The Diederich College of Communication presented Hall of Fame broadcaster Dick Enberg as this year's Axthelm Memorial Lecture speaker last week at the Alumni Memorial Union on campus. Hundreds of people packed a ballroom to hear Enberg, a 14-time Emmy Award winner, reflect on his experiences with Al McGuire, his longtime broadcast partner and, of course, the beloved coach who led Marquette's men's basketball team to the 1977 NCAA championship. Calling his lecture "Communicating in a World of Noise," he also shared his five "points of power" for succeeding in journalism: pause, perseverance, presentation, humor and kindness.

Enberg also met with students and classes during his latest visit to Marquette – he served as its commencement speaker in 2009 – including a "news conference" after the lecture for my Digital Journalism I (JOUR 1100) class that my Diederich College colleagues James Pokrywczynski and Julie Rosene arranged. Surprising that only one of my 14 students had heard of Enberg when I first said they would use Twitter to cover his lecture. Certainly, I had heard him exclaim his signature "Oh my!" during countless significant sports events of the past generation.

This was the first live-tweeting experience for most of the students. (Of course, I shared what their predecessors had accomplished by live tweeting Marquette's presidential inauguration last fall.) We had practiced in class the week before and some had used the 2012 Grammy Awards and other recent events to try it out. In class after the lecture, they said the #muenberg live tweeting helped them, among other things, focus on their writing; extend their journalism to as far as Puerto Rico; capture moments not typically reported in news articles, and inform and engage MU alumni, students and employees unable to attend. We then discussed curating social media, employing tools and tips used by many professional news agencies and people worldwide.

Indeed, a few students from my other courses this semester (JOUR 1550 and JOUR 4953) also live-tweeted the lecture for their Storify assignments. And the word is spreading across campus. Last night, the Marquette University Student Government speakers commissioner emailed me to ask if I would assign students to live tweet Morgan Spurlock's campus visit on Thursday. The commissioner wrote that "friends studying journalism" had referred her to me. Actually, some in my JOUR 1550 class already plan to live tweet this event; they even had me change the deadline so they could. Still, I love it that students outside of Johnston Hall appreciate what's happening in my classes – and, yes, hope more of them will answer the commissioner's call.

Finally, it must be shared that #muenberg trended in Milwaukee, reaching the same success that #muprez achieved when my classes live tweeted the inauguration. Another sign of progress: Diederich College Dean Lori Bergen encouraged those tweeting to use #muenberg while welcoming them to the Axthelm lecture. With apologies to Enberg, must admit that when the dean did that, I could only say to myself, "Oh my!"

I was minding my business at the Journalism Interactive: The Conference on Journalism Education & Digital Media when an interesting tweet appeared among many others on the fast-and-furious live #jiconf stream on Twitter:

Still new at teaching my journalism students how to report, write and edit using social media, #retweetethics certainly interested me, so I quickly tweeted back affirmatively. Honestly, I thought it would lead to learning about such simple matters as using MT to indicate modified tweet. Well, it ended up leading to so much more – including, much to my surprise and pleasure, me recently having, for the first time, an article published in an academic journal.

Ironically, the tweeter – Ginny Whitehouse, an associate professor at Eastern Kentucky University – was sitting two rows behind me at the conference held at the University of Maryland. Whitehouse explained that, as cases and commentaries editor for the Journal of Mass Media Ethics, she needed articles concerning a major lapse in journalism ethics. Her case study stemmed from a fake study claiming to link intelligence and Web browser choice.

Already overwhelmed as a faculty member and graduate school student, I worried about taking on another major assignment, especially since Whitehouse stressed she needed it soon. Ever the student, I initially tried to see if my research for this task could match a similar mandate in my media law course. That didn't work. My first draft submitted to Whitehouse suited the course assignment much better than an ethics journal. But, much to her credit, she would not let me give up and offered great advice on how to proceed. So, too, did Bonnie Brennen, my Diederich College colleague and grad school teacher who is determined to turn me into a critical thinker.

Both Whitehouse and Brennen liked my second draft much better. My article, "An Online Hoax Reminds Journalists to Do Their Duty" – available online and here on my site – is part of a collection of enlightening articles written about the hoax by Whitehouse, Lyn Millner, Wendy Wyatt, David Craig, and Rick Kenney and Kimiko Akita. Must admit it feels good to have an article published in an academic journal, something I didn't see coming so suddenly. When I shared the news with my colleagues at our journalism faculty meeting today, I joked it meant moving further into the dark side. All smiled when someone shot back that I was actually moving closer into the light. Touche´.

The Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service yesterday unveiled a special report focusing on eight nonprofit organizations that provide services to residents in local communities. Writing here with much pride that my Digital Journalism II students last fall created the 17 stories for the series, "How Service Agencies Work, From Inside and Out." Even more pleased that NNS Editor Sharon McGowan wishes to continue the series as she and I send those students enrolled in my latest JOUR 1550 class to profile another group of notable agencies and residents.

McGowan met with JOUR 1550 last week to help me introduce the news service and to reveal this semester's community journalism assignments; they will be from among the 15 finalists for the 2012 MANDI (Milwaukee Awards for Neighborhood Development Innovation). "Anyone of these makes a good story, I think," she told the class.

The editor and I then shared what we learned from our first experience working together. First and foremost, she said, more than a few students last semester seemed unprepared to craft and report a 400-word story. Next, too many factual errors – or, as McGowan put it, "stupid mistakes" related to names, dates, etc. "I really need much more attention to accuracy than I had from the last class," she said. "The factual errors just eat away at our (NNS) credibility. ... Here's how I want you to feel if that happens: I want you to feel sick."

We're just getting started. "Students did not go into the interview sufficiently prepared," McGowan said, noting that agency leaders shared afterward that some had not spent enough time becoming familiar with their assignments. Source information was another problem. With any story, at any level of journalism, editors will likely have questions requiring reporters to reach back to those interviewed for more answers. For the JOUR 1550 assignments, however, many students did not get any contact information for the residents they spoke with. Not even a cell phone number, which seemed to particularly perplex McGowan. "We haven't come across anyone – in any neighborhood or income level – who doesn't have a cell phone or have access to one," she said. "We have to know how to reach them."

Other concerns included knowing when to ask your editor for help and trusting when he or she says to cut bait. Case in point: one pair of students found an organization's leaders inaccessible for way too long. When McGowan proposed another group to feature, the pair dallied and ended up stressing during finals week to complete their work. (Oh yes, being published by NNS represented a significant part of each student's final grade.)

For sure, these matters left me feeling charged, indicted and convicted as an instructor. Last semester was the first time I sent students into the community for assignments. In my three prior terms, I had only had assigned them to cover events on Marquette's campus, and in most cases I attended as well, so spotting factual errors was easy and sourcing wasn't a major problem, either. Of course, community work is much more instructional, it inspires students much more to do their best work and getting published by a professional news service provides invaluable exposure. On the other hand, because neither McGowan nor I live in Wisconsin, fact-checking and sourcing is crucial.

All this to say the instructor and editor are better prepared to help JOUR 1550 and news service succeed. Most importantly, the students will begin their community work much earlier in the course. Instead of distinct multimedia packages on both a service provider and service recipient, they will produce just one package about their agency. Each package will offer multiple sources and longer text stories – 650 words long instead of 400. Also, they will submit drafts of their text stories long before the final deadline, so there's more time for editing and fact-checking.

To be very clear, JOUR 1550 produced some exceptional work last semester for the news service, which is proudly promoting it as a series on its website. (Indeed, McGowan hired two of the students – Tessa Fox and Heather Ronaldson – as interns for this term.) Every news agency spends time learning how to make its product and journalists better, and what me and McGowan learned last term will surely better prepare my students for internships and their first jobs. If nothing else, there's satisfaction in having their work viewed by more than just their instructor.

Here's what Kenya Evans, a part-time beat reporter for the news service, told the class last week after McGowan discussed how the local Fox News affiliate re-published one of her stories:  "It feels good to know the stories are getting out there and that people are reading them." Based on these tweets below, my class is ready to get started:

The 2012 presidential election is well underway and students at colleges and universities across America are paying close attention. Everyone knows how much of an impact college students had on the 2008 campaign, particularly their enthusiastic support of Barack Obama and his quest to make history as a groundbreaking candidate promising hope and renewal for the country. It is and was no different at Marquette University.

This semester, I'm proudly co-teaching a seminar course with my Diederich College of Communication colleague, James Scotton, that focuses on how the media report on political campaigns and local, state and national elections. Among the course objectives are gathering and curating social media to tell and present stories about campaigns and elections; developing a journalist's blog that offers fair and accurate commentary about media coverage, and analyzing how candidates use the media – and money – to shape their campaign messages.

The course textbook is "The Obama Victory: How Media, Money and Message Shaped the 2008 Election." Published in 2010 by Oxford University Press, the book is authored by three scholars – Kate Kenski, Bruce Hardy, and Kathleen Jamieson – and addresses why Obama's election will go down as among the most pivotal in U.S. presidential history. As this is primarily a writing course, each student will write a weekly analysis of a book chapter and attempt to apply its findings and concepts to the national campaign underway four years later.

Each of the 12 students this semester will also offer a 10-minute presentation about a hot-button election issue; the choices were abortion, civil rights, civil unions, criminal justice, the economy, education, the environment, family values, foreign affairs, health care, homeland security and immigration. They will also each present their findings about an assigned contested congressional, gubernatorial or mayoral campaign; live tweet from a couple of political events on campus, and blog at least once weekly about political coverage from an assigned news media website.

Here's hoping the Republican presidential nomination isn't decided any time soon, as we'll have much deeper and more relevant discussion if Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich continue to pummel one another with their political ads and the media get to demonstrate their strengths and weaknesses in the heat of battle. I'm slated to teach the course again in the fall, when the GOP nominee tries to keep Obama from being re-elected. Looking forward to it.

This is my third semester teaching Digital Journalism II in the Diederich College of Communication at Marquette University and so I hope to build on the success of my previous class in the fall. The course objectives remain the same: producing and promoting digital news stories using text, images and audio; understanding key industry trends, technologies and multimedia reporting techniques; working solo and or in teams to produce stories and packages for the Web, and using social media to build a following and "brand" as a digital journalist.

Once again, the course textbook is the second edition of "Aim For The Heart: Write, Shoot, Report and Produce for TV and Multimedia." Published in 2011 by CQ Press, the book by Al Tompkins of the Poynter Institute is great for students because it stresses, among other things, finding memorable characters, writing inviting leads, using active verbs and objective adjectives, learning to listen during interviews and why pictures are so powerful.

Each of the 10 students this semester will pursue a Digital Journalism Basics certificate from Poynter's News University, write a weekly blog post related to their assigned news media website; produce a Storify from each of four events on campus they will live tweet; produce two multimedia packages called "One at Marquette" and based on The New York Times' extraordinary "One in 8 Million" collection; and, with a partner, produce a multimedia package about a local nonprofit organization and assigned by the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service.

The students will share and promote their coursework on their respective digital portfolios created via Weebly.com. Those portfolios can be accessed collectively from the same webpage here. Check their progress often.

In November, I reported that my Digital Journalism II (JOUR 1550) students had been assigned to produce two multimedia reports for the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service (MNNS). With yesterday's unveiling of a report by Kyle Doubrava and Eric Oliver about a veteran preschool teacher at Neighborhood House of Milwaukee (see below), the news service has published nine of 18 reports the class produced in the fall. The remaining pieces will be made available for the public on the new organization's website in the coming weeks.

This was the first time Sharon McGowan, the news service's editor-in-chief, and I teamed to enable my students to practice digital journalism in neighborhoods near Marquette's campus. It was definitely a learning experience for all involved and McGowan and I aim to collaborate again with my spring JOUR 1550 class.

In an email expressing her appreciation, McGowan said the students impressed her as motivated to do their best work. (Disclosure: their final grade was tied to being published.) "Your class has provided valuable content on some of the many organizations and people in Milwaukee’s central city who work every day to make a difference in their communities," she wrote. "I was also grateful for the opportunity to participate in the class critiques of the audio slideshows, since it allowed me to hear your students’ thoughtful comments on each others’ work. I learned a lot."

The most significant thing McGowan and I learned this time, especially related to my end: have the students' companion print stories submitted sooner to allow more time for editing and additional reporting. She also wants only one print story; this time, it would longer (650 words), multi-sourced and packaged with separate, single-sourced audio slideshows about both a provider and beneficiary from the assigned community group. We also will insist students move onto Plan B if an organization, for whatever reason, fails to provide timely access.

Here are the other JOUR 1550 reports the news service has published: Our Next Generation (Sarah Butler and Tessa Fox), Art Works for Milwaukee (Andrea Anderson and Rebecca French), COA Youth and Family Centers (Elizabeth McGovern and Benjamin Sheehan), Select Milwaukee (Erin Caughey and Heather Ronaldson), Habitat for Humanity (Sarah Hauer), Centro Legal (Kathleen Doherty and Allison Kruschke), Next Door (Alec Brooks and Ryan Ellerbusch) and Urban Ecology Center (Benjamin Stanley).

As 2011 ends, please allow me to revisit my proudest moment as a journalism faculty member with a new Storify.

In late September, my digital journalism students at Marquette University made the most of an extraordinary campus opportunity – a presidential inauguration – that offered trial-by-fire experience and demonstrated the power of social media as a tool for journalism. Instead of the typical reporting and writing exercise, in which the students would each produce a 500-word story that just I would read – sigh! – they used Twitter to report on the inauguration. Their tweeting allowed countless Marquette alumni and supporters across the world to witness the ceremony live.

Tim Cigelske, a MU communication specialist and the campus social media guru, lauded the students' efforts. "I never thought we would surpass Sweet Sixteen," Cigelske said of the Twitter explosion following the men's basketball team's success last spring. He told my students that not only did their inauguration tweeting do so, it also netted the top eight trending topics in Milwaukee that day – "which is huge." (My Storify includes just a sampling from that day.)

The inauguration exercise also readied my students to use Twitter to cover events as reporters through the term. Indeed, live tweeting was only half of the inauguration assignment. Each student also had to create a Storify about the coverage. (The Poynter Institute offers five types of stories that make good Storifys.)
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No one knew what to expect beforehand. Those among my students who had tweeted regularly had mostly offered youthful banter. I stressed for class-related tweets using complete sentences, abiding AP style and correct grammar, spelling and punctuation, and no long or uncomplimentary hashtags such as #onmywaytowalgreenstobuylicorice and #icouldrantbutiwont. Both classes practiced with the Princess Diana eulogy before the ceremony. Each student then had to produce at least 12 tweets with their class hashtag and #muprez among the 140 characters.

After live tweeting beyond my wildest dreams, the next generation of professional scribes acted like true journalists – they went searching for food, assessed their own performance and found reasons to complain or blame their editor, that is, professor. That's OK. So gratifying when my students' work matters. Cigelske, formerly of The Associated Press, put it best when he told them during his class visit: "It was like you were all Associated Press reporters. You provided the color and the personality of being right there. You pretty much covered the spectrum – from breaking news to context to archival coverage. This is great training for ... your journalism careers, wherever it takes you."

'Tis the season, everyone! Earlier this week, my wife, Mira, received a wonderful digital holiday greeting from a friend via email. It made us smile broadly and was a welcome distraction as I sought to finish grading final exams.

The greeting reminded us of a few years back, when we were looking for a new way to convey holiday greetings to our family, friends and colleagues. In 2002, instead of cards, we mailed and handed out CDs with our favorite Christmas songs. The response was overwhelming. People loved them. So we did it again with another set of songs the next year, and then with other collections two of the next three years. It's gratifying that so many of our friends still play the CDs while wrapping gifts, entertaining guests or doing whatever their heart desires.

For this year, our friend's before-mentioned digital offering inspired us to produce our own holiday greeting – with a little help from our famous neighbors in Hyde Park, Chicago. We hope you enjoy it. Let us know what you think. 

Getting students in an introductory journalism course to embrace the Associated Press Stylebook is no easy task. Tell them that AP style is used in any significant newsroom, and by many public relations companies, and you will hear, "This is like taking me back to first grade." Tell them that learning AP style is key to writing with accuracy, consistency, clarity and authority, and you will hear, "Will I need my stylebook in other journalism classes?"

Frequent quizzes and a two-point penalty for each AP style error in writing assignments only add to the complaints. However, let the students compete in class to see who can correctly answer the most questions and suddenly – surprise! surprise! – it seems the stylebook is everyone's best friend. It warms my heart to see these aspiring journalists answer as many as 21 style questions in a row when bragging rights and prizes are on the line.

On the last class day each semester in my Digital Journalism I course, students compete for first, second and third place in the "JOUR 1100 AP Style Bowl." Briefly, here's how it works: divide the class into two teams and let them go at it until one reaches 21. Those on the winning team then get to vie for recognition and prizes. The questions come from AP style quizzes provided at Gerald Grow's Newsroom101.com. Previous end-of-semester winners: Caroline Campbell (spring 2010), Anthony Manno (fall 2010) and Erin Caughey (spring 2011).

Last week, Team Kvartunas upset Team Herndon in the most-competitive first-round match of any term so far, 21-20. ("We only got three wrong," said a disappointed member from the losing team. "We can't help it that they got 20 straight cupcakes.") The prize-winning round was just as fierce. One student was beside herself when she choose wrong between convince and persuade. Sympathetic protests came after another student didn't properly answer "noon" to the question asking, "The meeting is scheduled at ____________." 

In the end, sophomore Victor Jacobo emerged victorious when he chose "B" for the question, "Which is longer, a yard or a meter?" Afterward, Jacobo, the first broadcast and electronic communication major to win the Style Bowl, humbly accepted his $25 gift certificate and accolades (see ceremony video below). "I'm, like, ridiculously lucky at these things," he said to much laughter, "so it had nothing to do with, like, skill."

No luck or skill necessary, my friends. Whether it's for the JOUR 1100 final exam this afternoon, or for any opportunity henceforth, just a readiness to check the AP stylebook – for as the company's president, Tom Curley, writes in the foreword of its 2011 edition, it's "the essential tool for anyone who cares about good writing" and will help "make a story written anywhere understandable everywhere."

I had the pleasure yesterday of joining wartime journalists James Foley and Meg Jones as panelists on "Diederich Ideas: Reporting From the Front Line," the latest public-affairs program produced by broadcast journalism students at the Diederich College of Communication. Foley, a GlobalPost correspondent and fellow Marquette University graduate, was also on campus to speak about his being held captive for six weeks in Libya by Moammar Gadhafi loyalists earlier this year. Jones covers veterans and the military for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

A studio audience of 20 students listened intently behind us in the jPad lounge in Johnston Hall as Jordan Abudayyeh, a senior in the college, expertly moderated the hourlong program. It focused on complex issues facing journalists since the terrorists attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, including: Reporting on stories from the Middle East. Balancing national security concerns against the public’s right to know. Which stories are told and which ones are ignored? The challenges faced by embedded journalists. Has the public become desensitized to their reports?

The production also featured video "cut-ins" from broadcast journalists with considerable international experience: Catherine Herridge of Fox News, Lara Logan of CBS News, Martha Raddatz of ABC News and Mara Schiavocampo of NBC News. Their personal stories served as case studies for us to discuss on the program.

I very much enjoyed hearing Foley and Jones talk about their experiences overseas and appreciate their courage and passion for reporting from the front lines. Never wanting to be a foreign correspondent, I had my fill of conflict journalism as a Newsday staff writer reporting in Lower Manhattan that fateful day on 9/11. I want no parts of being near constant gunfire in another country, much less being held captive for 45 days like Foley.

Meanwhile, I also enjoyed witnessing so many Marquette students practicing their journalism during the taping. They did all the pre-production research, interviews, set design and graphics, and all the camera work, audio and editing during the program, said Julie Rosene, the college's event coordinator and a key adviser to their efforts. Post-production should be finished soon, after which it will be available for viewing on the college's website and, hopefully, on a local cable station in Milwaukee. There are plans for a new "Diederich Ideas" each semester.

I look forward to each and every one – and hope to have the chance to participate again.