why he is teaching his craft. Even during these bleak times for the newspaper industry, I am not second-guessing my decision to pursue a journalism degree.
The writing, researching and technology skills I am learning as a student and an intern will benefit me no matter which career path I decide to follow. It's not my professor's responsibility to land me a job, only to prepare me as much as possible so that I can land one myself.
Here at the NAA Foundation, I have drastically improved my media literacy, news consumption and Web writing skills. This semester at George Mason University, I am building a Web site with content while simultaneously learning Adobe Dreamweaver (Web site development software) and GIMP (free photo editing software). I hope to master these soon and move on to other tools next.
Last semester, I published audio and video alongside my articles for Connect Mason, the brainchild of Whitney Rhodes, assistant new media editor at the Courier Post in Cherry Hill, N.J., and co-author of the "MoJo DoJo" blog.
Steve Klein, my journalism professor at George Mason University, is honest when it comes to the changing climate in news media. Not one class goes by without him saying that good writing alone is not enough in today's job market.
A journalist for more than 30 years, Klein surely knows his way around an inverted pyramid. But it's his willingness to embrace and implement new digital tools into his classroom that is preparing students for success.
From what I read, professors like Klein are in the minority.
As a journalism student, I admire my craft, and I'm prepared to battle tough times for an opportunity to pursue it. All I can ask professors is to be flexible and to help me on my way. Those who want to study journalism will continue to do so.
-- By Rashad Mulla, NAA Foundation intern
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Need more ways for teachers to use newspapers in the classroom? Taylor Clark can help.
Clark, community relations specialist at The Post-Standard in Syracuse, is part of a team that has developed three successful Newspaper In Education projects in the last four years. Quick and easy for The Post-Standard to create, these are free to schools.
The first coincides with TV Turnoff Week, which occurs annually in April. Teachers in The Post-Standard's readership area promote reading and other non-TV related classroom activities. Newspaper employees are dispatched to lead discussions or activities in the classrooms of the first 50 area teachers who request visits. Supplemental materials are provided on The Post-Standard NIE blog.
"Last year, we visited about 150 classrooms during the week," Clark says. "Many of those were new teachers who had never participated in NIE programming before."
Last fall, The Post-Standard hosted its first-ever mock election. Many Syracuse-area high school students, ineligible to cast votes in the election, voted there instead. More than 250 teachers registered their classes for the blog election.
"The election took place on a custom-made social networking site," Clark says. "The social networking site was safe for students and teachers in our area."
The Post-Standard received great exposure on Celebrate Newspapers Day (see last year's sign-up sheet here), held in conjunction with National Newspaper Week during the first full week of October. Free papers were offered to schools in the general readership area. Schools also could request speakers from The Post-Standard to lead in-class discussions and newspaper-related activities.
If you have an idea you'd like to share with other NIE professionals, send an e-mail to naafoundation@naa.org.
-- By Rashad Mulla, NAA Foundation intern
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When it comes to going digital, young-reader professionals may want to embrace the philosophy of a certain athletic shoe company: Just do it.
"To me, the important thing is to jump in and get started," says Mark Briggs, CEO of Seattle-based Serra Media, a Web technology company. "Get comfortable with the notion that you may be trying something new every day, and get excited about it."
Briggs, former assistant managing editor for interactive news at The News Tribune in Tacoma, Wash., wrote a guide for those who want to broaden their digital education but are not quite sure how to go about it. "Journalism 2.0: How to Survive and Thrive" outlines the basics, from RSS feeds and blogs to podcasts and digital photos.
The easy-to-read, easy-to-digest format is designed to help readers put their newly-acquired knowledge into practice; each of the 11 chapters concludes with an assignment. For the truly ambitious, Briggs offers recommendations on equipment and step-by-step instructions for producing multimedia projects. Click here for a free download of the guide.
Briggs is currently working on an upgraded version of "Journalism 2.0," which has yet to be titled. Click here for more about him and his work.
-- By Rashad Mulla and Marina Hendricks, NAA Foundation
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Editor's note: This is the last of three installments from an NAA Foundation interview with Dana Plewka, educational services manager at the Denver Newspaper Agency.
Teachers count on Dana Plewka to be a walking source for all things education and media. In an attempt to meet those expectations, Plewka reads as much news and education material as possible. To read online material, Plewka uses RSS (Really Simple Syndication/Rich Site Summary) feeds.
This tool is easy to use. Click here for an explanation.
Plewka subscribes to news, blogs, columns and features about media and education. For a daily take on the state of the newspaper industry, she checks Jim Romenesko's weblog on Poynter Online. Her education reading routine features Education Week newsletters.
Why doesn't she just read these online?
"I don't have time to go to 75 Web sites a day," Plewka says. "I can come back to all these articles later."
She considers it important to stay informed. Without constantly monitoring news wires and Web sites, she says she would have known next to nothing about digital media and audience feedback.
"If you don't know where your industry is going, then how can you prepare your program to have any kind of long lifespan?" she says.
-- By Rashad Mulla, NAA Foundation intern
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Editor's note: This is the second of three installments from an NAA Foundation interview with Dana Plewka, educational services manager at the Denver Newspaper Agency.
You have a spiffy new Web site, updated a few minutes ago with yesterday's classroom content. How do you get the word out to teachers?
Plewka advocates the use of e-mail blasts, which are sent to large audiences (in this case, an NIE mailing list) on a moment's notice.
Once you educate yourself on how to make your blasts relevant and interesting to teachers, there's no reason not to send them to your audience, Plewka says. Basic graphic design and marketing techniques are a plus, and educating yourself about spam filters is vital. But the art of the e-mail blast is not hard to master.
"You don't have to be technologically savvy to learn these skills," she says.
And e-mail blasts are essentially free, provided that your newspaper pays for Internet service. Mailing paper newsletters can cost thousands of dollars over time, Plewka says.
After all, you don't usually find easy, immediate and free rolled into one.
-- By Rashad Mulla, NAA Foundation intern
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Editor's note: This is the first of three installments from an NAA Foundation interview with Dana Plewka, educational services manager at the Denver Newspaper Agency.
"If you're not preparing for five years down the road right now, you're already too late."
Heeding her own advice, Plewka has prepared for continued relevancy throughout her 25 years in the industry - 10 with the Denver Newspaper Agency. In addition to her other responsibilities, she heads the DNA's Newspaper in Education program, one of the first in the country to offer an electronic edition to elementary, middle and high school students.
But the digital effort didn't stop there. Now, the DNA's NIE Web site is updated several times a week. Plewka says the site is integral to the program.
"If you stop updating your Web site, your audience will stop coming," she says. "The story needs to be told over and over again. If you stop being in their face, they'll move on to whatever else is the rage."
By 7:30 a.m. on Mondays, Plewka and her co-workers have already uploaded classroom content from the Sunday paper.
"That's the only kind of service we're interested in giving," she says.
-- By Rashad Mulla, NAA Foundation intern
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