Thursday, October 11, 2007

Reflections on Day 1

COLUMBIA, SC-- Well, it's approaching midnight and it's taken me an hour to capture the highlight of today-- the Gannett presentations.

What will I remember most from today-- well it depends on whether you're talking about research or teaching.

The highlight of the day researchwise was my colleagues-- Tim Brown and Tim Bajkiewicz's research on convergence efforts at local stations and specifically at Tampa's News Center.

These guys are playing in an area that directly relates to my scholarship-- and I know they share my interest in what's happening with television newsrooms. Their research is very fresh, current and relevant not only to those in the academic community, but those in the industry.

The "Writing Across the Media" half-day workshop left me with a different impression about my goal in teaching cross-media reporter.


Stressing the importance of being able to take ideas back to our classroom that we can implement NEXT WEEK, Augie Grant's review of the core concepts of this area of instruction was just what I needed.

His list of "basic technical skills" was accompanied by a more nuanced view of what our priorities ought to be in teaching students how to report NOW and more importantly, in the future.

"The Fisher Grid" is a takeaway method for immediately putting my students into the cross-media reporting mindset.

My head is already full-- even if I got back on I-20 and went back to Tuscalooosa right now, the trip would have been well worth my time.

But we still have two more days.

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