Students check out Chicago media scene, meet alumni

Photo by Tim Street

Students experienced first-hand Chicago’s windy and wintry weather as they walked to visit media outlets Friday.

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NBC, the Chicago Tribune and public relations firm Edelman are just a few of the media outlets journalism students visited last week on their second annual trip to Chicago, a trip designed to offer students to insight from professional journalists.

Twenty-one school Ambassadors and 17 Ernie Pyle Scholars networked with alumni and got a taste of different types of media by meeting professionals in the job, said Tim Street, assistant communications director.

“A lot of our students don’t exactly know what they want to do,” Street said. By visiting different media outlets, students can “get a better idea of what a professional career looks like.”

Students socialized at a Thursday evening reception at Hotel Monaco with about 50 IU alumni from the Chicago area, including Laura Emerick, arts editor for the Chicago Sun-Times, and George Papajohn of the Chicago Tribune. Street said this type of event helps connect some of the school’s more than 8,000 alumni to their alma mater as well as to current students, who want to hear about their careers.

Faculty and staff joined in at the reception, including Dean Brad Hamm, Marcia Debnam, career services director, and Jessica Gall, director of experiential education and recruitment.

Friday, students split into groups to for visits to two newspapers, the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times; two public relations firms, Fleishman Hillard and Edelman; Time Out Chicago magazine; and the Chicago NBC affiliate.

At Edelman, students heard a panel of seven employees, including five alumni, share their insight into the public relations field and discuss their own career paths, said sophomore Tim Solon. The talk included resume tips and a “what not to do on an interview” session.

“I think it put into perspective what the professional life of a public relations career is like,” Solon said.

Photo by Tim Street

Freshmen CJ Lotz and Erin Chapman, both Ernie Pyle Scholars, visited Time Out Chicago magazine.

At Time Out Chicago magazine, students met with marketing manager and IU alumna Julie Sprich, who said she benefited from internships, including one at Sports Illustrated. Her best advice, she said, was to treat an internship like an entry-level job. She also emphasized networking with alumni when trying to break into a publication without any connections. Knowing someone gets your foot in the door, she said, but you still have to prove yourself once you get the job.

“It was really great to learn how alumni can help us,” senior Hilary Robinson said. “She seemed really willing to help and someone helped her at some point.”

Nadia LaMantia, a junior who visited the Chicago Tribune, said the group met with a special projects editor at the paper who told students how the staff selects stories for the paper. The editor also addressed the importance of multimedia projects.

“It was amazing to be in a place that has such history behind it,” LaMantia said. “You just know so many great ideas came from that building.”

Students visiting the Chicago Sun-Times received a tour of the newsroom and beyond, meeting several top editors and sitting in on a budget meeting where the editors selected the stories to be in the following day’s paper.

Students finished the trip by seeing Othello at the Shakespeare Theater on Navy Pier.

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