LOOKING FOR SOMETHING?
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Maria Carrillo addresses graduates regarding the impact of journalists
Carrillo said that the most Americans get their news from media companies and that the public seeks credible information. "That’s why I can’t imagine journalists being replaced by blogs or Google or MySpace or You Tube or Wikipedia," Carrillo said at ceremonies for the School of Mass Communications.
The 1985 graduate of the school quoted Bill Keller, the editor of The New York Times, who said recently that "the civic labor performed by journalists on the ground cannot be replicated by legions of bloggers sitting hunched over their computer screens...It cannot be replaced by a search engine. It cannot be supplanted by shouting heads or satirical television shows."
“The truth is,” Keller said, “people crave more than raw information. What they crave, and need, is independent judgment, someone they can trust to vouch for the information, dig behind it, and make sense of it. The more discerning readers want depth, they want skepticism, they want context, they want the material laid out in a way that honors their intelligence, they might even welcome a little wit and grace and style.”
Carrillo discussed some of the Pilot's coverage that has had impact, including a series on suicide showing that far more people die of suicide than homicide. "We told the stories of surviving family members what what a toll those deaths took. We pointed out that most of those who contemplate suicide wouldn't go through with it if they gave themselves one more day. We touched a nerve."
The Pilot also ran stories about a local development company that fraudulently obtained loans to buy properties in low-income neighborhoods, for substantial profit. Those stories resulted in an FBI investigation.Carrillo told students, "As you look to the future, I’d encourage you to remember the past. This is a great democracy and part of the ideal is that there will always be people like you and me who seek to keep everyone else in line." The Pilot is Virginia's largest circulation daily newspaper.
Carrillo, who joined The Pilot in 1998, is former deputy managing editor for enterprise and led the newspaper's narrative team. Three serial narratives that she edited for the paper have been expanded and published as books. She and the staff gained recognition as a Pulitzer finalist in 2007 for explanatory reporting. Carrillo has been a Pulitzer juror, and a speaker at The Poynter Institute for Media Studies and the Nieman Narrative Journalism conference at Harvard. She is a former reporter and editor for the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star.
Read Carrillo's entire speech now.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Current's Inaugural Video Scavenger Hunt
Current and The Branching Films want YOU to "SHOW ME YOUR Richmond!"
The first 20 people who RSVP to RVAscavenger@current.com and show up at high noon (12PM) on December 12 @ Shafer court at VCU will receive a FlipCam (easy to use video camera) and their Video Scavenger Hunt Instructions.
The best participant footage will be shown at our FREE party the following night @ Gallery 5, on Current.com. and maybe Current TV!
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 13th. EAT! DRINK! BE RICHMOND!
On December 13th, 6PM-9PM, join the Current crew @ Gallery 5 FOR COMPLIMENTARY DRINKS, FOOD, MUSIC AND INTERACTIVE GAMES AND PRIZES, including highlights from the Video Scavenger Hunt!
Where: Gallery 5, 200 W. Marshall St., Richmond, VA 23220
When: Thursday, December 13th 6:00-9:00pm
Why? Free drinks and food?! Why not!?
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That's TWO Current Events for the price of NONE! You officially have NO excuses now.
We're looking forward to seeing the good folks of Richmond show us what their Richmond is all about!
Mass Comm students won’t ‘let them go hungry’
A recent visit from President Bush ushered in the holiday season at the Central Virginia Foodbank. Along with the excitement of the season comes a greater need for Foodbank volunteers and food donations.
The Foodbank’s motto is: “This holiday, please don’t let them go hungry.”
Foodbank donation boxes can be seen all around VCU. They are part of a food drive organized by the Student Advisory Board of the School of Mass Communications. Donations will be accepted at the Mass Comm administrative office, Temple 2216, until Tuesday, Dec. 18 – the last day of exams.
“It’s important to give,” said Lauren Hidalgo, an 18-year-old freshman. “I’m a college student, I don’t have a lot of money or extra food, but I mean, pretty much everyone has an extra can of soup or some peanut butter or something.”
Last year, the Foodbank distributed 12.9 million pounds of food to the needy. Just over 1 million pounds of that was collected in food drives like the one at VCU.
Brenda Miller, the Foodbank food drive coordinator, said that the kindness of communities like VCU is vital to helping people who are in crisis.
“The generosity of the community during the holiday season significantly helps us to maintain an adequate food supply throughout the winter,” Miller said.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Two VCU PR students receive scholarships from PRSA Richmond
Bernabela is the winner of the Bill Dietrick Memorial Scholarship.
The Newport News native has completed five internships including ones with Warner Music Group, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and Average Girl Magazine. She maintains a 3.4 GPA and plans to pursue a career in New York City in the entertainment PR industry after her May 2008 graduation.
Williams is the winner of the David Hurdle scholarship.
A double major (her second major is Spanish), she maintains a 3.0 overall GPA. She serves as treasurer of VCU’s PRSSA chapter. Among her accomplishments are a semester studying abroad in Seville, Spain. The Danville native will graduate in May 2008 and hopes to pursue a graduate degree in the VCU Strategic PR Program.
The Richmond Public Relations Foundation solicited scholarship applications from students attending numerous other area colleges and universities offering a PR curriculum including the University of Richmond, Virginia Union University, Virginia State University, Longwood University and Randolph Macon College.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Rhoda Weiss, chair and CEO of the Public Relations Society of America, will meet with VCU students
As PRSA’s chair and CEO, she leads the 32,000 members of PRSA, the world’s largest organization of public relations professionals and students. She also is president of Rhoda Weiss and Associates in Santa Monica, Ca.
For more than 30 years, Weiss has been a nationally recognized health care executive and communicator.
During her career, she has traveled more than six million miles speaking and consulting with more than 700 organizations across the country.
She has authored more than 300 journal articles and a book, Managing Health Care Reform: Ideas from Leaders. She has been a UCLA public relations extension faculty member for 23 years and is a PhD student in leadership and change.
Rhoda Weiss is the recipient of dozens of honors, including several lifetime achievement awards for her contributions to the profession.
Her client list includes the top U.S. health systems and hospitals, including national and regional health systems; academic, community and teaching hospitals; aging programs; military and veteran's health; home care, hospice, and ambulatory settings; physician organizations; health plans; behavioral health, specific-disease organizations, and much more.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Get December '07 graduation details here
Student Work / School of Mass Comm in the news
The VCU CreateAthon onCampus team is taking applications from nonprofits: Deadline is Nov. 20
WHAT IS CreateAthon onCampus? CreateAthon onCampus will be a 24-hour, work-around-the-clock creative blitz during Spring Break, 2008. During this event, VCU Mass Communication students will produce marketing and creative services for selected area non-profits. Each student team will be partnered with local advertising, design or marketing professionals who will mentor the students’ work, ensuring high-quality and effective materials.
CreateAthon onCampus is the student expansion of RIGGS’ national CreateAthon event. This annual program is a 24-hour creative blitz for professional agencies held in September. During CreateAthon, advertising agencies across the country generate marketing and advertising services for their area nonprofits on a pro-bono basis.
TO APPLY OR GET MORE INFORMATION, HAVE NONPROFITS visit www.createathononcampus.org, or email Peyton Rowe, prowe@vcu.edu
Ad Photography Class
There will be a lot of picture taking. Access to and working knowledge of a digital camera is required. The class meets once a week for 10 weeks and is worth one credit.
Details:
- MASC-491 Section 005
- tue 2:00 – 3:15
- registration call number 21019
- prof. scott sherman
- sfsherman@vcu.edu
Looking to the Future
If there is one thing about mass media today that everyone agrees on it is the fact that it’s changing. And changing quickly.
“It is the wild, wild west of the information age,” according to Dick Robertson, a 1967 VCU graduate who is now a senior adviser to Warner Brothers Television and chair of the School’s Advisory Board. Robertson held up his I Phone to demonstrate his point.
“There is no better time to go into this business,” he said. “The access is no longer controlled. The Internet has liberated it. It has leveled the playing field and you are now empowered,” Robertson told an audience of students and faculty.
Robertson and other members of the School’s Advisory Board participated in a panel discussion on future of content delivery systems – particularly cell phones.
From one end of the table to the other, each member talked about how cell phone technology is evolving. To start the discussion, moderator Prof. Marcus Messner, gave research results from a large class this semester that showed 99 percent of students have cell phones, while only 77 percent have a television and only seven percent read a newspaper daily.
Harnessing potential revenue from selling information through the hand-held device is something Reid Ashe is interested in as chief operating officer of Media General. “Location-specific information seems to be a potential revenue source,” Ashe said. He talked about serving real estate or restaurant customers with “short code” technology which could provide cell phone users with individual data about a house or which restaurants have no waiting.
Frank Batten, Jr., chair and CEO of Landmark Communications, Inc. said at the moment the cell phone is a “walled garden” controlled by the carriers, but that control is changing rapidly as more companies use the technology to provide Web access.
For Mass Comm alumnus Derek Meyer, life tastes good
Created in 1998, Coca-Cola invites students from participating film schools across the country to submit entries of original scripts and storyboards. Ten finalists are selected, receiving $7,500 to produce a 50-second film to be viewed before the featured showing at certain theatres across the nation. Winners also receive $10,000.
Once submitted, the films are then reviewed by the “Red Ribbon Panel of Judges” that includes actors such as Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, along with screenwriters, directors, and entertainment executives. The winning film is shown in more than 21,000 movie theaters for four to eight weeks.
We’re pulling for you, Derek. Make it real!
Skunkworks: Design the future of media
skunk·works: A small, loosely structured research and development unit or subsidiary formed to foster innovation.
That’s what HONR-398 (‘Skunkworks for Media Innovation’) is all about. We’ll develop prototypes for innovative media products. Our partner in this course is Media General, which owns newspapers, TV stations and Web sites throughout the Southeast.
What kind of prototypes? Well, maybe:
- a Web-based solution to help match college students with the right employers
- a politcal mega-site bout the 2008 presidential elections- a "Rock the Vote" for Virginia
- an online sound stage where local bands introduce themselves--and users can remix their music
- a self-service tool that lets small businesses design their own newspaper ads.
For this course, we need creative thinkers and resourceful problem solvers. You'll work with faculty from VCU's School of Mass Communications and leaders from Media General to generate ideas--and make them reality. The course will meet on Mondays & Wednesdays from 2 to 3:15 p.m. Forget sitting at a computer table or being crammed into a lecture hall; the class will meet at The Work Factory, a few blocks from campus (1113 W. Main), in a space where you can let your creative juices flow.
Need more information? Contact Mass Comm faculty members:
- Scott Sherman: 827-3777 sfsherman@vcu.edu
- Jeff South: 827-0253 jcsouth@vcu.edu
MASC 491: Nonprofit Project Development
Enroll in MASC 491 Special Topics: Nonprofit Project Development. Classes are being held Tuesday/Thursday 9:30 - 10:45 a.m. The class will discuss issues relevant to nonprofit projects, have guest speakers from the nonprofit and advertising sectors, and follow through with the production of creative work during its CreateAthon onCampus.
VCU's CreateAthon onCampus is a 24-hour, work-around the clock creative blitz. Students will be producing work for local nonprofits while working alongside with local agencies. They will be able to develop problem-solving skills across multiple disciplines while earning the rewards of providing services and talents to worthy nonprofit organizations.CreateAthon onCampus will be held Spring 2008.Work produced and used by the nonprofits can go into a student’s portfolio.
If you have any questions about the class visit the class website or contact Professor Peyton Rowe.
Real news. Real bylines. Real fast-paced.
More interested in editing than reporting?Try the MASC 491 course “CNS Editing.”You will fact-check, edit and distribute CNS stories – and help manage our wire service. You might even produce a weekly newsletter and update the CNS Web site. For more information, contact Mary Ann Owens in Temple 1110 or at 334-2393.
Learn more about the Capital News Service here.