High School Students Get a Taste of Reporting the News On-Camera

WVUA Weekend Weather Anchor Daniel Sparkman gives students pointers on on-air delivery at the ASPA Long Weekend.

The high school students in the video/broadcast track took a break from editing their weekend projects to get some on-camera experience on Saturday.

It’s Day 2 of the Alabama Scholastic Press Association Long Weekend Camp, which is designed to give high school students a taste of all aspects of media.   It’s been my pleasure to help make this part of ASPA Summer Camp a success.

Today one of our University of Alabama journalism students who works as a full-time anchor/reporter at WVUA-TV gave the students some of his sage advice based on his eight years in the broadcast news business.

Daniel Sparkman was our special guest today.  Then, this afternoon he played host as the students went into the studio and delivered a story from the ASPA workshop on camera.

In between their breakout sessions on such topics as writing yearbook captions, tweeting a speech and making good photos great, the ASPA Long Weekend Students was treated to a panel discussion featuring veteran publication advisers with decades of experience guiding students in the delivery of yearbooks, newspapers and other publications.

The students in the broadcast/video track produced short videos from today’s panel.  They also reported on an incident back at their residence hall last night.

Washington Post Reporter Talks about New Book on BP Oil Spill, Previews What To Expect on High School Journalism Trip to The Gulf

If you haven’t seen it– you should read A Hole At the Bottom of the Sea,  the first major account of the nation’s worst environmental disaster, the Deepwater Horizon Disaster than began a year ago this month.

This summer, I will be on the team of journalists taking 18 high school students from seven states  to the Gulf for an intensive team reporting experience a year after this major environmental and political story.

This afternoon, The Alabama Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists sponsored a 30-minute talk with Joel Achenbach about his book on a new program, Studio SPJ.

It’s a podcast that is produced LIVE .

According to Achenbach, what made the Deepwater Horizon incident such an incredible story was not just the unprecedented nature of the environmental disaster, but the lack of a similar experience on which journalists could depend to know how to cover the story.

As journalists, we learn how to “routinize the unexpected.”

But there were no routines for this story, which really became national news about 8 days after the initial incident.

“There was no template for it,” Achenbach said. “Not a lot of people in our newsroom knew about off-shore drilling.  I certainly did not.”

Achenbach is an acclaimed science writer for National Geographic and more recently has become a veteran reporter and blogger for the Washington Post. 

He says his book is as much about crisis management with politics as a sub-plot as it is about the long, tedious tasks of scientists trying to plug a leak.

The interview was conducted by Alabama SPJ Pro President Dennis Pillion, who himself spent some time covering the oil spill for al.com.

I came away from today’s talk with Achenbach with a lot better understanding of what was going on behind the scenes and what directions we should take in our “one-year-later” journalistic efforts this  summer.

Kent State’s Franklin Hall is a great place to talk Scholastic Journalism

KENT, Ohio– Today is my second time visiting the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Kent State University and the place has been as great as the people gathered to talk about scholastic journalism.

Members of the Center for Scholastic Journalism Advisory Board arrive at Franklin Hall for today's meeting.

The last time I was here, I attended a ethics symposium in First Energy lecture hall.

The classroom space throughout the recently renovated Franklin Hall is great.

You can see the Convergence Lab on the second level of Franklin Hall from the entrance to the building.

I’ve already had a chance to check out the business offices of The Daily Kent Stater.

Today we’re in the Hirsch Convergence Laboratory, which has the modular furniture that could be used to convert this teaching space into a board room.

Candace Perkins Bowen, director of the Center for Scholastic Journalism opens today's meeting as CSJ Chair Mark Goodman (left) and Dean Stan Wearden listen.

Newsweek Article Referenced At Scholastic Journalism Meeting

KENT, Ohio– The dean of Kent State University’s College of Communication and Information used the week’s Newsweek article, “How Dumb Are We” to kick off the 2011 meeting of the Center for Scholastic Journalism Advisory Board, which is going on today in KSU’s Franklin Hall.

The article called attention to the civic ignorance of Americans, 38 percent of the whom failed a U.S. Citizenship Test, given by Newsweek.

Stan Wearden told those at the meeting here today that scholastic media have the potential to “transform the nation” by helping to build civic awareness through middle and high school journalism.

“Scholastic media lay the groundwork and show them the importance of being informed,” he said.