[NU Sports] Medill

Wed Sep 12 07:37:40 CDT 2007

Alan sums it up beautifully [well, he is after all, a Medill guy]

A few years back I tried to get interest in having a couple of sports interns
for Purple Reign. I kept getting names of folks who might be interested in
providing interns for a totally internet site, but never could make a real
connection with someone up there who could help me out.

I basically gave up as my schedule changed.

The point of using Medill and the Speech guys is to give them real world
experience. The guys who cover NU for the Daily do a good job, so do the WNUR
folks, but they seem to be trying to get a controversy going. [My biggest case
in point is this year's preseason analysis by our "student media" - they seem to
be hell bent on convincing folks that our present talent level stinks but that
for another time]

When I was 17, growing up, I read three newspapers every day. My parents
subscribed to the Daily News, the Trib, and Newsday. All three were delivered to
our house. Now my dad still takes the regional daily and we get two weekly
papers, but I read almost everything on-line, I guess you could say I'm one of
the converts to the "new media."

Working on media liason for the Softball World Series, I have found that our web
site, written by me and a couple of other volunteers, had more coverage on the
event than any of the local daily papers, with only the local weekly going all
out. Our local TV stations were very interested until the host team lost and
missed the finals. Coverage in the daily papers also disappeared.

The news biz is rapidly changing and Medill, for all its long list of alums,
needs to expand its vision to include new media. Broadcasters have figured out
how to leverage their local news coverage into full service web sites - wbal.com
is a good example. I would also venture that numbers of people reading stories
on-line for some publications, exceeds the actual news stand readership.

In other areas, Advertising on the web is more like Billboard advertising than
running spots on TV or placing half page ads in the paper. If Medill's
advertising guys are looking at ways to better use web and other advertising
vehicles to support reporting efforts, great. If they're still concerned over
full page issue ads in the Tribune, then they're missing the boat.

Our ability to produce writers of substance is borne out by the number of Medill
[and other program's NU grads] who are writing for the new media. We only see
the two or three alums working Chicago and the Wildcats, and the one or two
folks who have achieved a national presence [Abrahamson, Mandel, etc.]. Some
grads are making the move to the new media - some are actually making money and
supporting themselves at it - embracing the "new media" despite all the classes
at Medill that only stressed magazine and newsprint.

Above all, the Medill guys [and girls] can still write - which is the strength
of the program at NU.

And the job market for webmasters, and writers on the internet is still growing.
Almost every sports web site is check each day [except the "official ones"] are
looking for people who can write and also work in the new media. FWIW, more and
more news outlets are using reader shot video. The amateur web sites, like You
Tube, [along with -gag- the Daily Show] are becoming the primary source of
information for the 12-24 generation. 

But if Medill focus only stays in the present, providing cub reporters for local
newspapers, Medill will eventually be viewed as just another dinosaur program,
to be surpassed by another with leaders who figure out where Journalism is truly
headed. 

IMHO of course.... <g>

rsl 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Roy S. Lamberton - Senior Associate
Computer Applications & Support Associates
and Publisher of Purple Reign, 
The Scout.com Northwestern University Site
(http://www.purplewildcats.com)
AIM Handle: CoachRoy74
======== Go Cats -  Beat 'em All ===========
"You have a Republic Madam --
     If you can keep it" - Benjamin Franklin
============================================

> -----Original Message-----
> From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com [mailto:nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com] On
> Behalf Of Abrahamson, Alan (NBC Universal)
> Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2007 2:19 AM
> To: CHerron604 at aol.com; nwu-sports at tssi.com
> Subject: [NU Sports] Medill
> 
> 
>  I will try to provide at least one perspective to the questions raised
> by Mr. Herron. Mr. Nolan: I seek your approval for this post, which is
> not related to football or sports.
>  From where I sit, the dean is a visionary. Visionaries, by definition,
> are not unanimous approval-getters. Nor are they seeking such approval.
> Disagreement and even dissent are vital pieces of the dialogue.
>  In that regard, the dean is exercising significant leadership. He has
> what experts in leadership study call the "double vision thing." He can
> see where we are now and where he believes the school ought to be x
> years down the line, and he is trying amid the clamor and dissent to
> secure buy-in -- from a variety of constituencies -- to implement
> change.
>  The dean is seeking to implement that change because the journalism
> landscape is undergoing a fundamental evolution. Technological and
> demographic change are formidable currents but hardly the only factors
> reshaping businesses in which Medill grads are expected not only to
> compete for jobs but, as their careers progress, assume leading roles.
>  It's unclear whether the steps the dean is taking are the "right" ones.
> No one can tell the future.
>  But I admire his self-confidence and his willingness to take action.
>  I would also suggest he is ahead, maybe way ahead, of the power curve.
> This -- in concert with the confidence he projects -- may well be
> another reason the changes he is proposing are generating push-back,
> sometimes considerable.
>  Dean Lavine was out in Los Angeles last month and gave a talk to the
> Medill Club of Southern California, which I attended.
>  There is ample material on the Medill website explaining the direction,
> intent and details of the revised curriculum, and I would urge any and
> all interested to give it a long and thoughtful read. You can also read
> there about intriguing proposals aimed at taking the Medill and
> Northwestern brands overseas -- to places such as Qatar, for instance.
>  I did not hear at the Medill event that day in the Mulholland hills,
> nor have I heard at any point in the process, the dean say anything that
> would suggest even the slightest retreat from the basics of good
> journalism -- the essence of a Medill education, with its emphasis on
> fairness and accuracy.
>  However, he did make plain that Medill must find ways to enable
> students to learn how to tell a story -- on whatever platform -- that
> will engage readers, listeners and watchers.
>  By platform, he said, he means newspapers, radio, TV, the web, cellular
> phones, video games. That's right -- phones, games, whatever.
>  I used "readers, listeners and watchers" deliberately. Here is the word
> that seems to really alarm his critics: consumers.
>  Even though we are all consumers of news, of sports, of whatever.
>  Traditionally, of course, there is a "wall" between the business and
> editorial sides of news operations. A major concern appears to be
> whether Lavine is suggesting the "wall" ought to be breached or
> weakened.
>  I do not believe he is so suggesting.
>  What he is trying to get at, I believe, is the exact thing all of us in
> the business are trying to figure out. Which is: how to produce content
> that will compel people to pay for it, on one or multiple platforms --
> without pandering, without condescending, without violating the basics
> of journalism.
>  It's hardly a disaster, or even new, to acknowledge that newspapers
> (and by extension other platforms) must make money to survive. I learned
> that in theory and then most emphatically in practice when I was at
> Medill, in the late 1970s -- when, during March of my sophomore year,
> one of the last of the afternoon newspapers, the Chicago Daily News,
> went out of business. The world had changed around it and the paper
> couldn't respond.
>  Any/all thoughts, observations welcome. After all, we've got three more
> days 'til the Duke tilt.
>  Alan - Medill '80
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com [mailto:nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com]
> On Behalf Of CHerron604 at aol.com
> Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2007 9:07 PM
> To: sjtruog at yahoo.com; nwu-sports at tssi.com
> Subject: Re: [NU Sports] Campus programming ...
> 
> Stephen's post reminded me of the most recent issue of Chicago
> Magazine.  I don't generally read this magazine, not usually caring
> which  gala ball was attended by who, or which trendy club is opening up
> this  month.  But a friend passed it along to me based on the cover
> headline 'The  Battle at NU's Journalism School' (just below a monkey
> perched on a woman's  shoulder).
> 
> Basically, the author, Dirk Johnson, described how new Medill head John
> Lavine was blowing up the Medill curriculum, replacing it with
> concentrations in 'new media' and marketing.  It sounded like students,
> faculty and alums  were not happy about this.
> 
> Anybody know anything about these developments ?  The story was kind  of
> short, and left me with quite a few questions.  Should we be worried
> about Medill ?  Do we risk losing our very high Journalism School
> ranking  ?  Could we lose our dominant position in sports media ?
> 
> Chuck Herron   Tech (NOT McCormick)  '85
> 
> 
> 
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