Hot Off the Presses, and Ready to Broadcast Live

Local school fundraisers like “Pasta for Pennies” and community budgets do not seem to be the hot topics of discussion among students on Miami’s campus. Baskets of deep-fried dill pickle chips are not typically found on the carte du jour at Uptown establishments. And who would have thought that the once-popular computer game “Sim City” would be a making a comeback with Internet savvy scholars?

Welcome to the world of Public Affairs Reporting and Community Politics.

In a team-teaching style unique to the new journalism program, Cheryl Gibbs and Brad Stapleton have taken the traditional Journalism 312 class of writing and reporting and extended it into the northern Cincinnati community.

Gibbs brings her print journalism experience and his background in broadcast to the new converged journalism curriculum.

The team-teaching aspect is just one of the new class styles unique to the interdisciplinary/interdepartmental journalism program that is aimed to broadly educate students in the areas of print, broadcast, and Internet journalism, according to Richard Campbell, the new director of the program.

After sitting in on council meetings for the city of Loveland, Deerfield Township, or the Village of Glendale, students in Gibbs and Stapleton’s class learned about decisive community issues and the responsibility of journalists to report these issues fairly and accurately to the rest of the community. In their class, they used they game “Sim City” as a learning device to become even more knowledgeable about what it takes to build and sustain a community.

Not only did the students who went to Deerfield get acquainted with the politics of their community, but Gibbs wanted them to sample a “flavor of the area.”

“We went to Toots where they’re known for their deep-fried dill pickle chips and got to see a little more about what makes this community special,” she said.

Before sitting in on town meetings, some background research was required by each student. “To begin the article assignment, we first let the students choose their area and gather information through a distance,” Gibbs said. “My hope was that by giving them the option, they would develop a genuine and vested interest in a particular area of their community. Their assignment throughout the semester was to pick a topic within their particular community. These could be issues that were
discussed at council meetings or other areas of importance that they discovered. Within each student’s topic, they had to develop two or more stories to report on.”

After brainstorming article ideas, all students picked their own angle as if they were actual beat reporters.

“My topic was school, so I wrote an article about the school fundraiser, ‘Pasta for Pennies’,” said junior journalism major Dayna Raju, a part of the Glendale group. “I am writing another article about how the school first got involved with the fundraiser, and I am including a fact box about the fundraiser’s progress in previous years.”

For those students who were unable to attend multiple public meetings for Deerfield or Loveland, another journalistic alternative was offered to them. Stapleton, who also works for the Intercommunity Cable Regulatory Commission, enabled students to watch videos of their meeting through streaming video on the ICRC Web site. The students could follow issues that were discussed when they were in attendance and see how these topics of debate have progressed over the weeks. It also gave insight into broadcast and Internet journalism.

“There is an emphasis on journalism as a result of new technology in a digital age,” Campbell said. “So many more opportunities are now coming to journalists because of the Internet — different story lengths, news available anytime, with the ability to update that news whenever. The Internet overcomes the space barriers that are restricted by print and the time barriers of broadcast. The Internet is really the future of journalism.”

The new journalism curriculum was first offered at the beginning of the 2004-2005 academic school year as a separate major within the College of Arts and Science.

But before the journalism program became its own liberal arts major independent of the English department, a lot of research and consulting took place within the old print journalism program and broadcasting program that was formerly a part of the mass communications department.

“The impetus behind the new journalism initiative was the result of departmental reviews in 1999-2000 for the mass communications major and the English department,” said Judi Hetrick, an assistant professor of journalism.

“A task force of professors within the university came together and asked the question of what to do with journalism. The change in the media world post- 9/11 had created a buzz of media convergence in the newsroom,” she said.

In order to capitalize on this change and the results of the departmental reviews, the task force that was created began to examine what was necessary to develop a program at Miami that would incorporate this converging idea.

“The research for the new program included hiring two outside consultants who were experts in the field of journalism and were aware of what was going on in journalism programs at institutions across the country,” said Hetrick. “The editorial work that was coming from the newsrooms proved to be a conglomeration of newspaper, television, and Internet, so the new program combined these three elements.”

“The best journalists know a lot about a lot of things. The best journalists are generalists, not specialists,” said Campbell. The curriculum broadens the traditional journalism major to include the fields of mass communications, interactive media studies and political science. A notable differences between the old and new journalism curriculum is students within the journalism program will graduate from the College of Arts and Science with a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism.

Admittance to the program is selective, requiring all students that apply to have fulfilled various prerequisites.

The new program strongly encourages students to gain practical experience outside the classroom. Internship opportunities that meet individual interests and goals can be arranged and completed for credit.

Hired in the summer of 2004, Campbell comes to Miami University from Middle Tennessee State University where he was the director of the School of Journalism. He sees a lot of potential in Miami’s new program.

“The program is unusual, not many schools keep their journalism program within a liberal arts school but it will work well here,” said Campbell. “Students have the opportunity to understand the professional aspect of the field and learn specific skills,” he said. “With the necessary double major, students will be smart and skilled in many areas.”

New Course Requirements

Effective August 2004, Miami’s new journalism program integrates print and electronic media in a framework of liberal education. The journalism program prepares students for careers in print and broadcast journalism, new media, related professions, and graduate studies.

Students interested in becoming journalism majors must first complete the pre-major curriculum before applying for admission to journalism. Admission to the major will be competitive.

The requirements of the journalism pre-major are:
• COM 143: Introduction to Mass Communication
• JRN 101: Introduction to Journalism
• Completion of 18 hours of Miami Plan Foundation courses
• Completion of a grammar and punctuation proficiency test
• Students must also declare a second major before seeking
admission to the journalism major

Journalism majors must complete the pre-major and be accepted into the major before beginning work on the major curriculum. Enrollment in the major is limited.

Once accepted, the requirements of the journalism majors are all of the following:
• JRN 201: News Writing and Reporting for All Media: I This course is a prerequisite for all other JRN writing and editing classes.
• JRN 202: News Writing and Reporting for All Media: II
• JRN 301: Journalism Law and Ethics
• JRN 316: News Presentation (Editing)
• IMS 101: Choose three 1-hour classes (for example, Video
Editing, Desktop Publishing, and Web Publishing)
• IMS 201: Information Studies in the Digital Age

One of the following:
• COM 215: Media History
• COM 446: International Media
• COM 354: Media and Society
• POL 356: Mass Media and Politics

Three of the following:
• JRN 312: Public Affairs Reporting
• COM/JRN 313: Advanced Electronic Journalism: Audio
• COM/JRN 314: Advanced Electronic Journalism: Video
• JRN 318: Feature Writing
• JRN 417: Editorial Writing
• JRN 418: Critical Writing in Journalism
• JRN 419: Journalism Internship is not required, but strongly
encouraged for all majors.

One capstone class:
• JRN 421: Journalism Capstone
• COM/ JRN 415: Practicum in Television Journalism