| Students get taste of publishing |
By: SUZANNE ROOK, Managing Editor
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Posted: Friday, October 23, 2009 10:56 pm
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Carleton student Nora Cassidy, left, listens as her journalism instructor talks to her about a story she’s working on. Some of her classmates’ pieces have been published online.
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NORTHFIELD — Brian Gilbert still isn’t sure what he thought when his first journalistic work was posted online.
Half chuckling to himself, the Carleton College junior admits he called his parents in St. Louis Park, letting them know his story had just been “published” on his class’ Web site: Pressville.org.
For Gilbert and 21 other Carleton students, this is their first stab at journalism, a craft their instructor, longtime journalist and “Truth v. Power: A Journey in Journalism” instructor Doug McGill admits is evolving and in crisis. McGill, a former New York Times reporter who later worked overseas for the Bloomberg News, says he’s not training professional journalists, but citizen journalists.
The difference, McGill says, is that he doesn’t expect his students to work as journalists, but wants them to be able to ask questions, understand, value and abide the tenets of journalism and learn the skills to practice the craft as a hobby or sideline.
And though newspapers across the nation are falling into bankruptcy, going strictly online or disappearing altogether, McGill believes journalists are watchdogs and are an integral part of maintaining a democracy.
“As we have fewer professional journalists, we have to have someone to take up the slack … even if they weren’t professionally trained,” he said.
Students like Gilbert, an American studies major, and Emily Hartley, who hails from West Fargo, have taken McGill’s call to action with fervor.
As first, Hartley said, she had difficulty finding story ideas, but as the days go by, she’s recognizing them more quickly and finding it easier to approach potential interviewees, introducing herself and asking questions. And, she’s finding out, questions are key.
Yes or no questions, she learned, don’t net much information, questions must be formulated to illicit the respondent’s prolonged engagement.
“You have to know what you want your story to be about, but have to be willing to change your idea depending on what you find out,” said the sophomore English major.
McGill regularly posts some of the his class’ best work on Pressville.org. Topics have included newsworthy issues like a proposed wind farm in Greenvale Township and how Northfielders viewed Coming Out Day.
Already, McGill said, he has seen growth in his students. Their writing is crisper, they find stories more easily and are more willing to move outside the so-called “Carleton bubble” and get out into the community.
The class has gotten Gilbert more engaged in issues he cares about.
Hartley is considering a career in journalism, but worries about its uncertain future.
As does McGill, who believes a solution lies in his lessons.
“Journalism in this society has evolved as a counterweight to all forms of power,” he said. “One of the ways it’s going to (continue) to do that is to develop citizen journalists. That’s number one in my book.”
— Suzanne Rook is the managing editor and covers education. She can be reached at srook@northfieldnews.com or 645-1113. |
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