School Snippet
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David Tauchen ('06) at KOAA-TV visited an SJMC broadcast news class recently. He's among a new breed of journalists. He does it all. "One man banding is a sign of the times," he told students. "It is hard work, but you have complete creative control...
Though it can get difficult because you only have two arms." Tauchen said doing it all creates opportunity for young journalists.
"Sometimes there is only room for one [reporter] and they'll always choose the one man band."
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February 2009
Bylines Briefly
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 As a college student, I know I should revel in the fact that I am on my way to class instead of a job interview during these difficult economic times. For those of us who have recently graduated or are graduating in May, we realize that if we can make it during these tough times, we can certainly make it through anything.
On Wednesday, March 11, the Journalism Board will host its annual Career Day in room 235 of the University Memorial Center. With deepening economic hardship comes growing uncertainty about the future of many industries, including the media. Our goal is to present a program that helps students understand what roles they can fill in the media of the future. Alumni are also invited to participate as attendees or recruiters. We expect to welcome a room full of recruiters!
Lane Karczewski
Advertising senior, president of Journalism Board
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Fighting Mud & Manure in Moldova
 Eric Heinonen ('06), featured in Bylines, is using his journalism experience to raise money at home and hopes abroad. Heinonen is a health teacher with the Peace Corps at a school in a 4,000-person village in the Republic of Moldova (a former Soviet state).
The children at his school play games and do gymnastics on a lawn they share with grazing livestock. When the winter cold and mud make outdoor activities impossible, P.E. classes are held in the school basement -- a dark, dank concrete room with low ceilings. Heinonen is helping the community build an outdoor sports complex, free of mud and manure. This will allow the children to play soccer and volleyball, to do gymnastics and to run outdoors for more of the year.
He has produced several videos to show people back home in the United States what his village in Moldova is like. And he recently wrote an essay for the Boulder Daily Camera in the hopes that people would be inspired to help the children in his village with gifts of money and used sports equipment.
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Politics & Journalism
 Two SJMC graduate students are getting an inside look at national politics. Eric Barendsen and Rebecca Cole are the 24th and 25th CU students to participate in the Washington Center for Politics & Journalism's internship program.
In 20 years, the program has placed about 500 budding journalists in internships with national media outlets like NPR, The Wall Street Journal, and the Chicago Tribune.
Michigan State University is the only school to have more P&J alumni than CU. "Both schools are way ahead of the competition, which says, to me, that the j-school at Colorado is doing an excellent job of preparing hard news reporters," said WCP&J Executive Director Terry Michael.
Read more about the P&J experience in the print edition of Bylines, due out in May.
Image courtesy of Michael Mehle, a Rocky Mountain News editor and CU's first P&J alum.
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Alumni Updates
An Inside Look
Rob Reuteman (MA '78) has been a daily newspaper editor along the Front Range since he graduated from the SJMC 31 years ago. A few weeks ago, he wrote a column in the Rocky Mountain News about some of the things he's encountered over the years. Sometimes he was pleased with his readers: "I first became aware of how sophisticated Denver voters are in May 1991, when Wellington Webb and Norm Early emerged from a crowded field of mayoral candidates to face each other in a runoff. Denver's black population at the time was about 8 percent." And sometimes readers were just plain strange: "When I was city editor, I got on the phone with a woman who wanted us to come out to her house because she had a dog that could talk. Then put him on the phone, I said. She hung up."
Climbing Circulation
Matt Samet ('96) was recently featured in the Boulder Daily Camera for his work to revitalize Climbing Magazine. Since joining the magazine in February 2007 as editor-in-chief, Samet has put in lots of overtime to increase circulation by 20 percent to 45,000. Samet is also an avid rock climber and has pioneered several first ascents.
Talking About High-Functioning Alcoholism
Sarah Allen Benton ('98) is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor, a blogger for PsychologyToday.com and a recovering alcoholic. She wants to bring the conversation about high-functioning alcoholics to the table and shed some light on a disease that effects too many students and professionals alike. Benton's book, Understanding the High-Functioning Alcoholic: Professional Views and Personal Insights, will be released at the end of this month.
Girl Fights
Bonnie Burton ('95), has written a new teen advice book Girls Against Girls: Why We Are Mean to Each Other and How We Can Change. It discusses different types of girl-on-girl cruelty, why it happens, and how to deal with it. Burton writes tips for teens on Grrl.com and has written for Bust, Geek Monthly, Star Wars Insider and Wired. She is also the author of "Never Threaten to Eat Your Co-Workers: Best of Blogs" and "You Can Draw: Star Wars." She lives in San Francisco.
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News & Events
Going It on Your Own: The Freelance Life
Get
an inside look into the freelance life from experienced freelancers,
Wednesday, Feb. 25, 5:30 to 7 p.m. in Eaton Humanities 135. Panelists
include Deborah Fryer, filmmaker and documentarian; Steve Knopper, a
Denver writer for Rolling Stone and Wired magazines, who documented the fall of the music industry in his new
book, "Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the
Record Industry in the Digital Age"; Lisa Marshall ('94), health and
fitness writer and author of the Boulder Daily Camera series "Rwanda: After the Genocide"; and science and environment writer Amanda Haag Mascarelli (MA '06).
Career Day
Media recruiters, career panels and resume doctors will be at your disposal for Career Day, Wednesday, March 11, in UMC 235. If you're interested in recruiting SJMC students for internships or jobs, e-mail Alan Kirkpatrick.
Apple Advertising Innovator Lee Clow
Lee Clow, chairman and chief creative officer of TWBA\Worldwide, will talk about opportunities and issues facing the communication industry, at the 2009 Innovator Series at 6:30 p.m., Wednesday, March 11, in the ATLAS building. His talk for a student and faculty audience, will be broadcast to the lobby of the building from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Clow is best known for co-creating Apple's iconic 1984 Super Bowl commercial that launched the Apple Macintosh computer and the "Think Different" slogan.
How News Images Work
Barbie Zelizer, the Raymond Williams Professor of Communication and Director of the Scholars Program in Culture and Communication at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication, will deliver the 47th annual Crosman Lecture in at 5:30 p.m., Thursday, March 19, in Old Main Chapel. Zelizer will talk about "How News Images Work: When Engagement Comes at the Expense of Understanding." A reception will follow at 6:30 p.m., in the Heritage Center of Old Main Chapel.
Hearst Professional in Residence to Visit
Adelle Banks will visit the School as a Hearst Professional in Residence on April 6 and 7. While at the SJMC, Banks will speak to several classes. She is a senior correspondent for Religion News Service. Previously she worked for The Orlando Sentinel, the Providence Journal, and newspapers in Syracuse and Binghamton, N. Y.
Nakkula Award
Karyn Spencer, reporter for the Omaha World-Herald, won the 2009 Al Nakkula Award for Police Reporting. Spencer detailed how Nebraska's antiquated 1917 coroner system provides no oversight and few standards resulting in botched death investigations across the state in a three-part series. Judges praised Spencer's "compelling narrative" and dogged investigative work in conducting interviews with officials in a third of the state's 93 counties. A law was introduced in January that would require training for county attorneys serving as coroners.
The Nakkula award is named for Al Nakkula, a 46-year veteran for the Rocky Mountain News. He died in 1990. It is sponsored by the Rocky Mountain News, the School of Journalism and Mass Communication and the Denver Press Club.
Hot off the Presses
Assistant Professor Nabil Echchaibi has been hard at work since joining the SJMC faculty in 2007. His most recent book, International Blogging: Identity, Politics and Networked Publics rolled off the presses this month. Echchaibi co-edited the volume with Adrienne Russell, an assistant professor at the University of Denver.
 New Media
Efrem Rodriguez ('07) and Tim Skillern ('98) spoke to students Jan. 28 as part of the SJMC's New Career Series. Instructor Sandra Fish, a social networking expert, moderated the panel. Rodriguez ('07), left, helps his associates at JohnstonWells PR firm move "from the old way to the new way, which I think is the better way." But, he said, "It's not about the tools, it's what you have to say. It's about having something to say." Tim Skillern ('98), center, who has worked in new media since he graduated, told students that the best way to learn new software applications is by teaching themselves. And he added, "read, read, read. If you want to be a reporter, you should read the newspaper, even the sections you don't like, every day."
Get Linked
Join more than 200 alumni as a members of the new SJMC LinkedIn professional networking group. Find old friends and make new contacts.
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Pay it Forward
Connect with other alumni by joining the Career Network.
- Join the Career Network.You'll become a contact for other SJMC graduates looking for jobs in your area of the country or
field of work. Our Career Network has hundreds of alumni contacts.
Adding your name is an easy way to give back to the School by sharing
your expertise with other SJMC alums.
- Tell us what's new!
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Thanks for reading! We'd love to know what you're up to!
Regards,
Beth Gaeddert
Director of Career Services and External Affairs
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Felicia Russell
Newsletter Editor
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