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Recent graduates well-equipped for new century of journalism
It was so much easier back then.
We went after stories, scribbling our notes on three-fold sheets of newsprint. Back in the Daily Student office, we found a free manual typewriter (hoping it worked and had a good ribbon) and typed the story. We typed X’s over our mistakes, maybe cut and pasted (literally), then handed the story to our desk editor. As reporters, we were finished.
The story was checked by our desk editor, and went to the copy desk for more editing and a headline. Then it went to the backshop, was set into metal type, the headline type was lined up, a page was justified (i.e., tightened so that no lines fell out) and it all went onto the flatbed press.
Today, a reporter may start publishing a story even while gathering the information.
She may use Facebook and Twitter to update the story even while covering the event. She not only has a reporter’s notebook and pen, but is holding her cell phone so she can consult with her editors, look up background information, check maps, update information on the IDS Web page and sometimes snap a picture.
Sometimes she has her laptop for work at a press conference, so the story goes right online. She can rewrite and text different editors. Ideally, her editors always know what’s happening on the story. Now, same as then, the motto is, “Get it right and get it fast.”
The editors do the editing, write headlines and design pages on computers in the newsroom. There is no longer any “backshop.”
My source for the modern information was CJ Lotz, BAJ ’11. She was the first media person to work on last summer’s story of the missing IU student, Lauren Spierer. (First, as in, first. Period.) Eventually the story hit the national media and hundreds of people turned out day after day to hunt for the 20-year-old who disappeared from downtown Bloomington in the early hours of
June 3.
Mainly a feature writer, CJ plunged into the intensity of the story. She interviewed Lauren’s parents, covered daily police press conferences, worked alongside television reporters and media from Lauren’s New York home, and talked to scores of the people who turned out for searches all over the area.
CJ was on the small staff that keeps the Daily Student going during the summer. In the summer, the Daily Student is printed on Monday and Thursday, but its Web page is up and running all the time. The summer staff grabbed the opportunity to experiment in using social media to report on the Lauren Spierer story. Editor Brooke Lillard, a senior, said covering Lauren’s story was the most challenging experience of her IDS career.
Rumors were rampant and the range of social media made reporting more difficult as well as more exciting. Brooke wrote a column about her staff’s diligence in working through the maze of rumors to report the known facts. As I write this, Lauren still is missing.
These young women are just two of those in Ernie Pyle Hall who make me proud of our leaders of tomorrow. They have to know so much more with all the technology to complicate their work and lives. Let me express my pride and appreciation here for these hardworking alumni, many of whom will go on beyond Bloomington to great careers in the wide world.
Larry Buchanan, BAJ’11, has been the leader for our journalism design students. He even had a full page design column in the IDS last spring semester. Larry was the Student Society for News Design’s national designer of the year and won the Brook Baker Collegiate Journalist of the Year Award from the Indiana Collegiate Press Association, along with dozens of other awards.
After graduation, Larry stayed to work on the Centennial history book with writer Valerie Aquila, BAJ’04. They immersed themselves in our 100-year history.
Valerie is from Muncie and fell in love with the IU campus at first sight when she was 8. As a student, she focused on the yearbook, working up to managing editor of the 2004 Arbutus. She has a master’s degree in Museum Studies from the Cooperstown, N.Y., graduate program. After interning and working at three museums, she came back to IU for two years as an academic adviser in the College of Arts and Sciences. She is working on a doctorate in mass communications and history at the journalism school.
There are so many other promising young journalists whom I am proud to know. There is Kaylean Cohen, a senior, who is editor of the 2012 Arbutus. She has worked on yearbooks since high school in Bloomington, and was managing editor of the 2011 Arbutus. She went to Venice, Italy, on a fine arts study program last summer and sent back columns and pictures to the IDS about her mind-opening experience.
Erin Wright, BAJ’09 (with a second degree in Spanish), is a detail-oriented copy editor. She was art editor and general assignment editor on the IDS, and copy editor for Inside Magazine. She is from Fort Wayne and stayed in Bloomington to work for IU Creative Services, an in-house ad agency for various departments, producing brochures, marketing and websites.
When it comes to our promising journalists, we have to cheer for IU’s resurgence in the national Hearst Competition. We won the top university award for writing in both 2010 and 2011.
This year, Danielle Paquette, a senior, placed first; Caitlin Johnson, BAJ’11, was second and Caitlin Keating, BAJ’11, was a runner-up, all in writing. Our new motto could be, “Indiana WRITES!”
These young people and others like them are going into a world so different from the one my generation reported. Our alumni follow many different tracks and careers. They are heading into the second century of IU journalism with the same enthusiasm, dedication and talents that led us through the first 100 years.
