You’re in Charge. Now What? A primer on management and leadership tips and techniques for today’s college newsroom leaders. Dealing with peers, developing/sharing a vision, detailing a plan of action. How to deal with problem performers – skill sets and attitude. When and how to conduct meetings – planning, budget and critique sessions.
Be Inclusive, Be Diverse. Who and what gets covered? When and where? Why? Defining “news” for your audience and organization. Determining what matters most and allocating resources accordingly. Making sure your coverage includes all corners of your campus community. Being accessible, open minded and interactive.
Legal and Ethical Issues. Overview of libel, privacy, open records/meetings, copyright and other legal issues impacting college editors. Recent challenges, overview of SPLC services.
Dinner and Breakout Sessions. Share and compare newspapers. Discuss common challenges and success stories to recruit, train and retain staff and improve diversity in coverage and staffing.
Getting It First: Breaking News, Big Events. How to report and package major breaking news for the website and print. “Swarming” the news like a wire service. Thinking multimedia. How to plan it, report it and critique it.
Getting It Right: Accuracy, Fairness and Balance. How to ensure checks and balances in a world of Wikipedia, blogging, YouTube and “corporate spin.” Also, plagiarism and copyright issues. Examples of errors in judgment and content.
It’s Your Vote, It’s Your Voice. This is the first presidential election for most college students and one with no clear frontrunner. How will your reporting and commentary advance the debate on issues and candidates? What role do you have to educate and activate potential voters? What issues matter most to your age group, campus and community?
Expecting the Unexpected: How to respond to and cover campus tragedies. Editors panel discussion. News coverage of student tragedies and lessons learned shared by student editors from Northern Illinois University, Univ. of North Carolina, Auburn, and others impacted by tragedies.
Tour of The Red & Black student newspaper. – Publisher Harry Montevideo and editorial adviser Ed Morales
Multimedia Day
Goal of Multimedia Day is to develop technical and team-building skills. Morning classes at 8:30 a.m., repeated at 10:15 a.m. will teach hands-on, how-to skills in:
Photojournalism
Audio
Video
Web reporting, editing and design.
Student editors will choose two of four training sessions and coordinate choices with team members. After morning sessions, four teams of editors will cover a simulated news event on campus and post news coverage – stories, photos, video and audio to Websites. After dinner, teams will make 15-30 minute presentations of Web content produced, sharing lessons learned during the afternoon event.
Alternative Story Forms. What are they and how do you know which form is best in print and online?
Opinions & Commentary – Finding and sharing your “voice”; best ways to cultivate and share others on campus. Editorials, columns, letters, blogs, etc.
Sports & Entertainment. How to cover the basics. Best ideas for improving coverage and sections.
Student Presentations. “Show and tell” of best content, concepts and coverage by seminar editors. Develop this 60-90 minute “window of opportunity” as last session in Athens. Bryan Murley - MSCNE Links
Seminar moves from Athens to Atlanta. Students check out of Holiday Inn in Athens and ride chartered bus or drive to Wyndham Hotel in Atlanta. Dinner on your own.
