I had invited Eugene Kane, a metro columnist at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, to visit my JOUR 4953 seminar class last week in hopes of focusing on the Trayvon Martin case that is a national cause celebre. My students knew of the matter already, and Kane had written two related columns – Slinger Case Echoes National Furor Over Trayvon Martin and Hoodie Shouldn't Define Trayvon Martin, or Anyone – so I expected good discussion.

The students had each written blog posts about the Martin case after reading several media-related weblinks I had shared from Richard Prince's Journal-isms, the Poynter Institute and elsewhere before Kane's visit. And he did address the case with the surety one would expect of a metro columnist with 30 years of journalism experience.

"There are certain facts about Trayvon Martin that haven't really changed," Kane said, "even though all these stories are changing: He was unarmed. He was killed. The guy was chasing him. There's a record of a dispatcher who told him, 'You don't have to chase him. We'd rather you not chase him.'" Yet all about the case is so murky. "How can anyone at this point say with absolute certainty that they know what the hell happened?" he asked.

A former president of the Wisconsin Black Media Association, Kane also discussed how the media have progressed – and regressed – concerning newsroom diversity and sensitivity in coverage involving people of color.

However, I couldn't help noticing something: The students seemed more interested in Kane than Martin. For example, after he shared how he got into journalism and his perspective on blogging, a student asked how difficult it is to write three columns a week. "I always feel like I'm on a treadmill," he replied, before stressing the need for maintaining basic reporting: working the phones, developing sources, staying abreast of community concerns, etc.

Other questions focused on how Kane worked to find his voice. "If you read your stuff out loud, you hear your voice," he said, adding later, "If you're really interested in your voice, you have to keep trying." Beyond that, Kane said, he strives to emulate the legendary and hard-hitting columnists – Acel Moore and Chuck Stone, among them – whom he read as a child growing up in Philadelphia and as a student at Temple University.

Kane proudly states that he was among the first columnists to embrace Twitter as a tool for engaging readers. No doubt that he picked up a few more followers – and readers – from JOUR 4953 after his visit.

Any journalism educator hopes – particularly when inviting a guest speaker for a class exercise on interviewing and or writing a news feature on deadline – that each student learns to pinpoint that crucial quote. Ronald Mulvaney made it pretty easy for my Digital Journalism I (JOUR 1100) class last week, when he said early on: "Let me say really clearly: This is a toxic law. It's poison. It's lethal – and in my estimation, it kills."

A 1960 graduate of Marquette University, Mulvaney has advocated since the early 1980s for more rights and opportunities for job seekers who are at least 40 years old. He believes at-will employment laws discriminate against them and has created a blog at Dequav Inc. to call attention to the matter. My class had reviewed a lengthy written statement and relevant news article that Mulvaney shared before his visit. All 14 students knew they must ask him at least one question, and so they were urged to research the topic beyond his offerings.

Mulvaney spent about 45 minutes with the class and offered plenty of material for a worthwhile news feature. In an email afterward, Mulvaney thanked me for the opportunity to meet my students. "I felt privileged," he wrote. "You have a great bunch of kids in that class and they asked perceptive questions." They most certainly did. The questions ranged from how can young people help make a difference, to what should organizations such as AARP and the NAACP be doing to help, to what other approaches besides his blog could be useful? My favorite question came from freshman Eva Sotomayor, who after saying that economists consider at-will employment one of the strengths of the U.S. economy, looked directly at Mulvaney and asked: "How do you respond to that?"

Interestingly, even though the written statement referred to people whom Mulvaney said the law had led to kill, no student asked him about his personal life. Indeed, no one even asked his age. I had to do so when they were done – he's 78. (My challenge is to teach journalism students that it's not disrespectful to ask personal questions.) By and large, the students shared with each other that they believe Mulvaney is someone to admire.

With that, they all moved to their respective computers to write a 500-word news feature – with me in their ears stressing that readers aren't going to care about Mulvaney's issue unless they are first made to care about him.

My last blog post focused on my Poynter.org article about students missing classes to cover March Madness. As promised, today we're exploring the topic again, based on another submission, a Q-and-A, for the same website.

The intro begins: "As a professional in residence and a graduate student ... I seek chances to match coursework with reporting and academic pursuits. This week’s assignment in my Humanistic Theories and Methods of Media Studies grad class required me to conduct a semi-structured interview – in which a list of questions must be asked and answered in order – before follow-up quizzing may occur. An hour before class last week, Poynter.org agreed that I should write about journalism educators dealing with students missing classes to cover March Madness. My reporting led me to an ideal person for the course assignment: Marquette Provost John J. Pauly, Ph.D."

After turning in the first story on Friday, I suggested to my Poynter editor that Pauly's view on the matter could interest many people. She agreed and skedded the Q-and-A to run on Monday. Well, there's been quite a bit of feedback. Based on a few tweets and not as many emails, journalism educators and others liked what the provost said. On the other hand, many Marquette students weren't too pleased with all that they read. Indeed, my Digital Journalism II class discussed both of the Poynter submissions for nearly an hour yesterday before I finally stopped them so they could work on their Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service projects.

Look Friday for another blog post about students covering sports journalism. Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to my professor's feedback about my critical assessment – my homework due in class last night – of my interview with the provost. Remains to be seen if and when I'll be sharing that any time soon.

Pleased to share my article that held the lead spot on the Poynter.org website on Friday afternoon. I love the headline: "What's a journalism professor to do when his students miss class to cover March Madness?"

It begins: "This is a story about a journalism instructor dealing with journalism students missing journalism classes so that they can do journalism. Two undergraduates skipped my classes in Milwaukee — as well as those of their other professors — so they could report on Marquette University men’s basketball games at major postseason tournaments." The nut graph: "So why was I ... questioning my students for seizing real-life experience?"

Enjoyed persuading one of my students to wake up at 6:15 a.m. (PST) so I could interview him by telephone as he sat in his hotel lobby in Phoenix. Wish that I could have included in the article something from everyone who helped inform my perspective and evolution on this matter. Stay tuned for my next two blog posts as there is definitely more to share about student journalists major covering sporting events. (Hints: a Q-and-A with a university official and an offering from another academic about the school and organization where she works.)

By the way, this is my second article published by Poynter.org. The first, which I shared when it ran in August, was "New Pew study confirms digital divide in mobile news interest." Hoping for more articles in the future.

Having interviewed hundreds of people in his Hall of Fame broadcast journalism career, Mike Gousha laments those cable TV show hosts who aim to prosecute their guests at the expense of civility and a fair exchange of ideas. "At the end of the day, the guest is entitled to his or her opinion," Gousha said yesterday while visiting my journalism seminar class on elections and campaigns. "I'm a firm believer that people make intelligent decisions when they are presented with information. I think people are a lot smarter than we give them credit for."

Gousha spent 25 years as a reporter, anchor and public affairs program host in Milwaukee – indeed, he had the kind of career I wanted upon enrolling as a broadcast journalism major at Marquette University in 1980. Gousha is now a distinguished fellow in law and public policy at the university's law school and hosts "Upfront With Mike Gousha," a Sunday morning program airing statewide. Marquette undergraduates know him primarily as host of "On the Issues With Mike Gousha," the program that brings newsmakers and policy shapers to campus. "We are trying to make a difference in the political discourse in our community," he told my class.

My students clearly enjoyed listening to Gousha talk about the media's role and responsibility in fostering public debate. (It's been a good week for JOUR 4953, as his visit followed that of polling extraordinaire Charles Franklin on Tuesday.) He also discussed the impact of social media on political campaigns, saying candidates love that Facebook lets them better control their message. He also offered some ideas for when the students, as a class assignment, will spend time individually or in pairs covering the Wisconsin primary on April 3.

The class ended with Gousha helping me to urge the students to ask tough questions of those who very much wish they would not. "It's hard," even for someone with his experience and credibility, Gousha said. "You can ask great questions – tough questions – and you don't always get an answer."

Afterward, Gousha shared this with me via email: "Thanks so much for the opportunity to visit with your class. I had a great time and particularly enjoyed the interaction with the students. They were smart, engaged and asked some terrific questions. From where I sat, the future of journalism looked pretty bright, indeed."

While preparing for our journalism seminar on elections and campaigns this spring, James Scotton and I quickly wanted Charles Franklin, a visiting professor of law and public policy at the Marquette Law School, as a guest speaker. But upon telling the class recently that Franklin's visit would happen yesterday, at least one student wasn't feeling it. At least, not initially. See, Franklin is a nationally recognized expert in polling and voter analyses.

"What could be so interesting about polls?" Tessa Fox, a sophomore journalism major, wrote in her weekly blog post. "I thought I got into journalism to stay away from math and numbers. However, after reading some background material about Professor Franklin and the polling process, I realized polling is actually pretty interesting."

Franklin, who told the class that he did his first poll when just a sixth grader, talked about his role in directing a comprehensive, independent survey of voter attitudes in Wisconsin while at the law school. The visiting professor also discussed the opportunities missed now that fewer news organizations can afford to do their own polling.

The students prepped for Franklin's visit by watching, during its last class before spring break, his hourlong "On the Issues With Mike Gousha" presentation on the law school's poll. They also had to review related material for journalists using polls – The New York Times Polling Standards, A Quick Checklist for Using Polls in the Paper and Understanding and Interpreting Polls – and other Web pages focused on the Marquette poll, including Likely Voter Crosstabs and Obama Leads GOP Field as Santorum Surges in Primary.

In her subsequent blog post, Fox said the guest speaker inspired her: "He said he would love to survey people about life in general. More specifically, how they live, how much time they attribute to various activities and the importance level of different material and non-material things. As someone who is very interested in cultural anthropology, I would be very interested to see this poll actually conducted and analyze the results."

Well said. Maybe in the future she won't sigh when I tell the class that someone special is coming to visit.

I have been blessed to celebrate many birthdays in my life, but rarely had one seemed so public as mine did yesterday. Facebook revealed to my students what I would not have otherwise, and they showed me plenty of love with "Happy Birthday" wishes from midnight on via that social media site and, of course, Twitter. The love extended throughout the day in the Diederich College of Communication hallways and one of my classes had cookies waiting when we met in the afternoon. I hesitate to mention the "cat greetings" in the class Facebook groups.

Actually, I had been feeling the love all week. On Monday, a student posted in the Digital Journalism II group that #JOUR1100 and #JOUR1550 – "students tweeting for journalism courses" – were among the "100 @MarquetteU Twitter hashtags to watch for," according to the postmarq blog post, "A Field Guide to the Hashtags of @MarquetteU." The blog belongs to Mykl Novak, a Marquette employee and alumnus. As reported on my blog before, my students also can take credit for Novak citing the #muprez tag, for all those many tweets relating to the university's president, the Rev. Scott Pilarz, S.J., or his inauguration in September.

Then, more love two days ago, this time from the student media in Johnston Hall. Guess who made The Marquette Journal's list of "Top 5 Marquette Tweeters"? Alexandra Whittaker's article in the magazine's "College Life" section posted online said that "Lowe uses Twitter to interact with students and to post updates on his blog, and this makes his Twitter feed lively and engaging. It is certainly one to follow." It's definitely humbling to be among "Marquette's most interesting Twitter birds" and I'm especially excited to be cited above @ShitMUDoesntSay.

Alas, not all went as I had hoped on my birthday, given that Marquette's men's basketball team lost its quarterfinal matchup against Louisville in the Big East Tournament. But my wife, Mira, cooked me a lobster dinner. All is well.

Students in my Digital Journalism II (JOUR 1550) course this week chose their community journalism assignments as part of our collaboration with the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service. As I shared in an earlier post, the 10 students will work as pairs this semester to produce multimedia packages profiling 2012 MANDI finalists.

We spent most of our time in class yesterday focusing on how to best conduct interviews. Most of the students don't yet have much experience in student media and only one has any in broadcast. So I did a quick Internet search for sure-fire tips on how journalists prepare for interviews and then conduct themselves while in the midst of one. These tips will help journalism students whether they are using audio recorders or depending on pen and paper only.

Sarah Stuteville offers 13 Simple Journalist Techniques for Effective Interviews. Among them, Stuteville writes, are "be a little annoying" – as in don't be afraid to revisit a question or topic that hasn't been completely answered – and "be a little sneaky," or, in other words, remember to continue taking notes even after the interview is over. In Top 10 Tips for Conducting an Exceptional Interview, Pat Flynn reminds us to remember our audience, prepare open-ended questions, strive for a high-quality production and, yes, to have fun. "If you make it seem like a task or a chore, then it will reflect in the interview – and that's not what we want," Flynn writes.

Shreyasi Majumdar provides 10 more tips in The Art of "Question": How to Conduct a Good Journalistic Interview. They range from selecting interviewees with care to setting clear rules for the interview to avoiding stupid questions. "Interviewees do not like being asked questions which insult their intelligence," Majumdar writes, adding that if you think about to ask one, "take a step back, think about the question again, rephrase if necessary, and then present it more intelligently." For broadcast interviews, Angela Grant presents six tips in Audio Interview Advice Also Useful for Video, including don't let you equipment get in the way, asking the speaker to repeat what's just been said if someone coughs or the dog barks, and don't ruin it all with uh-huhs. "Simple nods and smiles are enough to let people know you're listening," Grant writes.

If all these aren't enough, David Sparks shares 30 Tips on How to Interview Like a Journalist that he writes come from his questioning fellow journalists for their best advice. From making the interviewee comfortable, to asking to spell and pronounce their name and title, to asking about feelings, to not trying to fill the void – give the subject time to answer – there's plenty to learn and consider among these tips, whether it's for print, blog, radio, TV and films.

Finally, in 50 Common Interview Q&A, Bhuvana Sundaramoorthy begins with "tell me about yourself" and ends with "do you have any questions for me?" Clearly, this list offers typical job interview questions. But they also can be used or altered by a journalist asking about a person, institution, team, organization, community, etc. For their news service assignments, for example, my students can ask a nonprofit leader, "What motivates you to do your best on the job?" or "Why (did) you want to work for this organization?" or "What is your (organization's) greatest strength?"

Any student that makes smart use of these dozens of interview tips will almost certainly return with a nice story.