Mission Accomplished

As you may have guessed based on the title of this post, I have finally completed my semester long community reporting project.

A few weeks ago, I posted a preview of my web story introducing you to Victoria Dubrovina and her students at Journey House. If you enjoyed that article, I am pleased to announce you can now view the complete print story along with photos and video on the project website. 

Working on this project has been rewarding in many ways. Firs off, I had the opportunity to meet so many new people and hear their incredible stories. I only wish I could tell them all. Secondly, throughout the process of this project I learned more about the City of Milwaukee and participated in the Clarke Square community in a very unique and meaningful way. Thirdly, and most importantly, I grew as a journalist. Not only did I write my brains out, I also became far more comfortable using different forms of multimedia.

The two areas in which I feel I have grown the most are website construction and design and blogging. Before I started this project, I had never designed a website before. Now, I have two. Each time I sit before the Weebly interface I feel more and more confident in my ability to produce a solid website. I also feel like I have made great strides in blogging. Not only have I upheld the commitment I made to myself to blog every week, I believe my posts have dramatically improved both in content and in writing. For latter belief, you will be the ultimate judge.

With the completion of this project I am reminded that the semester is quickly coming to an end, but do not worry. I will not give up on blogging as I strive to continue developing my talents as a multimedia journalist. 

No Hablo Espanol

Last Thursday, I found myself in the very unique and, might I add, unfamiliar position of being in the minority.  My team partner, Colleen Hermann, and I returned to Journey House in order to finish gathering our interviews and video for our final project.

This time around, we attended a GED class for immigrants. The minute we walked through the doors of the old church and into the classroom, I suddenly wished I had continued taking Spanish beyond the two required semesters. Spanish filled the air as students chatted among themselves waiting for class to start. At first I figured this was no big deal. I assumed that as soon as class started they would all speak English and I would be able to keep up with the conversation just fine. Oh, how wrong I was.

As the class settled down and the evening’s lecture began, I quickly realized the whole class was to be conducted in Spanish. Now I had a problem. How could I possibly cover a story when I had no idea what was going on?

As the teacher, Ana Melo, scribbled fractions on the board, I breathed a small sigh of relief, mathematics the universal language. Maybe now I would be able to keep up. After all, Sesame Street taught me how to count to ten in Spanish when I was five. Too bad I forgot everything I learned in high school math.

Just about the time I thought I had a grasp on what was going on, the math lesson came to an abrupt halt. Apparently, as I later learned, the reason for this unexpected stop was my partner and my presence in the class. Students wanted to know why we were there and, more importantly, why we were taping them. Melo quickly explained saying we were students from Marquette University working on a school project. To be completely honest, the only reason I even knew she was talking about us was her reference to “Marquette Univerisad.”

Melo must have caught the bewildered look in my eyes because from that point on she attempted to translate everything the students said that she thought would be of interest to us. Some of the students spoke a little English, and some of them spoke no English at all.

The language barrier created a few problems. First, because we were dependent on Melo to translate, we only heard what she thought was important. Second, because my partner and I did not understand much of what the students said, we missed out on a lot of information and context. If you know anything about reporting, you know that the context of a situation is crucial. The last problem we had was in translating student’s quotes into English. There are some Spanish words that just do not have an English equivalent making quoting students verbatim a near impossibility.

If I learned one thing from this situation, it was what it felt like to be in the minority. And that experience, I believe, gave me greater insight into these peoples’ lives and helped me in reporting my story more accurately. 

Sneak Peak

Blogs are awesome because they give journalists a place to preview and publish their work.

So in keeping with this sentiment, below is a preview of the story I have been working on for the past few weeks concerning Immigration. The article below is the web version of a longer print story entitled “Paying It Forward: Immigrants Helping Immigrants.”

CLARKE SQUARE, WI-- Victoria Dubrovina is a first-generation immigrant. Originally from Russia, she moved to the United States 12 years ago. Like many immigrants, she came in search of greater opportunity, not knowing the opportunity she herself would one day provide.

Six years after becoming a U.S. citizen, Dubrovina is working hard to help other immigrants obtain their citizenship.

“I think I can relate to my students because I know what I went through they’re probably going through too and that’s why I think I can help them more than anybody else.” Dubrovina said.

Last January, Dubrovina, in partnership with the adult education center Journey House, started a citizenship class. Drawing on her own first hand experiences, Dubrovina has developed a curriculum specifically designed to help students get their citizenship.

“When I did it for myself, everything was new. What do I do next? What do I do next?” Dubrovina said. “Now I can show them easily.”

Her students are especially appreciative of her insight and look at her as more of a friend than a teacher.

Currently, Dubrovina has five students in her citizenship class. They all plan to become citizens before next year’s presidential election.

Remember, if you like what you read there will be more content posted to the projects website at a later date.

Social Media and Its Place in Journalism

Nearly 72 percent of all Internet users use Facebook. Twitter boasts over 190 million users. With statistics like that, it is no wonder journalists are jumping on the social media bandwagon in the attempt to provide news when and how consumers want it.

Journalists use social media in many of the same ways as consumers, to find stories, gather information, and publish content. Often, journalists find leads for a story on their Facebook homepage or Twitter feed. What you post as your status update or tweet into cyber space could be the next big story. Sites like Facebook and Twitter are also helpful to journalists in finding contacts. Just like you may Facebook stalk that kid who sits two rows in front of you in 8:00am anthropology; journalists too use social media to find potential sources for stories. Although journalists may use social media in many of the same ways a typical consumer would, their use is measured according to the journalistic standard.

Social media has many potential uses for journalists, but the question remains does using social media benefit or hurt journalism. One common argument concerning social media use among journalist is that it dissuades journalists from doing actual footwork.  If social media is used in such a manner, the quality of journalistic content will decrease dramatically. Social media may be a good place to start, but every bit of information collected from a social media site should be verified by some alternative source. It has been said that social media does not tell you what to believe, but it tells you what to look for. I think this should be the credo of all journalists who utilize social media.

The numbers of social media sites will continue to grow effect the way journalists collect and present news.  As a journalist, the key is to incorporate the use of social media while not straying from the fundamentals of journalism.

Weebly and the Web

These days, its not enough to just have an impressive paper resume. You also have to have an online portfolio. Something that, until today, I had not even thought of.

To be honest, until this semester I had never really given much thought to my online presence. Sure, I have a Facebook that I post to…occasionally. I also had every intention of building my own YouTube channel to showcase my work. Unfortunately, all these good intentions never really amounted to anything. But as I prepare to enter the professional world of broadcast journalism, it is time for me to get serious about multimedia and use it to find a job and succeed in the industry.

In that spirit, I learned how to build my own website using the web editor Weeebly. According to my professor and the College of Communications IT guru, Weebly is practically idiot proof. Anyone, they said, could build a website using Weebly. Well, clearly they didn’t know me as well as they thought. I have a terrible track record with technology. The thought of building my own website, no matter how easy, scared me. I want my website to look professional and showcase my skills well. My fear was that not being trained in website design, my website would one, turn out looking like a hot mess and two, look like every other website managed by a high school student.  

After playing with Weebly for about an hour, I finally had a template selected and was starting to personalize my site. But then came the even bigger question, what do I put on a portfolio website and how do I organize it? I have an anal-retentive personality, type A all the way. So if something is not perfect, like my website, I stress about it. After a lengthy chat with my professor I finally developed a system of organization that I think will work for me, a new page for every resume element.

As I organized my resume to fit the web, I began to get alarmed again. Advisers, professors, and professionals always tell you to keep the length of your resume down to a page, but a page translated on to a website is next to nothing. The emptiness of my online portfolio made me feel like I had just spent the last four years of my life doing nothing. Even though I know this is not true, I am still going to feel much better when I get links to video packages I have made up on my site.

Even though my online portfolio will never be complete, as I continue to build on and add to it, at least I have a small start. Looking forward, my goal is to have my website up by January so that I have an online resume by the time I start looking for jobs later this year.

Journalism's Supermen and Women

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Superman! Well, kind of.

The backpack or multimedia journalist is the superman, or woman, of modern journalism.

Backpack journalists do it all. They are their own producers, photographers, reporters, and editors. Carrying and operating all their own equipment, developing their own stories, gathering all story components, and editing everything together to produce a cohesive whole.

Backpack journalism first appeared in the 1990’s and, thanks to its efficiency and low cost, is becoming ever more prevalent in today’s journalism. So much so, that the majority of news sources, including national news sources, now employ at least one superman or woman journalist. Becky Diamond, formerly of CNN and MSNBC, Travis Fox, of the Washington Post, Preston Mendenhall, of MSNBC, and Kevin Sites, of Yahoo News are all multimedia journalists. The content they produce as a one-man, or one-woman, band is undistinguishable from content produced by the traditional team.

Backpack journalism is the future. And for those of us looking to enter into this field, backpack journalism is our future. It may mean more work, but it also means more creative control, being able to see a story through to the end. That, for me, is the best thing about this recent revolution. Knowing that a story is yours and that you produced it from beginning to end brings such a feeling of accomplishment. I know it is going to be rough, but I am so excited to begin my journey as a backpack journalist.

I hope you all will come along with me. 

Update

Work on the final project for my journalism class has officially begun. Last week, we were divided into groups and chose topics. This week we set the schedule, wrote a project proposal, and began our research.

Before I get into the details of the group’s progress this week, a brief recap of the project is necessary. The goal of the project is to create three multimedia stories relating the topic of immigration in the Milwaukee neighborhood of Clarke Square.

We selected Clarke Square as the location for our stories due to the large Hispanic population in that area. 

Each group member has their own specific story based on the topic of immigration that they will be developing over the next seven weeks. Group member Colleen Herrmann’s story will be a narrative. For her story, she plans to follow a child of immigrants whose parent(s) are illegal immigrants who either have been or are at risk of being deported. Group member Andrew Phillips will be working on a story about the educational opportunities for immigrants in the city of Milwaukee. Finally, I will also be working on a narrative, following one person on their journey toward becoming a U.S. Citizen.

Once we had our potential stories hammered out, the footwork began, contacting people and organizations that could be potential resources. The group contacted a number of organizations in Milwaukee, including Journey House, the International Institute of Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and the Latino Community Center. So far, we have heard back only from Journey House. Their response was definitely positive and they expressed extreme interest in working with us on this project. The group is very excited to start working with them and the community they serve to develop a better understanding of immigration and how it impacts individuals in our own back yard.

My only fears, at this point of the project, are one, that people will not be willing to open up to us about their experiences, especially on camera, and two that I will be at a disadvantage not knowing Spanish. My hope is that by working intimately with the organizations mentioned above, our group will be able to develop contacts and build relationships with members of the community who have been affected by immigration.

That is it for this weeks update. I look forward to sharing our progress with you again next week.