Blend | Fall 2007

blend journalism starts right here

Fall 2007 Issue 1 Volume 2

a publication from Ball State University distributed by the National Scholastic Press Association

Why’s everyone talking

CONVERGENCE? Meet Amanda Allison:

JEA STUDENT JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR NO VISINE NEEDED

RedEye editor talks

MYTHS Two spaces? Circle pictures?

Trapped white space? Blend goes mythbusting!

Design anD proDuce page layouts for yearbooks anD scHool newspapers Take school publications to the next level • Explore new design possibilities—use expanded creative tools and options to create sophisticated effects for text, images, and objects.

• Be more productive—use new and enhanced productivity tools to lay out, export, and print graphically rich pages.

• Automate routine tasks—save time and money by automating production workflows.

Adobe, the Adobe logo, and InDesign are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. © 2007 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved.

Learn more about new Adobe InDesign CS3 software www.adobe.com/education/k12

blend Fall 2007 Issue 1 Volume 2

Ball State University Secondary Educational Services Department of Journalism Muncie, IN 47306 DIRECTOR Brian Hayes EDITOR Tom Gayda MANAGING EDITOR Kim Green BLEND STAFF Candace Perkins Bowen John Bowen Kathy Craghead Ryan Gunterman H.L. Hall Jim McGonnell Amy Morgan Sarah Nichols Mark Newton Chad Rummel Wendy Wallace ASST. DIRECTOR / BUSINESS MANAGER Adam Maksl OFFICE STAFF Shelby Murphy Ashley Cashen Jincy Gibson Becky Rother Blend Magazine is published by the Secondary Educational Services office in the Department of Journalism at Ball State University.

Call 765-285-8900 for advertising information or questions. You can always e-mail the staff at blend.mag@gmail.com.

FOR NSPA Logan Aimone • executive director Marc Wood • communications director Sarah Rice • meeting and event planner Marisa Dobson • contest and critique coordinator Mike Gesellchen • administrative assistant Michael Wright • business manager Blend is printed by Friesens Yearbooks.

welcome

Greetings and welcome to the second installment of Blend magazine!

If you were unfortunate enough to miss our inaugural issue last spring, we hope you take some time to look through this issue to see what we’re all about. As you’ll see, we are not a magazine devoted to making protein shakes, but rather a magazine that promotes scholastic journalism.

Blend is a magazine for everyone, regardless of the media platform.

Since last spring, we have been working hard to develop and promote Blend magazine. We handed out more than 2,500 copies of our first issue at the JEA/NSPA convention in Denver last April. For this issue, we’re happy to announce we’ve formed a tentative partnership with NSPA. This partnership gives NSPA the opportunity to provide content and mail copies of the magazine to its members. Ultimately, this seems like a win-win for both Ball State and NSPA, and we hope we’re able to continue this partnership in the future.

For this issue, I had the opportunity to interview Jane Hirt, the editor of the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye newspaper publication. RedEye was created a few years ago as a way to appeal to younger readers. It’s edgy and oftentimes groundbreaking. As you’ll read in our question and answer session, Jane didn’t always know that she wanted to be a journalist. In fact, it wasn’t until her sophomore year of college before she started to seriously think that journalism could possibly be something she wanted to do for a career. Read more about Jane’s journey from high school to the Tribune and what advice she has for aspiring high school journalists beginning on page 6.

Thanks for taking the time to read our magazine. We truly hope it will serve as a legitimate journalistic resource to both students and advisers.

Have suggestions or story ideas? Send them to blend.mag@gmail.com and we’ll be happy to serve you. Contributions are always welcome.

Brian Hayes is the Director of Secondary Educational Services in the Department of Journalism at Ball State University. He is a former adviser of student publications at Lawrence North High School in Indianapolis. Hayes has worked professionally for several newspapers.

inside blend 3 • NSPA 4 • The Blender 6 • In The Business 10 • Tips & Tricks 12 • Top of Her Game 14 • The Gallery 16 • Journalism Myths 22 • Convergence Huh? 26 • The Law 28 • The Backpage ON THE COVER

Student journalists from Indianapolis, David Ong and Ellie Gonso, appear on the cover of this issue’s Blend.

blend online Have a story idea or want to network with other student journalists? Join the Blend Facebook group today!

Unique content will be added to the group, giving you the chance to leave feedback and comment on what’s going on in the world of scholastic journalism. Plus, this is your best opportunity to have your own content appear in a future issue. See you online!

l a n i card

t o o b amp c

no limits this summer, journalism has

ball state journalism workshops 2008 www.bsujournalismworkshops.com

n

nspa

National organization mixes it up with Blend It hasn’t been that long since I was a high school journalist. I loved it. And who wouldn’t? The chance to hang out in a dark room with chemicals, to use hot wax on tiny slivers of paper, to cut pictures and border tape with an X-Acto knife — it was exciting.

Although I loved all those things, what really sparked an interest in journalism for me was using that new equipment on the desk: the Macintosh.

In a short amount of time, Macs are everywhere and we don’t see chemicals, wax or knives much in most newsrooms. Instead we see Photoshop, InDesign and Dreamweaver.

With the accessibility and availability of Weblogs, Podcasts, social-networking Web sites, desktop publishing software, MP3 players and recorders, digital cameras, and cellphones that capture video and still images, it truly is an exciting time to be working in media, and there are a lot more chances for young journalists to turn that spark into a flame.

So it is more important than ever that students have the opportunity to get experience alongside a trained and capable adviser and in an environment free from administrative review and censorship.

It’s why we need to provide learning opportunities like conventions and workshops and why we need contests to recognize outstanding and innovative student work. It’s also why you’re holding this magazine.

It is an exciting time for student media because

the possibilities are limitless. Whether you are producing a daily newscast or a monthly newspaper, a literary magazine or a yearbook, online or on paper, you should find inspiration in your peers who are pushing the envelope. The tools are now available for little or no expense for you to expand your coverage, to extend your reach, to move beyond “what we’ve always done,” to create, to experiment, to serve your community.

My challenge to all student journalists is simple: Find a way to stretch and grow this year. Maybe it is creating a photo slide show to accompany your story and post to your Web site or YouTube.

Maybe it’s the full audio of an interview available for download. Maybe it’s combining photos and illustration to tell a story visually. Push yourself.

Break a mold.

At the National Scholastic Press Association, our mission, since 1921, has been to help students and advisers to improve their publications and media, and to foster an interest in journalism in schools and as a career. Blend magazine is just one example of our commitment to that mission and our commitment to you.

I hope something you see in Blend is the spark for you. Click on our Web site, and upload your work to NSPA View, and show the world what you’re doing. Maybe that example will be the spark for someone else.

Logan Aimone is the executive director of the National Scholastic Press Association.

Herff Jones Flexibility You decide what page submission method works best for you 1. Use HJ Templates to create your pages in InDesign, PageMaker or Quark and submit print photos or digital images. Our FedEx program makes it easy to send your pages to Herff Jones.

2. Upload your electronic pages and proofs quickly and easily with ePage Online. Cancel those trips to the post office and save days in the mail. Use all that extra time to work on your pages!

3. Create and submit your pages online with Herff Jones Online Page Creation.

Visit yearbooks.biz to contact your Herff Jones Representative and determine the right page submission method for you. It’s your decision — you deserve the right to choose.

You Deserve It.

the blender Caught on digital media The Colorado Conven‑ tion Center, location of the Spring 2007 JEA/NSPA National Convention, is also home to “I See What you Mean,” a giant, 10,000 lb. + sculpture of a big blue bear. The bear seems to be peeking in on the conven‑ tion center from outside.

The sculpture started as a Photoshop document. The bear took only two days to place at its current site.

journalism etiquette

Dressing for the interview

You have all of your questions written and have done all the research, but what do you wear for that big interview? A good tip is to have your dress reflect the dress of your interview subject when possible. So, when interviewing the principal you might want to look a little dressier, but for an interview with the basketball coach after practice you can probably get away with something much more casual. In the examples above, two student journalists are interviewing an English teacher. The first young man might be dressed a little too well for the interview, while the second young man is a bit underdressed. Remember, you will make an impression with how you dress for an interview.

ask kim

Content ideas, judges top questions this issue Each issue, veteran adviser Kim Green answers questions you submit. Need help with an issue or solution to a problem? Con‑ tact Kim at greenk@bcsc.k12.in.us with the subject “Ask Kim.”

Kim Green directs the student publications at Columbus (Ind.) North High School. A 2006 Dow Jones Newspaper Fund Distinguished Adviser of the Year, the publications Green’s students create are consistent award winners.

Whew! The Ask Kim mailbox had two great questions this time!

Q: What magazines do you look to for design and content ideas?

Kim: For a current design trend, men’s magazines (not the naughty ones, of course) seem to grasp a design/content concept that works great for teen culture: the digest. Excellent examples of the digest are based on elements of good design: headline package, dominance, hierarchy, graphics, etc. while also exhibiting elements of good writing: enticing leads (chatter), great quotes, voice, statistics, facts, etc. The combination makes for cool packaging that kids will actually read!

It’s not “dumbing-down,” and it should never replace wonderful storytelling, but when done well, the digest increases coverage angles and includes more people.

Those magazines that have an eye for detail when it comes to the digest, as well as other designs: Details, Men’s Health, Outside, GQ, Men’s Journal, Esquire. Sure, some content may be icky, but we look at the publication for design ideas and don’t notice the junk. Inspiration exists everywhere: ads (can’t help but love Target!), Web (digest heaven!), college brochures (many understand their teen audience!), weekend editions of newspapers (whether it is the Thursday-what’s-happening-this-weekend edition or the easy-does-it Sunday edition, these have some awesome designs!)

For content, my absolute favorite inspiration is any good interview magazine because the best content is student-focused.

Plainly and simply, kids love to read about other kids, especially if their stories are well-written and compelling.

For current events content, obviously look to the news magazines – Time, Newsweek, US News & World Report (which, by the way, have begun to value the readability of digests), particularly when they contain stories relevant to young people. For example, at the top of the cover of US News (Oct. 8) sits the teaser “Teen Drinking: Parents Pay the Price” for a story on the crack-down on parents whose kids host illegal drinking parties. Might the topic apply to your community, too?

For topics of high interest to teens, you can’t beat the gal magazines: Teen, Seventeen, Teen Vogue. Even magazines with an older female demographic – Cosmopolitan, InStyle, Vogue, Elle – offer high interest, relevant topics for young people.

More important, good high school journalists are consumers of news, whether print or broadcast, and daily pick up on topics they think their readers should know more about.

As an adviser, I cringe when the local paper covers a story my kids should have jumped on first and localized! Always remember to localize your own coverage of any topic in the news – including finding your own students affected, local sources and experts. For yearbook coverage, find the back story!

When I teach workshops, I like to ask participants to introduce themselves by telling one thing everyone knows about them and one thing most people don’t know; when everyone has shared, I ask them which fact they found more interesting. It’s always the one most people don’t know. The same goes for yearbook coverage. Work to put the obvious in a fast facts box or incorporate it into a caption or two, and find the stuff most people didn’t know to tell the story of your year.

Q: How should we handle negative remarks from a judge?

Kim: Contact the person in charge! If by “negative remarks” you mean “mean-spirited” or “rude,” critique services want to know because the whole purpose of the process is to help your publication get better each year, and putdowns or ridicule do not assist you in accomplishing that. If by “negative remarks” you mean “low score” or “suggestions for improvement,” it is difficult to hear anything less than “Awesome!” about the publication you sank your heart and soul into for one whole year.

My tip: Approach critiques as a continuous improvement process for your publication. Get a hold of the guidebook and first read what constitutes a top-notch publication.

Three national organizations offering critique services – Quill & Scroll, National Scholastic Press Association and Columbia Scholastic Press Association -- publish guidelines. Set a goal for improvement in one area of each section of the guidelines.

To go more in-depth, I like to start the year off by having my staffs use the Indiana High School Press Association’s Hoosier Star Critique to evaluate their publications. By putting them in the judge’s seat at the very beginning, they can set goals to work toward during the year.

Do you want to know a secret? Your publication’s most important judges are the students at your school. Ask them what they want to see in your newspaper or yearbook, and give it to them! Readers’ surveys and focus groups will serve your readers best. If your kids love your publication, that’s all the validation you need!

fall 2007 blend magazine 5

in the business

RedEye editor leads newspaper targeting a younger demographic Journalism — a career like no other. Opportunity is plentiful, but deciding what exactly you want to do is the hard part. Which college should you attend? What specific area of journalism should you study? Where should you get an internship and how many should you do? Your options seem endless, but yet you have to make a decision.

Jane Hirt is the founding editor of the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye newspaper — a publication written and designed to attract a younger, hipper audience. Jane takes us through her life and times as an aspiring journalist to serving as the editor of a trendy publication. She even gives us a little taste of what she thinks will be the future of journalism.

Where did you go to HS? Lincoln Southeast HS in Lincoln, Neb. Describe your HS journalism experience.

Well, I worked on the yearbook. I was the People Index Editor, the person who had to go and put all the names against the faces in the back of the book. I also did a little work for the school paper, which was a weekly. It was a pretty good paper. It was fun. I really liked the journalism teacher we had. We got passes to go around in the halls. It was pretty fun to have free reign of the school.

When you decided that you indeed wanted to study journalism in college, how did you know that is what you really wanted to do?

It was a little accidental, like a lot of things in my career. I started out as a biology major because I was going to be a dentist. I did well in the science classes, but I didn’t love it. So, I was looking around for a new major and my best friend was a news-editorial major in the journalism college, so I thought I’d flip over to that. It ended up being really fun and I was good at it. So, those were two things that made it really interesting to me. Once I started working for the Daily Nebraskan, which is the paper at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, I realized I really loved it and I loved being in the newsroom. I worked really hard at it and I realized that it was something that I was interested in pursuing for a real career.

I imagine working for your college newspaper was vastly different from your HS yearbook experience. What was that transition like?

First of all, when you go to a college newspaper, it’s really cliquish.

It’s just like getting into any group. I was tentative at first and I didn’t do a lot of stories. And then it just snowballed and I got to know a lot of people and found some older students who were sort of mentors to me. At that point, I got sucked in. I became a news editor and then the managing editor my senior year. Getting involved with the school newspaper, if you can get past the cliques, will give you a much better college experience.

Besides working on your college newspaper, what other things did you do to gain experience and make contacts in the field?

I had internships. A lot of students don’t really understand that.

I get a lot of resumes from students who have no internship or college newspaper experience. It’s not that they wouldn’t be great journalists, it’s just hard for them to compete against the people that do. I had an internship after my junior year at the Omaha

World Herald, where I worked as a half reporter and half copy editor. That was actually really helpful because I realized I liked copy editing better. During my senior year, I had an internship at the Orlando Sentinel where I was a copy editor. It was great because I had two internships under my belt, so when I graduated in December, I was a much more desirable candidate. After graduating, I got another internship at the Chicago Tribune, which led me to my job.

What was the biggest lesson that you learned from working on a college newspaper?

I wish I knew then what I know now, because I would have been a killer managing editor! I didn’t know where to find good story ideas. I didn’t think of the students I was covering. When I came up with story ideas, I just went on ideas. Now, I would figure out what the students wanted from us so that we could make the paper more relevant. That’s what I do now (in the RedEye), and it would have made for a much better newspaper then.

Most college grads have to work at a number of smaller daily newspapers to get experience before getting hired at a large daily newspaper. How do you think you were able to make the leap to the Tribune straight out of college?

After I graduated, I got an internship on the sports desk at the Tribune. That was one lesson I learned. I knew nothing about sports. The Tribune called me and asked me if I wanted a copy editing internship, and “oh, by the way, it’s on the sports desk.”

I just about cried. I thought, “Oh, crap! Here’s my big chance and I know nothing about sports!” But, I was really upfront with them and said that I didn’t really know a lot about sports, but I could learn. They said that’s okay because language is language, whether it’s in the news section or the sports section. So, I took a leap and I learned sports really fast. After a couple of months, I was hired (full-time) on the national foreign desk as a copy editor. A lot of it is being at the right place at the right time. I was just a copy editor on the sports desk. I don’t think the top editors were really even aware of me.

What were some of the jobs you’ve held at the Tribune?

I’ve had several jobs. I started out as a sports copy editor, then became a copy editor on the national foreign desk. The next job I took was an assistant editor of the perspectives section, which is the opinion section of the Tribune. Then I was the national foreign copy desk chief, and then was the national foreign news editor. The national and foreign sections are together at the Tribune. They are the front sections of the paper. I didn’t assign stories, but I would work with reporters and ask them questions to clarify things (in their stories). After that, I was tapped to be on a committee that was supposed to figure out how to get young people to read the paper. Then I became the co-editor of RedEye when it launched. About two years ago, I became the full editor.

Which of those jobs was the most challenging?

All the jobs were hard, but boy, the copy desk chief is one of the hardest jobs at the paper — or any paper for that matter. It is really heavy on deadline and you are the last set of eyes to see it before it goes out to hundreds of thousands of people. It is a highpressure job, but I learned a lot from it.

One more push You scope out Guess who for mass transit new Italian got hitched this funding 8 restaurants 21 weekend 50

CL CU OS B DO S LO E C DG SE E B BU AL IG T S L 16 BULLTILL -17 ET

Tuesday

September 4, 2007 An edition of the

redeyechicago.com

★ FREE ★

E H T F O R YEA

E C N A M O BR re and ir u lt u c p o p cues fromlationships with the g in k a t s e d Du er-close reES 6-7 p u s g in m r fo nds PAG ie r f y u g t s be

Things got bromantic for Evan (Michael Cera, left) and Seth (Jonah Hill) in “Superbad.”

spring 2007 blend magazine 7

Jane Hirt is the founding editor of RedEye, a Monday‑Friday edition of the Chicago Tribune aimed at young, busy, on‑the‑go Chicagoans who want news and information in a fun, quick, interesting format. Hirt joined the Chicago Tribune in 1990 after graduating from the University of Nebraska‑Lincoln and held several editing positions at the Tribune before RedEye. She worked on her high school yearbook and her college newspaper.

ideas. You can so easily get caught up in your day just doing the things you need to do, but I feel like you need to do more than that. You need to develop your people and you need to look into the future, too.

As an editor, I’d imagine it would be tough making all of the hiring and firing decisions at your paper. What’s that process like?

I try to let my editors make their own decisions. First of all, it’s impossible to make all the decisions by yourself. Secondly, other people have really good ideas and perspectives. When I’m looking to hire someone, I try to get the person who will work most closely with that person involved in the selection process. We interview together, we decide together, we call the references together and make a joint decision. While I make the ultimate decision, I’m very much a collaborative person. I haven’t had to fire anyone, so that’s a good thing. I sit in a cubicle just like everyone else and I don’t really think hierarchy is good for newsrooms.

SATURDAY

REDHOT

Brit bit

What is the best story you have been involved with since you started your career at the Tribune?

I was there for everything — 9/11, the Afghan War, theBritney fall Spears?

Normal?

That’s how Tof the Soviet Union, the first Persian Gulf War — I wasPain, on who teamed with the pop the foreign desk at a really amazing time. Since takinguptartthe in the recordKanye’s new album is on the ing studio a few editor job at the RedEye in 2002, I’m proud ofT-PAIN the original loose. months ago, On the Internet, that is. described her in an reporting we have done, such as our sexual assault coverage.

Leaked versions of “Graduainterview with MTV. tion,” which drops Sept. 11, were came in there, shook my hand We didn’t feel the local media were reportingand“She that very wellhe told available online Friday. Late went right into the booth,” Thursday night, RedEye heard a MTV. “She was smiling the whole time. track played on athe Chicagowomen radio In an hour we had a song.” and really deserved it. So we documented for station. The DJ said he planned The “Buy You a Drank” singer told to play a theyear leaked tracks until he and Britsome knocked out three KNIGHTLEY every reported rape in Chicago and weMTV found the station got a cease and desist songs. The songs may or may not order. really interesting things such as when they happened appear on her new still-untitled and album, Redeyechicago.com columnist which People magazine reported FriTwista feels Kanye’s pain. In his day was set to drop Nov. 13. how many there actually were.

I’m also proud of the fact he said, “Sometimes an album leak can help an T-Pain’s only complaint?that That the times it can hurt an artist too. It really depends paparazzi camped outside the studio kind should d what kind of fan basewe the artist has.” of busted the mold for what a newspaper showed no interest in him. “I be. was like, the day, leaking an album is stealing,” Twista said.

‘What about me? I got hits,” he said.

We put our definitely a reason why hip-hop sales are going readers first. We put out there on the front page the things they will find most relevant. We know we aren’t Chris Brown the onlytosses thing our readers will see. I’m proud of the fact his jacket into the crowd while on NBC’s Focus on her bodynews of work, not her that“Today weShow.” will put celebrity onbody.the cover if that’s what Actress Keira Knightley is fed up with the media’s The managing obsession with her looks.We’ve proven that you can break everybody’s talking about. partner of an Ohio According to Reuters, during a news conference comedy club is sayin Venice to promote her film “Atonement,” the the mold of the newspaper and be successful. ing that working actress was questioned about her weight and figure.

nging a leak

[ GETTY IMAGES PHOTO ]

O]

[ GETTY IMAGES PHOTO ]

“We actually had a bet going. I was like, ‘Come on, how many times either anorexia or something about my body are going to come up,” Knightley said referring to the cast and crew of her film.

While the actress is often scrutinized for her very slim figure, Keira says, “I think what I want to keep it about is the work, that’s all I’m interested in.”

with Andy Dick is definitely unfunny.

Dick, who perDICK formed at the Funny Bone Comedy Club last weekend, committed a series of odd acts, including groping club customers, escorting women into the men’s bathroom and urinating on the floor, the Funny Bone’s David Stroupe told the AP. The comedian’s antics didn’t end there, according to Stroupe, who told the AP that a driver who was supposed to take Dick to the airport, couldn’t find him because he was across town being cited for urinating on a sidewalk.

A Franklin County Municipal court employee confirmed to the AP that Dick is scheduled to appear in court Thursday.

What is the biggest challenge that you face as the editor of the RedEye? AND CLOTHING Constantly growing readership. Constantly trying to get packed wall to wall to watch Chris Brown sing Show” on Friday morning, but his performance more people to read RedEye because that affects our be remembered. xited the stage, he removed his jacket and success. ea of screaming fans. financial Not surprisingly, a melee THE DIGIT

coveted article. er and Matt Lauer could be seen trying to break age, but security had to be called to control the ended the segment by saying, “We learned a lithis morning. We do not throw pieces of clothence.”

$50,000

The amount K-Fed’s lawyer wants from Britney Spears to cover some of her ex-husband’s legal expenses, according to The Associated Press. Attorney Mark Vincent Kaplan said Federline’s spousal support of $20,000 a month ends in November.

What are you doing to keep motivated and improve yourself as a journalist?

I try never to say no. It forces me to learn someone else’s perspective. I try to leave time everyday to think of new

S R E K C O R ECO An edition of the

redeyechicago.com

★ FREE ★ [ REDEYE ILLUSTRATION ]

KIN PARKO GES—LIN A T S R CHICAG A O L USES, SEON REVOLUTION T AGES 6-7 B L E S IE P BIOD BRINGS GRE

POP PICKS

PLAYLIST

DEJA VIEW

Best new DVDs, video Weekend’s top RedEye reads games, music, more 17 Labor Day parties 3 between the lines 5

BR UN me M ALL C tro IM -Y m OS OU H ix P AS? -CA D A ’N N G U -D E E F RI A 10 F S NK L AI S D

FIGURES

A Kramer moment

Saturday

September 1, 2007

SEXUAL ATTACK JOLTS LAKEVIEW

Product: CTREDEYE_Imposition PubDate: 07-31-2007 Zone: ALL Edition: TUE Page: 33-01.K User: cci Time: 07-30-2007

PAGE 8

Your favorite boy bands— where are they now?

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Late Night with ... who’s filling Conan’s shoes?

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metromix

Make a big splash along the river PAGE 19

Tuesday July 31, 2007 An edition of the

redeyechicago.com

★ FREE ★ [ REDEYE PHOTO ILLUSTRATION ]

23:56 Color: C K Y M

DIET SODA MYTHS

Journalists in general are very interesting people and fun to be around. Any job you ever have, it’s the people that keep you coming back. Also, it’s the challenge of media and figuring out how we are going to move forward. I like being a part of that process. It’s a really interesting time to be a journalist.

If there was one bit of advice you could give a high school student interested in pursuing a career in media, what would it be?

In general, when you’re just picking what you’re going to do, be ready to work. It’s a tough profession. It requires a lot of hard work and personal sacrifice. It might mean that you have to work at three in the morning or at 10 at night. So, be ready for a tough profession, but the payoff in the end is really nice. You can become famous or you can become super influential. It’s not something that you can do halfheartedly. So, if you’re into hard work, you’ll do fine.

Interview conducted by Brian Hayes, October 2007.

No sugar, no problem? Not necessarily— zero-calorie drinks may not be so slimming after all PAGES 6-7 THURSDAY

REDHOT

What kinds of things do you look for in a perspective employee?

Scary Spice went to court Wednesday There are a million journalists out there, buttothe ones try to scare some child support from Eddie Murphy.

I’m looking for believe in our mission. They’reThenot your Spice Girls singer, a.k.a. Melanie Brown, filed a petition in L.A. Superior Court that are seeks to legally establish traditional journalists. The people I’m looking for really Murphy as the father of her 4-month-old daughter, Angel Iris Murphy Brown, The open-minded. I’m looking for smart, quick learners — people Associated Press reports.

Brown also will seek sole custody and who embrace change and have some experience working t Us Weekly magazine to reasonable child support, attorney Gloria ears its mother of the year said at a press conference. in the field. I want people who believe in theAllred and are “IWeb am here today for one reason and one ne rips into the pop tart in reason only; her name is Angel,” Brown willing to gain those skills. ue with the cover headline said. “Angel is my baby and Eddie’s. She

Legal drama

blows ow pub

tney’s boys: Help!”

Spears’ marriage to Kevin ederline officially ended Monday. Federline’s lawyer, Mark Vincent Kaplan, said esday that his client will potlight when he cares for der a custody agreement. t find a picture of Kevin he children out in a public told The Associated Press. ight now on being the best can be.” ears’ former assistant, came efense, telling people.com, ful mom.”

will always know that she was planned and wanted by both of us.”

Said Arnold Robinson, a spokesman for Murphy, “We just don’t comment on Eddie Murphy’s personal life.”

Said Allred, according to people.com: “He bought a big diamond ring for his new fiance. It is nice to be generous to others, but what about his own baby?”

Many people say newspapers are dying and you shouldn’t get a degree in journalism because there is no future in it.

How would you respond to someone who says that to a high school or college student?

DATE who There will always be a need for journalism orHOT people Alan Alda and date that the Matthew Broderick Aug. 11 The “Golden Gals Gone on present Michigan Ave. information accurately. Now, gatherfilming and what Wild” art show, which features erotic Wednesday. of “Golden Girls” actresses, platform it will be, I can’t be certain. It might pictures beinon paper, opens L.A., according to showit curator Lenora Claire’s MySpace page. might be online or a platform that hasn’t been invented yet.

It is still a worthwhile skill-set to get and we will always need Who’s the journalists and information gatherers. Newspapers stillboss have J. Lo runs the show. At least that’s what NAMATH husbandjust Marc Anthony says.

AL several good years in them, but for the people starting “She’s always been the boss! I don’t know what’s changed,” Anthony told People out now, I don’t think they need to get too caught up in the eeaaaaBroadwa ah!!! magazine at the L.A. premiere Tuesday y to “El Cantante,” because which stars Anthony as aal’s bringing platform.

Keep your options open and learnofPuerto online Rican salsa musician Hector Ferris Bueller returned to Chicago Wednesday—though it sounds like he wasn’t rk Post says the “Brokeback that could very well be where your next jobLavoe. is. Jennifer Lopez, who produced the film, stars as being as much of a slacker this time around. and “Jarhead ” actor is [ CHASE AGNELLO-DEAN/ REDEYE PHOTO ]

Bueller ...

Bueller ...

ctures’ top choice to play e Namath, the free-spirited York Jets quarterback who guaranteed a Super Bowl urred the infamous comekiss you” to ESPN sideline Kolber. would focus on Namath’s rding the Post’s Liz Smith.

Actor Matthew Broderick filmed scenes for a new movie, “Diminished Capacity,” at Wrigley Field, the Tribune Tower lobby downtown and along the Chicago River just west of the Michigan Avenue bridge, said Rich Moskal, director of the Chicago Film Office.

Described on imdb.com as a comedy about a man suffering memory loss, the movie is being made in conjunction with Steppenwolf Films, a division of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Moskal said, adding that the shoot was scheduled for just one day. Co-star Alan Alda (“The West Wing”) filmed scenes with Broderick at Tribune Tower. “Capacity” also stars Virginia Madsen.

Lavoe’s wife.

“That’s the first thing a man has to know,” Anthony says.

“Absolutely, no question.”

The pair also plan to tour together this fall.

Because the couple that plays together stays together.

What is it about journalism and working in the media that excites you?

Knowing about stuff. I used to like knowing about stuff LOPEZ before everyone else did, but now with the Internet, that’s not really the case. I just enjoy knowing about things and telling people about them. I really enjoy the people, too.

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PAGE 34

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tips & tricks

Beyond the Q & A: Ideas from 3 award-winning yearbooks Sidebars. Alternative coverage. Instead of just photos and long copy blocks, there are lots of ways to enhance coverage and to pack a bunch of information on to a page. Tired of the same old mug-andquote layout? Try these on for size.

Etruscan Glenbrook South High School Glenview, Ill. Clockwise from top: • Packed with information, this small chart informs the reader about the first meetings of several clubs. Categories include a club leader, turnout, date, goals and a lengthy quote that summarizes the club’s activities. • Lengthy quotes and candid photos combine for this element on a class where students created documentary films. Concise intro text sets up the quotes.

• Narrative storytelling in first person can be compelling. This two-part sidebar details how a boy asked his date to the homecoming dance and how she responded. • Detailed, storytelling captions accompany well-cropped action photos from a junior varsity wrestling match. The intro text provides background and context.

by Logan Aimone

executive director • NSPA

Hauberk Shawnee Mission East High School Prairie Village, Kan.

Clockwise from top: Simple and clean, this small chart lists the injury sustained by a student paired with a quote about the incident. Note the consistent mug shape and size (and leading lines). • To accompany a story and photo series about a girl who raised funds to travel, this sidebar is an entry point as well as a place for extra quotes and detail images. • Even better than a quote or list of equipment is a photo showing it all. This corner-bleed element illustrates a topic unfamiliar to many students: the debate team.

Tonitrus Rocklin High School Rocklin, Calif.

Left to right: Candid with caption + quotes from three other students + survey results = small package with lots of coverage. • This staff really played with typography to make text into art. In this case, color and bold layout is enough to break the monotony of a typical Q&A. • Coverage based on the calendar allows for creative elements like this one about 15 students whose birthday was during Thanksgiving break. Quotes demonstrate concise anecdotes.

Now in college, Amanda Allison is still ...

TOP OF HER GAME

by H.L. Hall

She froze. She felt and heard her heart beating about 2,000 miles an hour. She remembers thinking that’s mine. She couldn’t breathe. She lost all ability to hear or walk straight. She started to cry.

That’s how Amanda Allison, freshman at Syracuse University and former editor-in-chief of the Shawnee Mission East Harbinger, remembers the moment she heard the announcement in Denver last April that she was the 2007 national Student Journalist of the Year.

“I remember turning to Tate (Dow Tate, her adviser at Shawnee Mission East High School) to tell him that was my essay they were reading,” Allison said. “I remember squeaking out to him, ‘That’s mine.’

He was already crying. He gave me the biggest hug. When he heard my name, he stood up and yelled his Texas-style congratulations, ‘Yee Hawww!’ He was clapping hard and crying, too.”

Those five minutes, Allison said, between hearing her name and returning to her seat with a plaque in hand, were the most exhilarating, happiest minutes in her life.

“I just felt like yeah, this is huge for me to be winning,” she said, “but how cool is it for him (Tate) too. I was allowed up on that stage, allowed the title of Journalist of the Year, because of Tate and because of my staff and all my editors throughout my four years in high school journalism.”

Part of the reason Allison joined the Harbinger newspaper staff at Shawnee Mission East, she said, was because her mother had also worked on the staff.

“I had trouble fitting in and feeling comfortable at school my freshman year,” Allison said. “Being allowed in the journalism room with so many other amazing people really helped me to find myself, to be cliché.”

During her sophomore year, Tate gave her a blank page and told 12 blend magazine fall 2007

her to make it a section, whatever she wanted.

She created “Mixed,” which she called “the page about life.” It featured short student interviews, teacher profiles and trends.

“It allowed me to be creative and to explore different facets of journalism,” she said, “from even shooting some of my own photos, designing with full color and managing writers for the section.

“Mixed,” Allison said, was one of the most meaningful contributions she left behind at Shawnee Mission East. It continues today with pieces of the original apparent four years later.

“It’s a section that lets people explore, create and do their own thing,” she said. “It’s different, and I think the staffers respect it and the readers really enjoy the elements on the page, from interviews with students who normally wouldn’t be in the paper, to humorous social commentary. I love that it is still in the paper and that each ‘Mixed’ editor has brought his own style to the page over the years.”

Although Allison says she enjoys designing more than writing, she also likes to write.

“I like writing and figuring out people and their stories,” she said.

“I would like to be an editor again and be in charge. I like making decisions and knowing everything that’s going on with a publication.

I like the rush of deadline night stress and the thrill of seeing everyone working hard for one goal. As a journalist, you are constantly introduced to new people, events, change, and that is exhilarating.”

The best story she ever wrote, she said, was one about a student who had died of muscular dystrophy. She only had five days to do the interviewing and write the story. She talked to his parents, his brother and sister, and his best friend and mentor.

“It was my job to tell this boy’s life story. I had to let the readers know that Patrick wanted to journey to space before he died, that he

was incredibly proud of his Irish heritage and that his best friend couldn’t wait to meet up with him and Tupac in heaven.

I was granted that story, honored to be the one to figure out who Patrick had been, who had loved him, what and who he had loved, and then make sure people remembered him through the story.”

One of the best quotes she ever obtained from a source came from Patrick’s best friend, Allison said.

“Patrick’s best friend kept telling me how much he and Pat had loved rap, specifically Tupac and Biggie. Later that day, I was looking at the online obituary for Pat, and I saw that Pat’s best friend had written ‘Tell Biggie and Tupac what up for me.’ I called the friend and asked him more about that, and he said he was looking forward to going to heaven and seeing his best friend again, along with idols Biggie and Tupac.”

Allison says she also listens to Biggie and Tupac, and she says she spends “inordinate amounts of money on iTunes.”

“I guess I like more indie, alternative,” she said. “I like searching out less-known music. Music really has to speak to me though. It has to have a message I can relate to and really feel. But then again, I love rap and some pop just because it’s fun and mindless. If a rap song has a good beat, I’ll gladly listen to it.”

When she’s not listening to music, she keeps busy with her studies at Syracuse where she is majoring in graphics. She also hopes to do a double major in either sociology or English with maybe a minor in Spanish.

She hadn’t considered attending Syracuse, but the summer before her senior year in high school she attended the Gloria Shields workshop in Dallas, and Sherri Taylor (graphics professor at Syracuse) was her teacher.

“She kept talking up Syracuse,” Allison said, “so since my mom and I had already planned an East Coast college tour at the end of that summer, we included Syracuse. It was our first stop on the trip, and nothing else compared to it. I applied for early decision and two days after Christmas I learned that I was one of 300 admitted out of 3000 applications. I was ecstatic!”

In five years, Allison said she hopes to have graduated from the Newhouse School of Journalism at Syracuse with honors, and she hopes to have traveled and studied abroad, been editor of a campus publication and made meaningful contacts in the industry.

“At this point,” she said, “I don’t think I want to write professionally. I would rather design for a magazine or do advertising. I love graphic design because it is so open-ended. There are so many possibilities for a career, from

free-lance to being the art director of a magazine. I just want to have fun and be allowed to be creative every single day I go to work. I want to create meaningful images that make people stop and think—about themselves and the world around them.”

Besides designing, Allison said she also enjoys reading, going to the movies, and driving in her Jeep with her friends.

She also loves dry humor—”The Office,” “Flight of the Conchords” and “Arrested Development.”

“I love spontaneity and randomness, deciding to do something and then doing it, without question or hesitation,” she said. “A lot of things make me sad.

I tend to be overly sensitive and even seeing someone else—a complete stranger—sad, can make me really depressed for a spell.”

Slasher movies also depress her, and she said she gets nervous that her cousins, brothers and friends will be affected by the war in Iraq.

“They might get drafted,” she said, “and I don’t want to lose friends to the senseless fighting overseas. It makes me sad to think that peace maybe isn’t possible in my lifetime. I don’t like to think that, but when I do, it definitely scares me.”

Allison also said she often wonders about whether she could find the courage to be an embedded journalist in Iraq.

Even though she wonders that, her advice for any aspiring young journalist is “Don’t be afraid, Do not let shyness, insecurity, timidity define who you are and what you can accomplish. If you are afraid of life, of people, just try, try, try every day to take one more step toward being a new, fearless person. Don’t let nervousness dictate your actions.”

She didn’t speak much in class her freshman year, she said, and when she did she often became red in the face and was flustered.

“I wish I could go back and just push on,” she said. “Journalism, though, made me push my envelope, get out of my box.”

Also helping Allison get out of her box were her mother, her aunts and her grandma.

“My mother had the greatest influence on my life,” she said. “It’s always just been the two of us, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. She inspires me, supports me, loves me. She is a good friend, loving daughter and an amazing person. I hope to someday be as revered as she and all my aunts and grandma are.

They are the women that inspire me to be a better, more loving person.”

H.L. Hall is executive director of the Tennessee High School Press Association at Vanderbilt University.

The Contenders Amanda poses with her award in Denver at right. In addition to her honor, the runnersup and state winners were also honored in Denver.

RUNNERS-UP Sarah Tiambeng Duncanville High School, Texas Nicholas Feldman Wenatchee High School, Wash.

Renee Lee Utica High School, Mich.

Renee Riggs Springfield High School, Tenn.

Kelsey King Southside High School, Fort Smith, Ark. Young Lim Smoky Hill High School, Aurora, Colo.

STATE WINNERS Elizabeth Powers, California Karl Golombisky, Florida Rebecca Gittelson, Georgia Kristina Hauptmann, Illinois Connor Swarbrick, Indiana Briana Byrd, Iowa Benjamin Cotton, Massachusetts Sarah Schewe, Minnesota Tess Olsen, Missouri Joshua Barone, Montana Bob Al-Greene, Nebraska Emily Laerner, New Jersey Allyson Zepeda, New Mexico Rhonesha Byng, New York Natalie Scott, North Carolina Hannah Johnson, North Dakota Elisabeth Brown, Ohio Kate Beard, Oklahoma Tiffany Fegel, Oregon Abigail Kramer, Pennsylvania Ashley Gardner, South Carolina Camila Domonoske, Virginia Joshua Linton, West Virginia Tessa Workman, Wyoming Think you got what it takes to be the Student Journal‑ ist of the Year? Check with your state’s association or http://www.jea.org for more information. Most state deadlines are Feb. 15. The next Student Journalist of the Year will be announced in April 2008 at the JEA/ NSPA convention in Anaheim.

the gallery Welcome to the Gallery of NSPA Pictures of the Year! Feel free to take your time and browse the great selection of news, feature and sports photos.

News Picture First Place Maria Brundage, The Squall Dexter (Mich.) High School

1st

Second Place Mandy Palmer, North Star Francis Howell (St. Charles, Mo.) North High School Third Place Ian Finder, Evanstonian Evanston (Ill.) Township High School Honorable Mention Katie Pipkin, Featherduster Westlake (Austin, Texas) High School Feature Picture First Place Debbie Rafferty, Corinthian Grace M. Davis (Modesto, Calif.) High School Second Place Christopher Williams, Indian Shawnee Mission North (Overland Park, Kan.) High School

3rd

Third Place Shannon Soule, Featherduster Westlake (Austin, Texas) High School Honorable Mention Kellyn Smith, Teresian Saint Teresa’s Academy (Kansas City, Mo.) Honorable Mention Karen Boomer, The Harbinger Shawnee Mission East (Prairie Village, Kan.) High School Sports Picture First Place Patrick Fallon, High Tide Redondo Union (Redondo Beach, Calif.)

High School Second Place Christopher Williams, Indian Shawnee Mission North (Overland Park, Kan.) High School Third Place Nick Carter, Hornet Bryant (Ark.) High School Honorable Mention Zach Hetrick, The Spartana Homestead (Fort Wayne, Ind.) High School Honorable Mention Ashley Muller, Arrowhead Vero Beach (Fla.) High School

2nd

3rd

1st

2nd 3rd

2nd

1st

Awhile back one of my colleagues said most journalistic rules were based on preference rather than fact. So, if your adviser harps on the idea that circle photos are bad and should never be used, chances are you will agree that circle photos are bad and should never be used.

But, clearly by looking at the designs of commercial publications, we see circle photos from time to time for effect. And my bet is that people didn’t cancel their subscriptions because they saw a circle photo.

Wow. Already I have written in first person and this spread features a whole lot of white space. What rules have I broken?

Let’s look at 22 journalistic myths. I have employed a panel of experts to help me bust these longcontested ideas and see why we believe what we believe! (oh no, exclamation point!)

TV shows have questioned if KFC uses chickens on steroids and if mixing Coke and Pop Rocks will make your stomach explode. (No steroids if you were wondering, and Coke and Pop Rocks will not result in death).

The world of journalism—scholastic journalism to be more specific— seems full of notions that are based more on preference than fact.

Can you use “you”? How many spaces after a period? Let’s go mythbusting!

1) White space is an enemy.

NICHOLS: Only when used poorly. White space can be your friend, too! The key is using it to emphasize or isolate content worthy of attention.

REASON: Reality: white space must be used judiciously. Say, 5 percent on news pages. No more than 15 percent on feature pages. Web: Most news sites get very little; on feature or sales sites, rule book is out the window.

RUMMEL: Plan it, invite it into your work and let it join the design party. Otherwise, it’s the biggest design-party crasher there is.

WOODCOCK: This may be a result of the human race’s need to cover up every possible inch of space with something...that more is better school of thought...OR This is a result of folks not understanding basic design principals like one pica between all elements. This is likely because their publication’s adviser has no training in layout and design and whose experience with layout and design is limited to giving directions on how to type a research paper. Since many students embrace the more is better concept they treat a publication’s page as an empty space they have to fill up—like it’s their locker-- haphazardly stuffing content wherever there is available space. And since it is the blind leading the blind, the advisers let them. “I mean we pay for all that space, so we better fill it up!”

ZOLONDZ: No way. White space rules. It keeps pages simple and elegant vs. cluttered and awkward.

DID YOU HEAR THE A PHOTO WITHOU

E ONE ABOUT UT A CAPTION?

by Tom Gayda

AND THEN SOME MORE. . .

Bobby Hawthorne, author of the acclaimed “Radical Write” and popular convention speaker, offers other myths for busting: 1. Never begin a sentence with a conjunction.

2. Every sentence must contain a noun and a verb.

3. Never end a sentence with a preposition.

4. Never use an article or conjunction in a headline.

5. Never use first person in a news or feature story.

6. A paragraph must contain at least three sentences.

7. Avoid contractions.

8. Never directly address the reader in a feature or news story.

9. A news story must contain a news peg.

10. Action verbs are always stronger than passive verbs.

11. Never use passive verbs in headlines.

12. Captions should not begin with a person’s name.

What do you think about these myths? Join the Blend Facebook group or e-mail blend.mag@gmail.com and let us know. We’ll run your opinions in a future issue of Blend!

18 blend magazine fall 2007

2) Contractions are illegal.

NICHOLS: I won’t lie-- I don’t agree.

RUMMEL: I can’t believe you don’t like contractions!

TANTILLO: Contractions in direct quotes are legal as are contractions in columns when they work with the columnist’s voice. Most times, though, I agree, they are illegal.

print. (Editor’s note: an orphan!)

WOODCOCK: Ignorance, ignorance, ignorance...

3) You die if you have a widow or an orphan.

NICHOLS: This one bugs me. We try to avoid it and usually it’s not a big deal to tighten a sentence or do some careful editing. I would not, however, teach students to change point size, tracking, alignment, etc as a method of avoiding them.

VISSER: We certainly try to avoid widows or orphans, but we haven’t died yet. Sometimes, it just doesn’t work out any other way.

ZOLONDZ: There’s not time to sort them all out, get your cover looking good and move on to the other stack of projects...

9) Head size in a photo should be at least the size of a dime.

NICHOLS: Then you won’t be able to cover everyone unless your yearbook is 900 pages.

REASON: In photos where you care for the person to be recognizable, heads should be at least the size of a dime. Crowd shots, of course, are different.

ZOLONDZ: A good rule of thumb! If you have several mugshots on a page, make the head sizes the same throughout.

4) Never use “you.”

NICHOLS: You never know when it might be the right voice for a story.

REASON: Reality: the headline rules are changing. You, us, we are all acceptable. As are headlines with question marks.

TANTILLO: Any “never” is dangerous. However, I would say writers need to justify use of “you.”

Otherwise, it will likely dominate stories.

Occasional personalization in an advice feature is okay. I still don’t like to see “you” in opinion pieces when it sounds preachy or condescending to the reader.

5) You go to jail if three hyphens appear at the end of three consecutive lines of text.

NICHOLS: Who made up this one?

REASON: No reader has ever cared about this.

ZOLONDZ: In what country!?!

6) It’s OK to take photos off of Google.

NICHOLS: Ummmmm, no. Never. Google is a search engine. Student users don’t always understand that it only finds these images for you (it does not grant permission from the owner).

RUMMEL: That’s like walking up to your friend and tearing his shirt off and putting it on your own body. What belongs to someone else stays with that person.

TANTILLO: Yikes! If we can’t teach our student journalists anything else, we need to teach them about copyright infringement and avoiding even the appearance of copyright infringement.

ZOLONDZ: Now THAT you’ll go to jail for! Don’t do it, dudes. Ever.

7) It’s OK to make up a quote if a source says it is (“just make me sound good”).

TANTILLO: Ethics! Ethics! Ethics! It is NEVER okay to make up a quote as far as I’m concerned... even in classroom activities that will NEVER see

8) You space twice after periods.

NICHOLS: Time is money. Space is money. Don’t do it. Minimize characters.

TANTILLO: Only in English class...

ZOLONDZ: NEVAH!

10) Body copy MUST be serif type.

NICHOLS: Then how is it that Helvetica tops all font use lists?

REASON: Don’t tell Europe. It’s quite often to see sans body copy there, especially in magazines.

And of course, in U.S. graphics and small sidebars are quite often in sans, as small chunks of texts are extremely readable in sans (not always so with long stories).

ZOLONDZ: This isn’t set in stone; it all depends on the audience. A younger crowd may like something more refreshing, a traditional crowd will freak if it’s not serif.

11) All subjects in photos must be facing in to the page.

NICHOLS: Good design incorporates the principle of direction and promotes eye flow to areas of key content. Our goal is to help readers navigate the page, not to lead them off it.

ZOLONDZ: This is a good guideline but not mandatory. More important is the balance of the elements on the page.

12) You will go to purgatory if your photo has no cutline/caption.

NICHOLS: See you there! HA (LOL) but seriously, our job is to preserve history and serve as a reference tool in addition to the memory and scrapbook aspect of what we do. A good photo invites questions-—the caption should answer those.

REASON: Clarification: You will go to hell if it is a news story and the lack of caption will cause confusion or misconnection by the reader.

VISSER: You very well may go to purgatory if you don’t use cutlines/captions. The Yearbook Adviser in Hell will be your next job, and it will be OK at that point to disregard this one.

WOODCOCK: I think you should go to purgatory if your photos have no cutlines or captions SOMEWHERE. The myth is that the caption/ cutline must touch the photo on one side. When the pub is hot off the press, your memory is

MEET THE MYTHBUSTERS Sarah Nichols, MJE, advises the award‑winning yearbook and newspaper at Whitney High School in Rocklin, Calif., where she also serves as president‑elect of the JEA of Northern California.

Ron Reason is an educator and newspaper design consultant. A graduate of Indiana University, Reason is the former Director of Visual Journalism at the Poynter Institute. Visit his Web site at http://www.ronreason.com.

Chad Rummel advises the student publications at Oakton (Vienna, Va.) High School. He is a past JEA Rising Star award winner.

Susan Tantillo taught journalism and English and advised the Spokesman newspaper at Wheeling (Ill.) High School from 1971 to 2001. Not doing retirement very well, she’s currently secretary and awards chair for JEA. Ann Visser is past president of JEA and publications adviser at Pella (Iowa) Community High School.

Sandy Woodcock is director of the Newspaper Association of America Foundation.

Julia Zolondz is a 1999 BSU graduate and migrated from Chicagoland to Arizona in 2005.

At the East Valley Tribune, she designs features sections, writes a tween blog (http://blogs. eastvalleytribune.com/tweenish) and bakes delicious cupcakes.

She won Arizona Press Club’s Designer of the Year award in May and likes things that sparkle.

young and you remember who those folks are. Down the road when you are packing up your books for the 25 year reunion, your memory, like the rest of you won’t be so young and you want to know the names of those folks in the photos if only so you can laugh at the before and after.

ZOLONDZ: It’s not FAIR to leave photos uncredited! Someone worked hard to get the shot! But I’d rather have no caption than a redundant caption. If it’s clear from the headline and context what’s going on in the photo (a photo used more for identifying than describing), go ahead and skip it.

13) Trapped white space is a cardinal sin.

WOODCOCK: We are back to the ignorance of both publication’s judges and advisers regarding design and layout. The judges critiquing the pubs likely learned layout and design principals when there was still hot type and line tape. So they see white space used poorly and then say “trapped white space” because they can’t think of anything else to write on the critique. It takes too long to write out the rules of basic design.

ZOLONDZ: IT’S TRUE. ALL TRUE. 14) Don’t cut off people’s appendages in photos or else.

ZOLONDZ: I wouldn’t advise this ever, it looks odd.

15) Adviser always knows best.

RUMMEL: You have an adviser for a reason... respect and appreciate his advice, but it’s never absolute. Warning: your adviser is picking his battles. If he is really digging heels into the ground, take heed.

VISSER: Certainly a myth. Any adviser who feels that he/she knows all is in for a big surprise somewhere down the road.

ZOLONDZ: So true. Especially Tom. (editor’s note: She’s right!)

16) Never pose a photo.

NICHOLS: Unless you clearly label it as a photo illustration.

REASON: Never pose a photo and call it news.

RUMMEL: You can take a posed photo, but never stage a photo to look like it’s real when you were just too lazy to get a candid or posed.

ZOLONDZ: Posing photos is faking what is going on. It’s better to caption life as it happens, not as you orchestrate it.

17) You have to have expensive cameras to take good photos.

TANTILLO: Because I rarely had the luxury of having full-time photographers on the newspaper I advised, I required everyone to shoot photos to accompany their stories. We had a stockpile of “vacation cameras” in the days of film. This resulted in some great candid shots we wouldn’t have had otherwise.

18) Posed pictures can never be used effectively in a publication.

RUMMEL: Sometimes candid photos are a waste... take Spirit Week during Homecoming. The story can be told just as well through a posed photo.

VISSER: Although we would certainly prefer a more candid approach for most of our pictures in both yearbook and newspaper, some posed pictures are necessary to help record the history of the event. For example, it seems more appropriate to pose a picture of the National Merit Semifinalists as opposed to catching them in candids. Sure, it’s nice to include ‘action’ photos of new staff, but if there are several, it may work better to use a posed shot.

ZOLONDZ: Unless it’s a silly pose!

19) Don’t tombstone headlines.

ZOLONDZ: Try to avoid this but sometimes it is hard to work around. Use different fonts, weights of fonts, number of lines or type sizes to lessen the tombstone effect.

20) Yearbooks must have a theme.

NICHOLS: A theme is an organizational tool for the staff to build its coverage and design plan. It’s for us, not for our readers. Done well, the book is unified and reader-relevant. Students may or may not realize the role of theme or understand it, but if we do our job, they like how the book tells the stories of the year and relates to them at our school.

RUMMEL: True. Would you prefer to buy “Harry Potter 7” or “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”?

WOODCOCK: I’m not sure when this one developed. Likely some really creative advisers are responsible for this myth. They were able to take their students on wonderful creative journeys in the first class seats. Those of us rich in responsibilities but poor in creativity then had to attempt to do the same for our publication’s staffs. And we didn’t have the creative currency to be able to do that nor copies of the “Dictionary of American Idioms” until it was way past trendy. So our books had themes like “U-Knighted States“ which we didn’t know was lame until an insightful critique judge brought it to our attention. A theme should help you put together your book from graphic elements to story and picture angle, not cause you to cry in the shower or feel like a second class citizen when you get back your critique. If the theme doesn’t do that—make your coverage and design a piece of cake rather than a piece of donkey dung—then don’t even bother with one. Just save yourself and your staff the angst.

21) Layouts must have horizontal and vertical elements.

ZOLONDZ: Your layouts must engage the eye to keep it interested. Once the eye is interested, the brain will follow and the reader will start the journey to understanding the content, which is the ultimate goal.

22) Pull quotes are weak.

NICHOLS: In terms of yearbook coverage, it seems wasteful and redundant to use a pulled quote or lift-out quote. Why repeat something already included in the copy? Instead, use the opportunity to get another student’s perspective to add more names/quotes to the spread.

REASON: Stupid pull quotes are weak in most cases. The reader is better served by a smart at-a-glance box. Use pull quotes only when they are extremely provocative, daring or sexy statements, that are guaranteed to pull the scanning reader into the story further.

RUMMEL: They should be decided upon long before the story is designed and should be used as a point of entry into a story. Pull quotes are not used to fill space and they’re not used to break up large chunks of text (hello... breaking up text WITH text?).

WOODCOCK: OR pulled quotes are another opportunity to catch the attention of the reader and bring them into your content.

A pulled quote won’t engage readers in poorly written, badly research or shallowly interviewed stories. But used with engaging headlines and strong content it provides another visual invitation to attract the reader. And without readers, where’s the need for a story at all?

ZOLONDZ: Pull quotes are effective when they contain something compelling. As a filler, they lose their effectiveness.

A R Y P O N D L R G I O E E H B A I H T C V R A J U S V D O F E A N P R O G N D C E P S O L A V T O E N R A S O E R J C K E P R E R E H B C O F E S G H I Y A B I H E E U O E N O P L D N H U T D W E P E C ? L R Y E K O A E F S E Q N O N D C E P O G N D O E N R A E R E H

D H

Ball State telecommunications students work on the iTV project during the 2007 spring semester. Students from three Ball State departments—journalism, telecommunica‑ tions and computer science—worked together to develop a new platform for interactive news. The students developed the platform throughout the semester, and in one day in April, they shot, wrote and aired a full newscast filled with interactive content.

I

t’s all about finding ways to tell stories so readers really care.

Technology gives us plenty of options, but journalists have to figure out how to use the bells and whistles so the result makes everyone want to pay attention.

“Convergence” has been at least part of the answer for both those in commercial and in college media. Some of what they have learned may help high school journalists, too — both help them tell stories to their audiences now and help them get a head start if they plan to go on to a college media major.

Just what does the term “convergence” mean? Most of the pros define it as gathering and sending out the news over a variety of platforms. It’s no longer just traditional print or broadcast. Newspapers and television stations now have Web sites, often even sites they share, and they post stories with slide shows and video clips, audio podcasts and reader feedback.

In short, convergence equals multimedia and sharing and sometimes learning new skills.

That sounds good, but just how hard is it to get different kinds of journalists not only talking to each other but working together as well? Two collegiate programs have been going the multimedia route and can offer some suggestions to high schools that might want to give it a try.

At Kent State University, moving into a new building was what got everyone focused on convergence. Student media would be able to share a high-tech newsroom just like more and more pros are doing, but they had to have a plan for making it work.

The conversations began more than six months before the move. Susan Kirkman, former Akron Beacon Journal managing editor for multimedia and current adjunct professor, facilitated the weekly talks.

“The first hurdle was getting all students to see each other as journalists and as resources for each other,” Kirkman said. That was a little tough at first, but Kirkman divided the group — students from the daily newspaper, television and radio stations — into tables, mixing the staffs together. She threw them coverage problems – “Tell this story in as many ways as you can” – and challenged them to use technology to report stories everyone could access.

It didn’t take long. As fall semester Daily Kent Stater editor Rachel Abbey said, “It was just a matter of changing how we view our field. The audience doesn’t care where the information comes from; they just want the information, and they want it to be convenient, accurate and up-to-date.”

Another important lesson, Abbey said, was learning it wasn’t fall 2007 blend magazine 23

Members of the Kent State Student Media Task Force (L TO R) Katie Morse, Julie Bercik, Seth Roy, Jen Steer, Jackie Mantey and Rachel Abbey work on an exercise designed to help them organize a converged newsroom. Each piece of paper contained a newsroom job title- the students kept the jobs they wanted and arranged them in a hierarchy.

a matter of competition. “We needed to learn to work together.

Once we saw how beneficial this would be from an audience standpoint, it was obvious that converged news coverage was the next stage of journalism, and we wanted on board.” The result is KentNewsNet.com, a place where they can put all their content from the newspaper, the TV station and the radio station, as well as freestanding Web-only content.

Ball State began incorporating more multimedia components into the Daily News when David Studinski became editor fall semester 2005, “arguing that we needed more Web focus and better partnerships with fellow campus news outlets.” Studinski, now a BSU graduate student, had experience on the campus newspaper as a designer and then Web editor, had volunteered on the television station and hosted a public access television show in high school. He saw the benefits of lots of different approaches to getting the news out.

It wasn’t easy, but Studinski pushed his ideas and started with podcasts he did himself. “The nitty and gritty is trial and error. I got the weather students to record 30-second forecasts so I could drop them into the podcast instead of reading them myself. I insisted on promoting other student media in our paper.

I demanded we work together on big projects and breaking news with our news partners. People moaned, but that’s the struggle,” he said.

“My second year allowed me to fix a lot of the normal newspaper mistakes, but it also allowed me to foster the growth of the Web site, the podcast and everything else we’d started with our news partners,” Studinski said. When online awards began appearing, Studinski said then other staffers were hooked.

So if your school has a print publication and broadcast, would what Kent State and Ball State do work for you? Could you give your school and community a better look at what’s going on if you worked together and hosted a timely Web site? Yes, say both Studinski and Abbey.

Convergence takes place internally, Studinski said, and can work at any level. “It’s a newspaper learning video. It’s a magazine 24 blend magazine fall 2007

learning Web. It’s a TV show learning podcasts.” Focus on your publication becoming an organization. “It’s not a newspaper — it’s a news organization,” he said he always told his staff.

Another suggestion to help things run smoothly comes from Carol Knopes, director of education programs for the Radio and Television News Directors Foundation. If journalism classes begin adding video and audio to what they create, there could be problems, she said, especially the pitfalls to borrowing broadcast equipment — cameras, mics, recorders, even time on the editing computers.

“Beware of Equipment Wars,” she warns. If students from one group break a piece of gear or mess up the editing computer, there will be trouble.

She suggests the easiest course is to find a few pieces of gear on your own, say from eBay or from a parent, and just start, even if it’s just audio, which is inexpensive. If you do need to borrow from another class, have a student from that class come along with the gear to train your students.

But with some planning and a few precautions, convergence is fun for the journalists, as well as the readers, Abbey said. Print reporters can learn how to record a podcast; broadcast reporters can improve their writing and go more in-depth than usual; radio reporters can take their own photos and make an audio slideshow.

“I would first recommend high school journalists make sure their publications have a Web site, and then I would encourage them to try anything that interests them,” Abbey said. “Film a pep rally instead of writing about it. Record student reaction rather than running a quote and a headshot. It doesn’t all have to be serious.”

What is serious can be the value to the audience and to the student journalist. “Convergence is the way of the future,” Abbey said. “The sooner they can get started, the better.”

Candace Perkins Bowen is executive director of the Ohio Scholastic Media Association and director of Kent State University’s Center for Scholastic Journalism. She is the JEA Listserv liason.

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the law

by John Bowen

scholastic press rights chair • JEA

5P knowledge helps avoid possible conflicts It’s story selection time again, and you and your staff are about Here are tactics for success: to discuss coverage.

Don’t just spout your views. Your first responsibility is to tell The concept is daunting because, frankly, the last publication the truth as best you can determine and educate your audience as simply raised the roof. well as you can. Support your views with facts and knowledgeable • Administrators glared at reporters in the halls. sources.

• Classmates snickered, well, everywhere.

Make sure you have reliable sources on all sides of the issues.

• The hallways were abuzz with whispers “How could they do Interview and cite relevant local experts and professionals. Avoid that?” “What were they thinking?” using only anecdotal stories or opinions short on hard facts.

The editorial board doesn’t understand.

Be prepared to provide background and perspective from all Snappy New Neighboring School viewpoints. The best way to keep reported the same topics earlier administrators “in the loop” without … and received no hassles, no surrendering to the unprofessional negative feedback. Most disgustingly, practice of prior review is to interview SNNS won awards and community them for stories as knowledgeable • Student Press Law Center recognition. You got blasted at a sources. Don’t expect sources to http://splc.org school board meeting. answer questions they are simply To avoid more conflict and unqualified to answer.

• JEA Press Rights Commission firefights, steal and wage a campaign Avoid anonymous sources. But http://jeapressrights.org from SNNS’ battle plan by adapting if you decide you must protect a tried and true military method: the someone’s privacy, only the student • Poynter’s NewsU Five Ps. writer and an editor should know the http://newsu.org Prior Planning Prevents name. Even involving your adviser Preposterous Performance. could have legal ramifications. Again, • The Poynter Institute Here’s your strategy: verify source reliability. It’s better to be http://poynter.org Decide why you want to cover transparent with your sources so your • Center for Scholastic Journalism a subject. Is the subject simply audiences know who your sources are http://jmc.kent.edu/csj sensational and a hook to get readers and, as best you can, what they have to to pick up the paper, or do you have gain or lose by being sources. an important angle relevant to your Protect your sources. When writing school community? Remember all stories about students in unique stories should have a local tie-in and circumstances or in potentially a valid, reliable range of sources from embarrassing situations, interview experts to reactors. parents or guardians — not for Stick to professional standards. Take into account community permission, but as part of the story. Know how shield laws in standards as well as your role in telling the truth while minimizing your state might protect your reporters – or not — if someone harm. Know your community; know its factions, but remember demands to know source names and take steps to protect your your duty to truth, accuracy, completeness and thoroughness. notes and unused information from being confiscated.

Make all decisions of content for the publication. Be a forum Verify. Verify. Verify. Attribute. Attribute. Attribute. Just because by policy and/or practice. Have an editorial policy stating a source gives you a “fact,” only take it at face value. Authenticate students make ALL final decisions and encouraging letters and facts with at least one other source. Give the development and commentaries from those outside your journalism class. If your writing of your story enough time for all facts to become clear and school board hasn’t approved such a policy, at least operate that to be sure you do indeed have all relevant facts. You may never way. That will help overcome prior review and censorship under break a story, but you should always present the most complete, the Hazelwood decision. Study strong editorial policy models truthful and accurate version you can. of the Student Press Law Center or the Journalism Education Then hold your ground: Association (JEA). Show administrators (and your adviser) JEA’s Anticipate reaction and be sure you are prepared to deal with it.

Adviser Code of Ethics and stress the educational value of Be sure you can logically defend why a story is important or needs practicing it. to be told in your community. When writing about sources in Get a second opinion if you have concerns about a story. potentially embarrassing situations, ask yourself, “How would I feel Consult the SPLC (http://splc.org) or check out JEA’s Scholastic if the story were about me?”

Press Rights Commission’s Web site at http://jeapressrights.

Just because you could legally print a story doesn’t mean org. Additionally, know what is protected speech and what is you should. Balance the right to tell a story with the rights of the not. Quick hint: stay away from libel, obscenity, material and individuals you cover and the public’s right and need to know. substantial disruption of the school process, unwarranted invasion Study professional standards and adhere to them. of privacy and copyright infringement as defined by your state’s Make sure the staff or your editorial board contributes and laws and by “Law of the Student Press,” available from the SPLC. discusses the story and follows the story throughout the writing

FYI

26 blend magazine fall 2007

Student journalists brainstorm for their next newspaper issue. By planning stories in advance, the staff can determine what stories might be controversial and decide how they will handle any criticism.

and editing process. When many people look over a story, it’s more likely someone may anticipate potential problems or discover errors in facts or logic. But, make sure information being discussed is kept private. What happens in the staffroom stays in the staffroom.

Evaluate your publication: Be sure to critique each publication, stressing positives as worth repeating. Learn from negatives so they are not repeated.

Nothing destroys the practices of censorship like success and community respect.

Consider holding forum sessions where community members can ask questions or raise complaints. Honestly explain your process and decision-making. The results can be positive and long lasting.

To not plan could snare you in the quagmire of censorship, prior review and mistrust.

This quagmire produces journalistic casualties as seen on the battleground map on the Center for Scholastic Journalism’s (CSJ) Censorship Map (http://jmc.kent.edu/csj). The map also displays origins of landmark student speech cases, including Bong Hits 4

Jesus.

The map also tracks censorship and prior review during the 2006-07 school year. More cases will be added as CSJ learns of them.

Compare the instances and view selected censored content.

Discover what types of content has been censored most frequently. Learn what practices can get you in trouble.

While there are never guarantees in the censorship battle, applying strategies above has been successful.

Join other 5P success stories by sending evidence of your freedom of expression campaigns to CSJ for its map by going to http://jmc.kent.edu/csj/documents/freedom.html.

Remember, this process works for any student media.

The process is important. No topic should be off-limits if the process, the mission, is to be accomplished And it goes without saying that success breeds success. The more we prove to ourselves, our communities and our school administrators we can handle controversial issues, the more we build a solid bulwark for democracy.

HELP • Tip sheets for ethics http://poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=31889&sid=32 • Sample editorial policies, model policies and other legal issues (see editorial policy links in the right column) http://jeapressrights.org • Society of Professional Journalists http://www.spj.org/ethics.asp • Censorship maps http://jmc.kent.edu/csj/censormap http://jeapressrights.org

the backpage

by Tom Gayda

editor • Blend

Leave the competition on the field or in gym I have the habit of being in the right place at the right time. As the picture to the left demonstrates, I recently had the opportunity to pose with the Lombardi Trophy—the fruit of the Colts championship 2006-2007 season.

It was nice to hold something worth about $25,000 and not drop it. Likely my only shot at holding the Lombardi Trophy. (Better—finding an excuse to run this photo!)

Holding that trophy got me thinking back to 2004 when our “Ask Kim” columnist Kim Green and I presented a session at a national convention in Atlanta. The title of that session was “Journalism is not a Competitive Sport.”

At least it shouldn’t be.

I would never intend that session to mean a staff or individual should not celebrate a Pacemaker, Gold Crown or state writing award. These things should be celebrated and everyone should know about your success.

What concerns me, though, is when staffs create “special” publications or get creative in their planning to simply be contenders for state and national awards.

Journalism isn’t about awards.

Journalism is about reporting, researching and presenting information to people. Perhaps every now and then we need to revisit this topic to make sure what we do in our publications classroom is true to what journalism is all about.

The interesting thing is that almost every publication out there can be called “an award-winning publication” since there are so many award-granting organizations around.

There is no real way to determine which publications are the best of the best, as each organization looks for different things.

To create contest issues or larger issues of a newspaper for a contest is sketchy behavior to fall into. What that says to the reader is that you are OK at doing a so-so job most of the year, but for the right contest you are gonna work real hard. What an injustice to

28 blend magazine fall 2007

your readers!

Look around after your publication comes out. Are people reading the paper? Are the garbage cans filled to the rim with the issue? All the awards in the world won’t matter if your readers don’t care about your publication.

If there is any type of competition to go on with your publication, it should be between yourselves each issue.

Every staff should strive to make each issue better than the last. That’s the real competition. Reporters should compete for the best stories. Imagine the publication you could create if every issue was a “contest issue.”

Imagine the reader response and the excitement that would permeate through your classroom.

If you get caught up in little things like how to make a fancier front page than the rival school 10 states away in the hopes of doing better than them in a national competition, you might want to reevaluate why your publication exists.

I guarantee that if you work hard each issue, put 100 percent into each issue and gauge your readers from time-to-time, your publication will win great awards consistently.

I have sat at awards presentations and watched staff reactions as honors are handed out. It isn’t hard to figure out which schools live for awards and which are pleasantly pleased when their staff is named. Here’s a hint: some staffs leave after their category is announced, the others stay for the whole program.

So, don’t worry about what I have said. Decide for yourself why you are working on a high school publication.

I hope your answer has something to do with presenting information to your peers or trying to make your school a better place. Or something like that.

I promise that if awards are your secondary mission they will mean more when you receive them. Compete with yourself and your staff to always grow as a student journalist and you will have successes you never imagined!

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