Back online with lots to report

Lots of good news to report as the awards and scholarships keep rolling in.
Journalism senior Melissa Sanchez won a $20,000 scholarship to live, study and work in Central America for a year through the Inter-American Press Association. Her proposal was to compare access to information about health, employment and education in San Jose, Costa Rica, and Managua, Nicaragua. She will be working with the J-School’s Manuel Chavez to frame her research-study project in Central America, and will head to Central America in the fall.

EJ magazine and its staff have raked in a number of honors from the Detroit Press Club Foundation and SPJ’s regional chapters.

Chet Rhodes from washingtonpost.com spoke to faculty and students last Friday. He was amazing. He gave real hands on advice and approaches.

A week earlier, Jennifer Carroll, a MSU alum and a VP of online content at Gannett made a similar splash giving the over view of the ongoing changes in the media industry.

I had to miss her presentation since I was attending a terrific Poynter Seminar lead by Chip Scanlan on Reporting and Writing for Multiplatform Newsrooms. But I brought back lots of new ideas and experiences that I have already put to the test in our Digital Public Affairs Reporting course.

On the sad news front, our fantastic broadcast faculty member, Dr. Kim Piper-Aiken will be leaving us to teach at Wayne State University in Detroit. Kim has done a fantastic job as a master teacher and the executive producer of the award winning Focal Point TV News Magazine. We will miss her. I am hard at work trying to find someone who can come on board and assume some of her responsibilities. Kim has promised to help in the transition. I wish her the very best.

To give you a heads up on what’s coming up:

Wednesday, March 28, 12:15 p.m. Tripper’s – SPJ meeting
Presenter: Perry Parks, J-School instructor and author of Making Important News Interesting
Tripper’s is in Frandor Shopping Center. Cost is $10 for members and $12 for nonmembers and includes lunch. For additional info contact Christie Bleck at christieb7@msn.com.

Wednesday, March 28, 4 p.m., Room 145 CAS – Mary Gardner Lecture
Vanessa Arrington, former Havana bureau chief for the Associated Press. Arrington has covered news through Latin America in her career with the AP. She will be speaking on the challenges of reporting in this area. Her lecture is entitled: "Neither paradise nor purgatory: Castro's communist Cuba and the art of balanced reporting"

Thursday, March 29, 3:30 p.m. in room 145 CAS-- – Knight Center lecture
Marc Kaufman, science and health writer for The Washington Post
Title: “Reporting on science, health, nature and war in George W. Bush's Washington”

Saturday, April 14, 4-6 p.m., Auditorium, Kellogg Center—Journalism Awards ProgramSaturday, April 14, 6-10 p.m., Big Ten A, Kellogg Center—Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame banquet

Monday, April 16 – 2007 Neal Shine Ethics LectureNancy Youssef, McClatchy Newspapers’ Baghdad bureau chiefm 4 p.m., Kellogg Center

Heading back to class

Hi all! I hope everyone had a great spring break. I did, but I also kept busy doing homework. I know. I'm the one who usually gives it, but I had some these past few weeks before heading off to a Poynter Seminar on Reporting and Writing for Multplatform Newsrooms.

For those who don't know, Poynter is a continuing education place for journalists. It's terrific, and I am really privileged to be going.

I intend to bring back as much as I can to you as the J-School continues its push into online reporting.