Becoming a Main Anchor

Also at the Modern Media Conference I got to meet Jovita Moore.  She is the main anchor for channel 2 news here in Atlanta, GA.  It wasn't easy just becoming the face of our city.  Jovita was born in New York City where she stayed in an apartment with her single mother.  Everyday her mom would come in after work and change their only television set to the news.  This is one of the main reasons why Jovita was such a news junky.  In school she was always a good writer, and in college her professors noticed.  One professor gave her the idea of working for the news and to do an internship at the NY Times.  After her undergrad she got her masters at Columbia University and set a goal to become a main anchor.  During all her college years she kept interning and attending journalism conferences.

Her first real job was at a news station in Fayetville, AK.  One the staff at the NY Times gave her some contacts that lead her there.  She stayed there for about three years until she got another offer in Memphis, TN.  While in Memphis, Jovita wanted to really move to Atlanta, one of the biggest cities in the south.  Even in her working years, she still went to conferences to network.  Finally, Jovita got an agent who eventually got her a job here in Atlanta.

So the whole processes wasn't easy for her.  She had to travel to new places, repeat some of the same things, and even ask for help, regardless, Jovita stuck to her goals of becoming a Main Anchor.  With dedication, Jovita says, you can become anything.

Newsgathering by CNN Pros

At the Modern Media Conference I got the opportunity to meet two CNN professionals: Kelly Byrom and Jamie Morrison.  They both discussed strategies of newsgathering.  I learned that there isn't one exact plan to use for every situation.  Depending on the event being covered, you may have to adjust from your usual techniques.  Also, even after planning for a certain story be prepared for change because anything may happen on the scene or you may get another lead.  Kelly talked more about her job in new media.  She is the Art Director for HLNTV.com.  She agrees with Jamie for the newsgathering tips but she also spoke on how to distribute the news once it is gathered.  She says that if we have both newsgathering techniques and are well adapted to the modern media environment, we should be able to cover any story given to us.

Student Media on the Rise

With the 2012 Modern Media Conference just around the corner, students across the Ga State campus are being more exposed to journalism than ever.  The Student Media Department, which is hosting the conference, purposely or not, is recruiting for future members.

The Modern Media Conference is said to have over 20 guests and speakers in various fields of journalism.  Some speakers include Nicole Holman, Anchorwoman of Channel 2 Action news at 5, and keynote speaker Michael Koretzky, a journoterrorist and freelance writer.  According to Sabastian Wee, Editor-in-Chief of The Signal, "The primary goal of this conference is to give Communication students a sense of what they want to do with their careers."

Here at Ga State, the Student Media Department helps students gain experience with four organizations: The Signal, WRAS - Atlanta, New South, and GSTV.  Each offers a variety of positions that students can participate in, revolving around broadcast or print journalism.

Social Media

Today, your average journalist has to be skilled in nearly every field of journalism due to our age of technology. Social Media plays a huge role not only with the audience, but also with the journalists themselves.

The process of being skilled in a variety of fields of media is called cross-platform journalism.  Being in the digital age, the most popular medium is new media.  This includes social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and Blogger.  These outlets can be beneficial and used effectively when "crossed" with traditional media.

New Media Vs. Traditional Media

New media is the most popular medium used today.  Because of this, traditional journalists have a new set of skills to obtain.  Facebook, Twitter, even Blogger...all are forms of new media.  Our generation today is the future of digital journalism.

Traditional journalists may have attended college for four or more years, possibly went to graduate school, and now are told that they need to learn new things.  How would you feel?  After so many years of practice and experience in a field, to see a simple tech-savvy person come in a take a place of a 20 year veteran?  It's harsh, but the truth.

So for my advice to the traditional journalists out there: Start Exploring!  Make a blog, take a free class on media, create a Facebook and Twitter.  It's all free.  But if you chose not to, that may be the thing that costs - your job that is.

Chick-Fila Speaks, Gsu Responds

My fellow classmate, Joseph Shepherd, went out to search for a view opinions from Ga State students on if they believe what the Chick-fila co-founder said about gay marriage and if they will continue to eat there

Almost all of his interviewees agreed on the fact that the co-founder's opinion didn't affect them as a customer to the restaurant.  "That was his own opinion, and I will continue to eat there, I love their chicken nuggets," one person said.  Simply, the resteraunt's menu isn't going to change just because the owner let out a statement that may affect certain customers.  Thus, the interviewees will remain eating there.

On the other hand, they did believe those that are gay, bi-sexual, or lesbian may have been affected by the co-founder's statements.  However, they still believed that they would remain a customer, only having different opinions on the co-founder.  Another interviewee says, "...being a gay person, a lesbian, being whoever you are, there is always going to be someone negative about your relationship, it could be your mom, your friend, whoever, but you're not going to reject them."

Chick-fila is a christian-based restaurant that heavily applies their religious beliefs within the company.  For example, all Chick-fila restaurants are closed on Sundays, allowing the employees to attend church.  Even though the company has Christian views, they do not discriminate against people, and they are an equal employment opportunity organization.  With that being said, and interviewee explained, "...I used to work at Chick-fila, we had gay co-workers and managers, and as for discrimination, I didn't see or witness any..."

As Joseph wrapped up his research, he concluded, jokingly, that this was a "cluster cluck."

CSS = Useless?

CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets.  In the Web design world, it could be a huge help.  Pretty much, it is a template for a web page.  Therefore instead of making settings for each attribute you put on a web page, you can create a css page, and every attribute included in the css will follow the settings in the css page.  It may be confusing at first, but it's quite fun.  After creating a long extensive web site or page, you may want to go back and change all the text to a different color.  Instead of going into the web page and adding a color tag to each text body, you can go to the css template, change the color on ONE tag, and every text linked to that attribute will be that color. 

Digital Journalism class is become better as I know it.  This morning we discussed reasons why we SHOULDN'T go to Graduate school.  Finally a teacher that agreed with me, ha!  Welch also gave me helpful tips for my future radio career which I will take into consideration.  I'm really glad I signed up for this course. 

I will be using this blog also for my Journalism 3010 class -- Adv Media Writing.  So you should be on the look out to other interesting topics, hope you enjoy!

HTML - The Beginning

Class number 2.  All about HTML.  I was excited because I took a web design class before and I know a lot about hyper text markup language.  In class we did a short webpage just to get the feeling of how it works.  I did learn some new things however.  History, Cookies, Cache...all contribute to slowing down your computer and taking up unnecessary space.  However if you remove them, everything will be fine.  Just wait until your down using the internet, so your computer doesn't have to constantly download a page that you may be frequently using.  Also, I learned about RAM.  Your computer has a hard drive to store information, however when you access that information it moves to your RAM (random accessed memory) and stays there, even AFTER your done using the program.  This could also slow down your computer.  To clear this out, you have to restart your computer.  <<< Very helpful for me because I ALWAYS leave on my computer, and after 3 days or so it freezes, and now I know why.  I always like having useful classes, and I definitely see Digital Journalism being one of those.