Salary Database Most Popular Part of Daily Illini Site

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign head football coach Ron Zook is raking in $1.06 million this year.  University president Michael Hogan is earning a little more than half of that.  And the highest-paid employee at UIUC not in athletics, medicine or the highest reaches of the administration: Michael Moore, a law professor whose base pay is close to $300,000 this year.

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These snippets are part of a comprehensive public salary database put together roughly two years ago by The Daily Illini.  Since its launch, the regularly-updated feature has been the most-visited portion of the student newspaper’s website every day.

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Below, DI editor in chief Melissa Silverberg shares the story of the database’s creation and outlines another innovative newspaper project, DI Live.

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How was the salary database put together?

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The decision to publish the salary guide really came out of a desire for more openness from our university.  In summer 2009, the Chicago Tribune published an investigation into University of Illinois admissions practices, which discovered a “clout list” of applicants allegedly admitted to the university because of their connections to powerful state legislators or administrators at UI.  This all came in the year following former governor Rod Blagojevich’s arrest and impeachment.  There was an ethics investigation panel set up by the new Illinois governor– and by October the UI president, chancellor, and nearly the entire board of trustees had resigned.

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Between the economy and the fact that the budget in the state of Illinois is one of the worst in the nation, the University of Illinois has been going through difficult budget times.  Also, during the 2009-2010 school year, our graduate and teaching assistants went on strike, tuition went up 9.5 percent, and the interim president announced furlough days.  If there was a time for transparency, openness, and letting the university community know where their money was going, it was then.

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We published a print version of employee salaries for the Urbana-Champaign campus, including anyone above $30,000 and included comparisons of our football and basketball coaches as well as our presidents to other Big Ten universities.  We also created an online database (which is coded in PHP) with the entire salary listing for all three campuses of the University of Illinois.  The site went live in March 2009.  We updated it in November 2010.  It will now be an annually-updated feature on our site.

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What were the challenges of creating it?

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The most difficult part was actually getting the information. We filed at least three different Freedom of Information requests and talked with another college paper as well as the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, who had both created salary databases on their websites. We just had to figure out the right way to ask for the information so we would receive the entire salary listing, in the correct format. We needed the listings in an Excel document to feed into our database. We didn’t want to have to do any retyping of names or salaries because we wanted to avoid any possibility for error on our end.

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Explain the basics of your other interactive special project, DI Live.

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DI Live is a new feature we added to our website this fall.  We were looking for a way to combine interactive features and several different content types on one topic page.  Our website is built in Drupal, and we wanted a way to make it more interactive and different based on whatever topic was the talk of campus at the time.  We’ve used them for campus crime, football games, breaking news, and investigative stories.

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The different story types are set up in the back end and we can place them anywhere on the page we want. Working in Drupal, we build each DI Live page from scratch using panels. This took some training, but it has really been worth it. Basically with DI Live we have to think about a story and the way it should be told for the readers, before actually doing the work.

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For example, an Illini football game: We have stories written by our sports writers before the game, photos from the previous year, a live chat during the game done on CoverItLive, tweets from any users using the hashtag #Illini, photos from users posted to Flickr, audio collected, polls for our users to vote in, etc. We were able to put all of that on one page in an organized way and let our readers interact before, during, and after the game.  We used DI Live for every football game this fall.

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The first time we used DI Live for something other than sports was the 2010 election, where again we started thinking about the way the story needed to be told before we did any reporting.  This top-down organization really makes our coverage more complete.  DI Live allows us to put many elements of one story all in one place, rather than making the reader search all over our site for them.

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As editor, how do you balance overseeing the regular grind of daily news production with helping plan these special projects?

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It’s important to have a strong staff working on the daily newspaper so that my managing editors and I can step back and plan larger projects.  We try to have regular meetings between the executive team of editors to plan larger projects as well.  It’s also required for the editor in chief to stay over the summer, which is a great time to plan large projects and look critically at our coverage overall.  I’m lucky because I have great editors in many positions so I know that the newspaper will come out every day no matter what, which gives us some room to go above and beyond and take the next steps toward planning special projects.

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Student Journalist’s Resume Goes Viral, Changes the World

Spurlock.  Just Spurlock.  The convergence journalism major at the University of Missouri no longer needs to use his first name.  In the past 24 hours, he has become the Bono or Bieber of the journalism blogosphere and Twitterverse.

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Spurlock’s sudden fame is partly his own making.  In preparation for his upcoming graduation, he has created a résumé with some serious infographics game.  But the real engine behind his rocket-trip to j-student stardom: J-School Buzz, the hip and happening blog focused with hyperlocal intensity on the Mizzou journalism school.

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On Friday, the Buzz posted a screenshot of Spurlock’s work on its own site and The Huffington Post with the header, “Is This the Coolest Student Journalist Resume Ever?” The post quickly went viral with a virility that would make Antoine Dodson and that David After Dentist kid blush.

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Spurlock’s name is EVERYWHERE online.  As one Mizzou j-student tweeted, “I knew @ChrisSpurlock before he was famous.”  (She did not get the memo: He’s dropped the Chris.)

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Now beyond the debate about actual quality (my vote is for innovative while a bit colorful/cluttered), what’s most fascinating is how enthralled the student and professional journalism populace has become with Spurlock’s CV concoction.

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Is it a reflection of the sad reality that, by comparison, most j-student résumés continue to look like tax forms with typos? (One HuffPost commenter: “People are so easily impressed with visuals.”)

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Is it a trumpeting of the next stage in j-students’ self-promotion in which not just their work but their SUMMARY of their work must be highlighted online in a manner that screams Journalism 3.0?  (He’s already been featured in a follow-up post in which he offers five Spurlockian snippets of wisdom about all-things-résumé-building/branding.)

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Is it actually a top-secret communique about journalism or humanity released WikiLeaks style?  (Numerous commenters have used the term “decipher” to describe how they are taking it in.  A Florida comm. student who saw it told me she thinks a hidden message is embedded in its timeline-and-bubbly code, “like something out of Magic Eye.”)

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Or was it simply a slow Friday in the student journalism sphere?

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College Media Random Tweets: ‘Being a Student Journalist is Tough’

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Oregon Daily Emerald: ‘University Shouldn’t Keep Students in the Dark’

Editors at The Oregon Daily Emerald are concerned about an expanding set of “unnecessary brick walls” being put in place by University of Oregon administrators.  According to the newspaper, these walls are blocking student reporting on “new propositions and changes” impacting the school.

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In a staff editorial published earlier this week, headlined “University Shouldn’t Keep Students in the Dark,” the Emerald implored UO officials to grant the paper the basic access and respect all student media deserve.  As a portion of the piece reads:

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“With all of the new propositions and changes coming to the university, student journalists from seemingly every publication are trying to get the complete story.  We’re hitting some unnecessary brick walls, however, in our pursuit to establish what these propositions and changes mean to our university.  As a result, it takes us much longer to actually get the full scoop than it should, affecting the student body’s ability to make a rational decision on a timely manner.  What’s more, it makes it seem as though the members of the student publication are ‘late,’ or ‘out of the loop,’ when we’ve been doing everything in our power to get the story.”

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As an example, the editorial refers to a journalism class recently attended by the university president, in which he commended an Emerald staffer’s reporting work– and then reneged on a scheduled interview with the staffer later that same day.

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The Emerald is concerned that a close-mouthed PR policy hurts not only UO student media but also the university itself.  As the editorial concludes, “The university’s leaders seem so concerned with saying the wrong thing or looking unprofessional that they would rather the students not be updated with university happenings. Because they are the people we pay to educate us and create an environment in which we can be educated, they have no right to withhold information and give watchdogs the wraparound. . . . Withholding information from us is withholding information from all.”

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Student Newspaper Theft: Thousands of Towerlight Copies Suspected Stolen

A sizable chunk of a recent issue of The Towerlight at Towson University has been reported stolen.  According to a Student Press Law Center report, Towerlight editors estimate up to 3,000 copies of the newspaper’s 10,000-copy run for a mid-February issue were taken from multiple campus racks, most prominently in the university’s student center.

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As Towerlight editor in chief Daniel Gross told the SPLC, “What we believe is that it all stems from a particular story [screenshot of print version below] that was printed in that issue regarding some forced resignations within the Housing and Residence Life department.  Some resident assistants were caught drinking with underage RAs and were forced to resign.”

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Staffers first became aware something was amiss upon coming across empty racks very early in the issue’s distribution cycle.  Only hours after restocking racks in the student union specifically, they were again found completely empty. While the issue included a special cover feature popular among students, the speed and totality of the papers’ disappearance signaled trouble.

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University police are investigating the incident, with hopes that student union surveillance cameras might have captured the thefts and can provide a visual on the suspect(s).

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In a staff editorial headlined “Unjustified, Uncalled for and Illegal,” the newspaper confirmed, “If the culprits who stole Towerlights with ‘the intent to prevent other individuals from reading the newspapers’ [a Maryland state crime] are identified, we will press charges to the full extent of the law.”

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The editorial also confirmed the suspected theft will do little to silence the published stories: “Stealing newspapers does not alter history and does not change the facts. And although printed newspapers were taken from racks, our website was viewed thousands of times that same day. In fact, it was the site’s most traffic-heavy day since its upgrade in August. Students, university faculty and staff, and community members were still able to discuss the information found in our print edition.”

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Campus Newspaper Accused of Attacking Student Leader

On page two of its current issue, The Koala, a student newspaper at the University of California, San Diego, calls a female student government representative a “fat wh-re” in a bolded headline.

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The related article similarly condemns her as a “thick-necked uppity skank” and a “homely unf—able bovine.” Nearby, the layout features a photo of the student crudely doctored to include a cutout of male genitalia spread across her face.

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According to local news media, the student believes Koala staffers are taking revenge for her vote to cut the newspaper’s funding.  She said that upon seeing the half-page spread, “[I] just kind of fell apart and called my mom.“

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She is seeking therapy for the emotional pain the Koala has caused, calling the content obscene, pornographic, and blatant sexual harassment.  Her mother is seeking the article’s removal from the paper’s website and legal redress.  As of last week, her communication with the university had gone unanswered.

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UCSD officials did release a public statement, noting, “The university does not endorse, condone or approve of the material the Koala publishes.  Under the First Amendment, the university is severely limited in the actions it can take in response to content published by students.”

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According to one law professor, the published content does not fall within the First Amendment’s purview: “It is not free speech.  It is obscenity.  It’s a criminal act. . . . The picture is not protected by the U.S. Constitution.”

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A San Diego broadcast news outlet’s attempt to interview the Koala‘s top editor was rebuffed due to a disagreement over alcohol and journalism ethics.  “Late Wednesday, [the editor] returned a phone call from 10News and refused to do an interview unless 10News gave him a case of beer,” the station reported. “10News did not, because it is 10News’ policy not to pay for interviews, so [the editor] ended the conversation.”

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UPIU a ‘Mini-Internship’ of International Proportions

Suleiman Abdullahi was recently an eyewitness to the birth of the world’s newest nation.

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In early January, the 20-year-old Kenyan journalism student flew to Juba, Sudan, to cover the massive referendum responsible for the creation and upcoming independence of South Sudan. As Abdullahi wrote, he arrived in the prospective nation’s capital city with a travel visa, a press pass, a story budget, and a 48-hour window to interview, observe, and report upon “the history that was about to be made.”

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By the end of his first day, he was under arrest.

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Suleiman Abdullahi reported from Juba, Sudan for UPIU and UPI during the historic referendum responsible for creating South Sudan.

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Abdullahi was part of a two-man student reporting crew hired by UPIU, a student journalism project run by the United Press International news service. UPIU is an emerging player in the college media and journalism education arenas. Its website features a self-publishing platform for news stories and multimedia journalism projects posted by students around the globe.

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The most standout aspect of UPIU: It does not just publish content by students; it provides classroom workshops, story editing, and one-on-one mentoring to help their pieces sing. The students who take advantage of its services undergo what UPIU senior mentor Krista Kapralos calls a “mini-internship experience.”

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It currently partners with more than 30 schools in roughly a dozen countries, leading to a cluster of student-produced stories touching on things such as Kenyans and antibiotic resistance, Moroccans and Christianity, the Chinese and homosexuality, and Egyptians and a revolution. The UPIU motto: “Mentoring Student Journalists Worldwide.”

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“We want to leverage UPI’s solid reputation to attract aspiring journalists and improve foreign coverage,” said UPIU Asia regional director Harumi Gondo. “I’ve not encountered another program that has such direct communication and relationships with journalism schools around the world.”

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No contracts are signed. UPIU does not collect any revenue from the posted stories. Students retain ownership of their work and are free to submit elsewhere. In the meantime, their content is vetted by professionals and considered for pick-up by UPI. Since its creation in late 2008, more than 2,300 stories have been published on the site. More than 100– roughly 4 percent of all submissions– have been approved for placement on UPI.com.

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I can personally vouch for its potential. I have incorporated UPIU into multiple sections of my news reporting classes at the University of Tampa to mostly positive results. The process is five-fold: 1) an introductory video chat with each class hosted by veteran journalist Kapralos, who oversees UPIU’s initiatives in Africa, Europe, and the Americas; 2) an optional video session in which students pitch story ideas; 3) a critique from a UPIU mentor on subsequent story drafts students post to the site; 4) a video chat round-up with Kapralos commenting on the quality of submissions overall; and 5) revisions by the students based on the feedback from Kapralos and, of course, their professor.

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Students’ involvement with UPIU ultimately helps underscore the lessons I am teaching them– if nothing else, the importance of a news hook, timeliness, editorial collaboration, and three-source minimums.

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It also has served as the platform for award-winning work. In fall 2009, Michigan State University student Jeremy Blaney earned a Religion Newswriters Association honor for his reports on local Muslim issues that were published on UPIU and, soon after, UPI. The headline of one of his pieces, which touched on the intersection of Islam and technology was, “You’re a Muslim? There’s an App for That.”

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“When you’re on our site, you’re not only seeing students practicing journalism,” Kapralos told a news-writing class during a recent video chat. “You’re also seeing a lot of really groundbreaking work. And you’re seeing it through a lens that you don’t always see through the New York Times or CNN.”

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To Read the Rest of the Piece, Check Out PBS MediaShift

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College Media Story Ideas: Crazy Campus Traditions

Dragon Day.  Orgo Night.  Primal Scream.  Pumpkin Drop. Toast Toss.  Polar Bear Swim.  Hello Walk.  Naked Quad Run.

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At many colleges and universities, crazy traditions are as much a part of campus life as fall football Saturdays and final exams.  (My favorite: the Healy Howl, a Halloween rite of passage for Georgetown University students involving a midnight campus cemetery howl at the moon.)

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Students at many schools include a fountain run on their campus bucket list.

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In a brainstorming session with j-students recently, the following questions were tossed around as possible ‘tradition piece’ prompts:

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• What are your school’s most hallowed, reviled, and quirkiest traditions– official and unofficial?

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• How did they begin?  How have they evolved?

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• Who is involved in planning, participating or stopping them?

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• What are administrators’ formal, and informal, stances on how they reflect upon the school?

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• What is a part of a tradition, or a perspective on a tradition, that has not yet been explored by your student press?  (For example, instead of reporting upon the students running naked in the campus plaza, tell the story from the POV of the campus security officer forced to arrest them or slow the run to a walk.)

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• How much do students actually know about the traditions in which they are taking part?  (What are the biggest misconceptions surrounding the traditions?)

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• How can multimedia tools be employed to report upon these old-school activities in new ways?

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• According to current students, which of the traditions are becoming less relevant or have entirely run their course?

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• And what are new traditions that students would like to start?

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‘You Know You’re a Student Journalist When…’

How do you know when you’ve truly become a student journalist? In a blog post last week, former CU Independent editor in chief Kate Spencer laid out more than a dozen telltale j-student signs, some serious and others tongue in cheek.

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According to Spencer, a j-student at the University of Colorado Boulder who continues to serve as an Independent copy editor and ambassador-at-large, “You know you’re a student journalist when…”

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You find yourself correcting your professor under your breath when your professor says “towards” instead of “toward”.

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You aren’t chatting on Facebook during class, but rather are on Twitter so that you can watch the breaking news Twitter feed from the local police department.

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Your excuse for missing class is “I’m sorry professor, I had an interview with the chancellor.”

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You’re not texting your friends during class; you’re texting fellow reporters to see who can cover the student government meeting that night.

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You edit your friends’ history and psychology papers according to AP Style.

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The 2 a.m. phone call isn’t from an intoxicated friend asking for a ride, but is your fellow news editor asking you to edit a story about a frozen pipe burst on campus.

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You don’t think twice about curling up on the newsroom couch with your fellow editors after a long night of editing layout.

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A few items I humbly submit as additions to Spencer’s excellent list…

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In any journalism, writing or media class, you feel superior to the point of getting pissed off if you earn an A-.

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You begin approaching every class writing assignment with the question, “How can I get this published?”

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You are excited to log two hours of copy editing overtime to earn an extra $14.50 in your paycheck.

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You experience a strange minor adrenaline rush whenever you see someone flipping through the student newspaper on campus.  (Conversely, you start noticing discarded copies of the paper everywhere and become angry when friends tell you they saw your column in the current issue but didn’t actually read it.)

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At 1 a.m. on production night, you gaze longingly at the week-old pizza box in the corner of the newsroom, wondering if maybe, just maybe, a single stale slice of pepperoni, original crust, might rest within its depths, waiting to be eaten.

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What would you add to our lists???

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Fun related post to check out: Things to Know Before Dating a Student Journalist

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Twitter Interview Requests: Top 10 Rules to Follow

In my previous post, I touched on a Twitter trend sweeping the nation: the tweeted interview request.  Brief, public, and sometimes grammatically challenged, these messages are seemingly catching on among evermore student journalists who are searching for a lot of sources in a short amount of time with little-to-no legwork.

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Is it a positive or negative for collegemediatopia? I’m personally not against what I’m calling the TCO (the tweeted cold open).  But I do feel it should be used sparingly and follow some basic rules of net etiquette.  Below is my top 10 list of rules for Twitter interview requests.

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1) Whenever possible, use Twitter as a search engine for sources, not the first point of contact.  Use the information gleaned from a person’s tweets or Twitter profile to click on a personal website or blog– or follow-up with a search on Google or Facebook to get an actual e-mail address.

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2) If you’re going the Tweet intro route, take a moment to actually look at a person’s Twitter page.  How many users does the person have?  How many tweets has she posted?  When was the last post?  Also, search the mass public feed for the user’s Twitter name.  How many people communicate directly with her?  How often does she engage in back-and-forths with people publicly?  These will all be indicators of how worthwhile or fruitless a tweet as first-point-of-contact will be.

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If the person is Mrs. Twitter, living life out loud 140 characters at a time, then, yes, a tweeted interview request might make sense.  If you’ve stumbled onto an LT (light tweeter) or an ANET (almost non-existent tweeter), it’s probably best to go old school (by 2011 standards) and send an e-mail.

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3) At the very least, within your request tweet, include the reason you are writing.  The most maddening tweets of this type read simply, “Hi, I’m a student journalist working on a story.  Can I interview you real quick?  Thnx.”  You must attempt to even marginally answer the two questions every interviewee asks once contacted by the press: Why me? And, what for?

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4) Be professional.  Spell everything correctly.  Use proper grammar.  Avoid even the most common acronyms or text-speak (i.e. u wanna tlk @ 6 tnite?).  Use titles (Mrs. Weasley, Professor Bieber), not first names.

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5) Include an e-mail address.  Don’t force people to respond to you publicly or on a platform they might not be able to sufficiently access on their mobile phone.

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6) Also, include a link that provides a quick-hit overview of you, such as your blog’s About Me page.  Make it incredibly easy for the person to find out more about you.

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7) Use some tact.  If you send out a bevy of carbon copy public interview requests, it will be hard for anyone but the glory-hogs to feel like they’re pivotal to your project and that you are worth their time.  (See example below.  The opening message at the very bottom says it all.)

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8) Be aware of what your tweets say about you.  Step 1) You tweet an interview request to a stranger.  Step 2) The stranger clicks onto your Twitter profile and scans your recent tweets.  If these tweets are lame or vulgar or mostly personal– or if you barely have any tweets at all– your interview hopes will probably be dashed. #fml

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9) Whenever you can, send a direct message tweet.  It’s quick, painless, and, most important, private.

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10) Keep your Twitter feed public! If you hide your tweets, your credibility has the shelf life of a person’s mouse clicking on your profile name.

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This one happened to me.  A person tweeted me for an interview about students and new media, I believe for a master’s thesis.  Being kind and curious (i.e. attention-hungry), I clicked on the guy’s profile.  It proclaimed, “This person has protected their tweets.”  My initial thoughts: 1) That’s the way to be!  Make it TOUGHER for me to find out who the heck you are.  2) You’re writing about new media??  3) Are you secretly a superhero?  See below for a smattering of others’ frustrations with the “protected” feed.

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Twitter Interview Requests: #Innovative or #Epicfail?

Over the past year, I’ve noticed an emerging student press trend on Twitter.  It doesn’t yet have its own hashtag, but if it did it might read something like #helpoutajstudentyo.

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An increasing number of student journalists appear to be employing Twitter as the prime spot to seek sources for their story (or class) assignments AND make first contact with these sources.  At the start, the occasional  j-student interview request tweets I stumbled across amused me.  The copious amounts I now wade into both intrigue and concern me.

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These 140-character-or-less requests seem to take on one of two forms: 1) A public tweet to one other person asking for a chat or 2) A crowdsourcing tweet asking for all those who meet certain specs to reply ASAP.

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Due to their brevity, they tend to contain the same four characteristics: 1) A very, very quick greeting. (Hi); 2) An extremely abbreviated identifier. (I’m a journalism student); 3) An uber-short explanation for the tweet. (I’m working on a story about…).  And 4) A request for an interview. (Up for a chat?).

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Of course, these are the basic attributes involved in an interview request made in almost any form, including in person, at the start of a cold call or within an out-of-the-blue e-mail.  They just happen very rapidly once whittled into single tweets, often lacking context (students with actual job titles and outlet affiliations become just “a student journalist”), a polite easing-in, or even proper spelling (Im a j-student. Plz hlp.).

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The oddest part about these interview entreaties: They are public.  Ignoring or unable to use the private “direct message” option, the requests are simply left in raw form for the Twitterverse to see.  (In the so-much-for-feeling-special department, the public requests also allow potential interviewees to see how many other people the students have tweeted for a chat using the same exact greeting.)

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Is this type of public quick-hit request a positive for the campus press– enabling students to show initiative and innovation in reaching out to lots of sources with whom they might otherwise not have a shot at speaking?  Or is it a devolution of the journalist-source relationship?  Simply put, is there an element of rudeness embedded within these opening tweets?

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I’ve been contacted numerous times this way.   My first reaction: You really could not spare one minute to check my Twitter profile, click on my blog, and find my e-mail address?  My second reaction: Who are you?  Your tweet does not reveal it. Your Twitter profile is still vague.  And I’m supposed to do the work to ferret out your identity?

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My third reaction: What’s next?  You asked me if I wanted to chat, but left me no options on how I should respond.  Am I supposed to reply to your tweet publicly to say I’m game and give you further instructions on how to contact me?

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And my fourth reaction: The human part of me cannot help but feel a little violated.  I’m a person, not a Twitter profile! If I’m that valuable to you, take the time to do more than send a vague opener that took you 10 seconds to type and that anyone can read.

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To Be Continued… Part 2: Top 10 Twitter Interview Request Rules

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College Media Story Idea: The Urban Dictionary Debate

How is your school defined, online? Urban Dictionary, the web’s self-proclaimed “cornucopia of streetwise lingo,” sports a growing number of definitions for colleges and universities.

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Yes, they are anonymous.  And yes, some are just incoherent or cliche.  But many are ripe for commentary, a quick reaction story or a larger feature report.

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The nastiest ones, in many ways, are the most intriguing.  They cut through the PR muck of university mission statements to reveal a number of potentially newsworthy items: a university’s actual underbelly; what everyone takes for granted as true but might possibly be false; how the school is perceived, for better or worse; the realities or trends everyone knows about or are engaged within but haven’t reflected upon in awhile.

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In the current issue of The Minaret, the student newspaper I advise at the University of Tampa, staffers solicited campus reactions to a number of the school’s Urban Dictionary definitions.  A pair of commentary writers questioned the entries’ accuracy and what they mean for the school.

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On the issue’s front page (screenshot of top half above), editors placed an especially venomous definition opposite a portion of the school’s mission statement.  One was of course crafted with care and the other was written most likely on a whim, but the question our layout implicitly asks: Is one any more valid or true than the other?

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To spin off your own definitive story, a few leading questions: What is your school’s online identity?  If they exist, what do the nastier definitions about your school reveal about the actual truth or others’ perceptions of it?  What do students– and administrators– think of these types of anonymous school reviews? What stereotypes need to be cleared up?  How seriously do admissions officials and prospective students treat sites like Urban Dictionary?  And what can be done to fight especially vile falsehoods or attacks?

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Check Out My Washington Post Web Chat at 1 p.m. Today

I’m honored to be participating in a Washington Post web chat at 1 p.m. EST today (Thursday).  The planned focus of the (almost) real-time Q&A: student sex, student love, and hopefully a smidgeon of student journalism.

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In part, I’ll be discussing what I found during research for my book Sex and the University, including the apparent death of student dating (just in time for Valentine’s Day!).

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I’ve been invited to join the chat by Washington Post higher education reporter Jenna Johnson.  She hosts weekly web talks for her “Campus Overload” blog. Two recent ones: a chat last week about Facebook, on its seventh birthday (with two of its employees) and a separate chat last month about college social media issues.

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So if you’re free for even a moment post-lunch, please click here, stop by, and even leave a question!

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Student Journalist Spotlight: Alexandra Churchill, University of New Hampshire

Alexandra Churchill loves ballet, summertime camping trips, espresso shots, James Dean, and the smell of old books.  The junior j-student at the University of New Hampshire has been in the book publishing business for almost her entire two-decade existence.

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“I heard once that Stephen King used to sell his fiction stories to classmates in grade school and even started turning a profit,” she said. “And I used to do something akin to that. When I was three years old, I was dictating to my mother stories about bears. At five, I was writing and illustrating my own stories on spare printer paper, stapling them into ‘books’ and distributing multiple copies to family members and friends.  So storytelling is second nature to me, in whatever form that is: journalism, fiction, creative nonfiction.”

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Alexandra Churchill splashes around in Trafalgar Square Fountain while in London.

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Among the gigs the UNH junior has held that have helped nurture this second nature: staff writer for The New Hampshire student newspaper; editor of Main Street Magazine, a general interest student mag; editor of Aegis literary journal; and founding editor of the non-fiction journal Sandpaper.  She sleeps during semester breaks.

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Her journalism work in particular has taken her to a plethora of memorable spots– from J.D. Salinger’s house in Cornish, N.H., to the top of a fire truck ladder.

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For her storytelling ability and reporting acumen, Churchill earns a rightful spot in the CMM Student Journalist Spotlight.  Below, she discusses her journalism love affair, her trip to Salinger’s house, and her reporting on a high-profile student suicide.

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Write a six-word memoir of your student journalism experience so far.

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There’s always a story to tell.

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How did you fall in love with journalism?

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The funny thing is I never intended to be a journalist.  Growing up, I was shy and soft-spoken, but that changed in college when I decided to take a chance and declared English/Journalism.  I realize now, it was the greatest decision I could have made in my life.

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In just two years I’ve done ride-alongs with police officers and firemen, driven to the house of an iconic American writer, climbed 50 feet up the ladder of a fire truck, and attended an aerial dance show!  I’ve done and seen things I never would have otherwise had it not been for journalism.

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I think that a love for journalism, for me, came out of an insatiable curiosity for life as well as a genuine empathy for people.  I think that as a journalist, it’s important to connect to the people you are writing about.

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So how did you end up at Salinger’s house?

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Who wouldn’t want to stalk down their favorite author? I read The Catcher in the Rye religiously as a teenager and as a native-born New Hampshirite, I had heard rumors of the reclusive author, J.D. Salinger, living deep in the woods up north.

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In the winter of 2010, after his widely publicized death, I determined once and for all to find his house.  In my research, I found that the literary world had always been fascinated by the private, unpublished life of Mr. Salinger, which prompted the title, “Stalking Salinger: An American Pastime.”

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So I loaded into my ’97 Jeep Cherokee and headed roughly 100 miles north to Cornish, N.H., along the border of Vermont into the woods to find a writer I’d admired for so many years of my life.  It was basically four hours of driving around in the snow looking for no trespasser signs, a strong indicator of the Salinger house.

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I didn’t ask the locals for directions, because it was a well-known fact that they would point journalists and nosy fans in the wrong direction to protect their neighbor. They’ve done it for decades.  When I did eventually come across the house I was sure to be the Salinger residence (given the signs and descriptions set forth by a former writer who alleged to find his house ten years prior), I sat motionless at the wheel of my car, unable to get out and approach the door.

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I realized in that moment, I didn’t want to be yet another journalist intruding upon this man’s life, so I left.  Mr. Salinger’s privacy was his most prized possession and to this day, I don’t regret the decision.

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Describe your reporting on the student suicide.

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A big headline for The New Hampshire last fall was our controversial coverage of a student suicide.  When junior Christy Nichols committed suicide on campus, it shocked the university community.  When we got a hold of the story as a newspaper, our staff questioned whether to even run it.  I think my editors handled the story as they thought best at the time, but there was a huge backlash of complaints from our readership and a lot of people thought the coverage was too strong.

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At the time, I was focused on other assignments.  I wrote a feature on local resources offered to students in distress, to help students like Christy, who felt alone and helpless. The feature was received well and my editors approached me about writing a follow-up to the initial news coverage.

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So a week or so later, I attended the candlelight vigil arranged to memorialize and honor Christy.  Outside her old dorm hall, several people clustered: her friends, roommates, dormmates, and university officials, all heads bent in reverent silence and cupping hands over votive candles circled around a framed portrait of Christy.  I was so moved by the vigil, I started to cry myself. I never had the opportunity to know Christy, yet in interviewing her roommates and friends, I came to know her intimately and inevitably, feel the grief of her loss.

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I am not unfamiliar with the tragedy of suicide.  Four years ago in June of 2007, my close cousin, a former Marine, committed suicide. It was a traumatic event and I carry his death with me, as I’m sure Christy’s friends and family will always carry hers.  I think it was my own experience having lost a loved one to suicide that allowed me to empathize with Christy’s roommates, my interviewees. In journalism, and hard news particularly, there is an emphasis on the objective, but I believe reporters inescapably become a part of the story they write.  I carry the impact of every news assignment with me, and Christy’s smiling face is something I’ve carried with me every day.

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What are the challenges of reporting upon student deaths?  Any advice for j-students on how to handle these types of stories?

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It can be an immense challenge to cover a student death.  In my short time as a reporter, I’ve covered three alumni deaths: a frat brother who died of leukemia, a girl who committed suicide, and a ROTC alum Army Lieutenant killed in combat one month into his deployment to Afghanistan.  I don’t know how typical that figure is, but to me, even one alum death is too much.

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There isn’t any story more delicate than covering a student death and I don’t think there is a more humbling assignment a student journalist can receive. In talking to friends and family of the deceased, you learn about that person. Listen with an empathetic heart. They are giving you their best friend, their daughter, their brother, their loved one.  And as a journalist assigned to uncover the impact they had on everyone’s lives, you determine their lasting impression on the world.

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My advice to student journalists given this type of assignment: Be open, honest, empathetic, respectful, and cooperative. Your people skills are tested more in this type of assignment than any other.

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You wake up in ten years.  Where are you and what are you doing?

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I would like to think that in ten years I will have fulfilled my lifelong dream of publishing a novel.  Beyond that: anything is possible. I want to do some globe-trekking, maybe work abroad as a foreign correspondent or in New York or Boston as an editor with a publishing house, or as a journalist for a magazine.  We’ll see where this literary life takes me.

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‘Sac State Crime’ Ad: Hornet Faculty Adviser Responds

Within collegemediatopia, what is the proper code of ethics for evaluating advertisements prior to publication? The question was at the heart of Sunday’s post, focused on an ad run recently in The State Hornet at California State University, Sacramento, that has received press attention for possibly being misleading and fearmongering about the serious issue of campus crime.

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Holly Heyser serves as The State Hornet's faculty adviser and business manager, building upon nearly two decades of professional reporting and editing work. (Photo from Heyser's CSUS faculty profile page.)

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In response, Hornet faculty adviser Holly Heyser, a veteran journalist and CSUS professional in residence, offers some insight into the staff’s decision to run the full-page spot.  She also seeks input about the lengths j-students and their advisers should go in ensuring an ad’s veracity– and whether such a distinction is even identifiable amid the endless exaggerations and slick sales pitches.

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In Heyser’s words:

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This ad was the subject of a lot of discussion at the State Hornet. We actually rejected the first version that was submitted to us because it did seem to imply that the chief could have prevented all of those crimes, and it did not state who paid for the ad.

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As for the version that ultimately ran, it struck me as being no more exaggerated and fearmongering than any of the gazillions of campaign ads I covered for major metro dailies in three states during my political reporting/editing career. That such an ad would run in a campus newspaper may be unusual, but the tone itself is not.

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The reality is that the university did experience an unusual– for us– number of sexual assaults last semester.  And while some of them might not be indicative of a crime wave, the one in which a student was dragged into a van and raped in one of our dorm parking lots was (rightfully) terrifying to many women on campus.  It is also true that the police department recently increased its management staff.  I’ve seen much smaller grains of truth in campaign ads.

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But I’d love to hear people’s thoughts on this: How far are we supposed to go in vetting ads? Because while this one was unusual, let’s be honest: Most ads employ exaggeration, distortion and emotional imagery to persuade a target audience to do something.  It’s just usually persuasion to buy— beer/apartment complex/phone service– not persuasion to revolt.

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