Views from the Road: My Weekend with Aspiring Journalists - Intercollegiate Studies Institute

Views from the Road: My Weekend with Aspiring Journalists

“BEST WEEKEND EVER!!” declared one post-conference evaluation from a student at the College of William & Mary.  I smiled as I read it, and reflected happily on my weekend running the Collegiate Network’s annual Professional Reporting Course.  The caliber of student participants made this year’s course especially successful.  Attendees from as far away as Claremont McKenna and Thomas Aquinas College in California and as close as the University of Maryland, just a train ride away, gathered in Washington, DC for a weekend packed with good speakers and great fellowship.  “This CN conference and the other CN conference I attended last semester have been the two best weekends of my academic year,” shared another student.  My weekends spent with students are always among my favorite on the road.

The course featured an all-star speaker line-up.  New York Times best-selling author Rich Miniter regaled students with stories from his time investigating the slave trade in Sudan.  Francesca Chambers of Red Alert Politics and John Elliott of the Institute for Humane Studies – both of whom run internship programs like the CN’s program – gave practical tips for a journalism career.  “Show up on time, and be humble!” Francesca Chambers admonished the attendees, “No task is beneath you.”  John Elliott gave his best tip, “Don’t go to law school!”  He pointed out to students that law school can be a losing game that requires an enormous investment of money to achieve an unappealing end – working as a lawyer.

Contrary to prevailing opinion, many speakers emphasized that print journalism is not dying and is still a valid career choice for young people.  The face of journalism may be changing, and Vince Coglianese of The Daily Caller addressed this with a fantastic talk on “Cyber-journalism: Current trends in journalism and how to adopt them,” but journalism is not going away.  At least one speaker speculated that the traditional big newspapers are in decline for financial reasons unrelated to new media, and would have declined regardless.  This is all good news for the eager young would-be journalists who attended the course and who participate in other CN activities.

A particularly entertaining talk from The Weekly Standard’s Vic Matus demonstrated the many faces of the journalistic profession.  Vic is currently working on a book entitled “Vodka: An Illustrated History” and shared funny stories from his experience writing on food and drink.  His talk prompted the creation of Twitter hashtag “OverheardattheCN” as he mused on various beverages sampled for journalistic purposes.  Katherine Mangu-Ward of Reason Magazine and David Mastio, Forum Editor at USA Today, had specific tips on what editors want to see.  The reality, they said, is that no one cares about the opinion of a nineteen-year-old intern nor wants to read the op-eds of a twenty-something.  Leave op-ed writing to the big names and do what you can do well – actual, objective reporting.  Their advice underscored the worth of the old journalistic maxim to “Show, don’t tell,” in your writing.

The formal conference talks wrapped up with a “Fellow Panel” with all five current Collegiate Network fellows together, representing The Hill, Dallas Morning News, The Weekly Standard, Raleigh News & Observer, and USA Today.  The fellows shared stories about their fellowship experiences thus far, including Sterling Beard’s 70+ radio appearances and Kate Havard’s trip to cover a Louisiana congressional race that resulted in an evening “frogging” on the bayou with a political candidate and his cousin.  Saturday’s activities closed with dinner at The Front Page, a newspaper themed restaurant appropriate for this group of budding journalists.  As I looked around at the happy faces of students in the midst of forging good connections with each other and growing as professional reporters, I reflected again that it is not just the students who love conference weekends – we program officers certainly do as well.

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