SPJ - Spring 2014 Semester Event Summary
Jobs you didn’t know existed in journalism – Feb. 20, 2014 – 12:30 – 2 p.m. SPJ-FIU hosted a workshop with special guests from WLRN Julia Duba and Maria Murriel. Duba is the morning producer for WLRN-Miami Herald News, South Florida’s NPR member station. Murriel is the digital editor for WLRN and oversees the WLRN website. Duba began the workshop by asking
attendees, “What jobs do you have in mind other than reporter and editor?” Web designer, Public Insight Network analyst, Social-media manager, and community manager were some examples of jobs you might not know about. Duba and Murriel talked about job postings that they’ve both seen online which include programmers, “data wranglers”, investigative reporters for non-fiction book projects, comic journalists, and interactivity developers. They also discussed skills you need to capture a job in the journalism field now, like news judgments, interactivity, coding and creativity. This is one of the first events that SPJ has held this semester. About 16 people attended the event.
SPJ-FIU Mini Talks Series: How to be a complete Journalist – February 13, 2014 4:30 p.m. SPJ-
FIU President Marisol Medina led the first talk in our new mini-talk series. The talk went over different websites that could help journalists and journalism students improve their reporting.Some of the websites discussed were IFTTT.com, a website that creates “recipes,” a type of alert system delivered to a person’s mailbox; easel.ly and visual.ly, two info graphic making websites; Storify, the website that makes it easy to tell stories through social media, and more. Medina also discussed how to add an email signature on emails as well as how to add social media icons to it. Approximately 10 people attended this mini-talk.
SPJ-FIU Mini Talks: Photography – March 6, 2014 4:30 p.m. As part of SPJ-FIU’s new initiative,
Mini Talks, photographer and journalism student Jeffrey Pierre led a small workshop on photography basics including how to use a camera and take a good photo. He brought his canon SLR camera to demonstrate. Pierre discussed how to take advantage of mobile phones to achieve beautiful pictures. Pierre also talked about three important settings to consider before taking a photo: aperture, shutter speed and ISO. He also demonstrated how to focus his camera lens and how to frame a subject. He demonstrated how to use a camera and what settings are best for different types of situations. Pierre gave plenty of tips and pointers, while the eight students in the room passed around his camera and tried to implement and practice the different technique unfamiliar to them. The mini-talk was approximately 30 minutes long.
Listen. Learn. Connect. 1st Annual SPJ-FIU Media Conference – March 21, 2014 – 9 a.m. to 5
p.m. – SPJ-FIU hosted a free all day media conference event with five panels and nine panelists. The five panel topics were on social media, photojournalism, journalism ethics, war reporting and journalists’ safety and how to brand yourself. The panelists included Lori Todd from the Orlando Sentinel and Sun-Sentinel; Jacqueline Charles, Caribbean correspondent for the Miami Herald; Patrick Farrell and Al Diaz, photojournalists from the Miami Herald; Juliet Pinto, associate professor at Florida International University School of Journalism and Mass Communication; Michael Koretzky, SPJ Region 3 director; Carmen Gentile, freelance war correspondent; Larry Doyle, senior freelance producer for CBS news; and Steve Rothaus, Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay and Transgender journalist from the Miami Herald. SJMC Associate Dean Allan Richards opened the conference and moderated the first panel. FIU professors Lorna Veraldi, Frederick Blevins and Lilliam Martinez-Bustos each separately moderated the following three panels and SPJ-FIU President Marisol Medina moderated the fifth panel of the day. Approximately 85 people attended the conference throughout the day. Each panel lasted approximately 45 minutes with 15 minutes for open dialogue between the panelists and attendees. Students from Florida Atlantic University’s student magazine also attended the conference. This was the first conference that SPJ-FIU has hosted as a student chapter. After the conference ended, Michael Koretzky informed SPJ-FIU’s advisor Chris Delboni that FIU-SPJ would again be rewarded Region 3 Chapter of the year and a nomination for National SPJ Chapter of the year.
SPJ-FIU Mini Talks: Learning the Basics of Photoshop – March 27, 2014 – 4:30 p.m. SPJ-FIU
Webmaster Matias Joaquin Ocner discussed the basic concepts of Adobe Photoshop like what resolution is, what pixels are and how to use layers. He demonstrated using different tools like the select and paintbucket tools to manipulate your image. Ocner continued the mini talk by teaching students how to make their own business cards. Step-by-step, he demonstrated how to figure out the size of the canvas depending on the project you are working on. He also showed how Photoshop shortcuts work and which ones were the most important to know. Approximately 5 students attended this mini-talk. Ocner also worked one-on-one with students to use specific Photoshop tools like the magic wand tool to edit photos.
Women in Media Roundtable – March 29, 2014 – 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. South Florida Black Journalists Association joined forces with Society of Professional Journalists Florida
International University Chapter to present a roundtable talk of seven women key women who have influenced the media and communications in south Florida. The honorees included Traci Cloyd, Trina Robinson, Carolyn Guniss, Trenae Floyd, Julia Yarbough, Yvette Haris and Suzan McDowell. Each women talked about how their careers began, the challenges they faced and continue to face today and how they contribute to the community. Afterwards questions from the audience were allowed and journalism students from Florida Memorial University took the lead talking to the panelists. Wine from Yaya and snacks were provided to all age appropriate attendees. Approximately 50 people came to the event.
SPJ-FIU Mini Talks: Digital Longform Journalism – April 3, 2014 – 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. FIU Graduate student Sandeep Varry introduces SPJ students to the increasing popularity of digital
longform journalism in the present age of short attention span. He says that the internet, which is blamed for causing short attention span, is actually turning out to be the savior of longform. Varry explained what longform journalism is and how there’s this new added advantage of telling a story digitally – multimedia. Longform journalism is a branch of journalism dedicated to longer articles with larger amounts of content. Some of the companies trying to bring back long journalism include The Atavist, Narratively, and Byliner. Longform journalism elements have actual events and people, a narrative approach and include extensive research. Varry also discussed who is doing what with digital longform.
Ethical Poker Night – April 17, 2014 Ethical Poker Night – April 17, 2014 – 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. WUC 155 Society of Professional Journalists Region 3 director Michael Koretzky brought ethical
poker and the opportunity to have students get their resume critiqued to FIU. Koretzky taught students how to play poker and how he brought ethics into the game. Lines from the SPJ code of ethics are on each individual card. If students matched up two cards that had the same line from the SPJ code of ethics, they received 100 extra chips. Pizza and drinks were provided to the 15 students that attended this educational poker event.
