Out-of-Class #2: One More Example

7/18/16

MSU Alumni

A Michigan State degree can help immensely after graduating, and some MSU alumni are proving it.

Michigan State is one of the most prestigious universities in, not only Michigan, but the whole United States. Students who graduate usually leave with a bigger brain and a lifetime of memories that they will cherish for the rest of their lives. They will also leave with a degree that looks impressive on any resume.

HOW CAN WE QUANTIFY THAT CLAIM? WHAT ARE THE STATS FOR MSU ALUMS GETTING JOBS VERSUS OTHER SCHOOLS OR THE NATIONAL AVERAGE? IS IT HIGHER OR LOWER? WHAT DO HEADHUNTERS AND CAREER ADVISERS SAY? DON’T JUST MAKE THE CLAIM; SUBSTANTIATE IT

Take it from 23-year-old Scott Oldham, who graduated from Michigan State three years ago with a degree in mechanical engineering.  The choice for him to study there was easy, he said.  He decided after his first visit to the school, and seeing how extraordinary the campus was, he knew he belonged there.

Since graduating, he didn’t have any trouble finding work and now works for Solar City, which is an energy provider.  He says he has no regrets about choosing MSU, and said, “They definitely made me into what I am today. HOW SO? DETAIL AND EXPLAIN. DON’T JUST TELL ME IT MADE ME; SHOW ME HOW IT MADE ME Things are going great.”

Oldham isn’t the only person who has had no problems finding work out of college.  21-year-old Jason Schick graduated a year early last year. After graduation he also was able to find work right away, and now he works full time at a physical therapy office as a rehab technician. 

“Yeah the job is going great,” says Schick, “and I plan on going to med school too but I’m not sure where yet.” Clearly, things are going good for him too and his degree and 4.0 GPA have to take most of the blame for that.

SAME THING: WHAT WAS IT, SPECIFICALLY, ABOUT MSU THAT HE THINKS GAVE HIM AN EDGE? DON’T JUST TELL ME THE GENERALITY; SHOW ME THE SPECIFICS AS WELL

Even though graduating students may not always find work in their field right out of college, there are still other things that can be done with a degree. 

Adam Javery, who graduated two years ago with degree in communications, was not able to find a job right away. 

After a year out of school he made the choice to join the United States Airforce.  AIR FORCE IS TWO WORDS PER ITS FULL AND FORMAL TITLE, PER AP STYLE However, with his bachelor’s degree, he was able to move up the ranks fast and now sits as a 2^nd Lieutenant as he trains in San Antonio, Texas.

HOW DID HIS BACHELOR’; DEGREE AND SPECIFICALLY ONE FROM MSU HELP HIM COMPARED TO OTHERS? DON’T JUST TELL ME; SHOW ME

When Javery finishes his training he will pilot flying drones for the military, meaning he will be controlling a flying vehicle while he controls it on the ground below.

With how successful his early military career has been, Javery plans to stay in the service for at least six more years. “So the normal time served in the military is usually four years, but I really like where it’s going so I’m not sure how long I’m going to stay in yet.”

Getting a degree is what matters most when pursuing a career after college, ACCORDING TO WHOM? WHAT IS THE DATA FOR THAT? but don’t let that take away the importance of the experiences that Michigan State brings its students every year. 

The reason Javery initially wanted to attend MSU was because he wanted to join the marching band.  Even though he didn’t make it, he said that he still loved seeing them perform around campus and at football games.

He also was a part of the intermural soccer league and the long board club.  “I met so many people in that club. We would have a whole squad and would just roll through campus all day on our long boards.”

AND HOW DID THOSE EXPERIENCES HELP HIM GET A JOB? WE NEED TO TIE IT BACK IN IF THERE IS A TIE, AND IF THERE ISN’T WE NEED TO CUT THIS OUT

Michigan State is full of clubs like these that help students from all over campus come together and meet people with the same interests as them.  Scott Oldham was also a part of intermural soccer as well and he said that after joining the team he found out that a lot of them played soccer almost every day. “It was good that I found something to do, otherwise I would have just sat in my dorm all the time.”

Jason Schick says, like most people, the best times were when he and his friends would go to the sporting events, mainly football.  “Everyone there just has a good time, well, unless we’re losing of course.” 

AGAIN, WHY DOES ANY OF THIS MATTER TO THE POINT OF MSU GIVING PEOPLE A A CAREER EDGE? HAVE IT MAKE SENSE FOR ME

As one of the greatest universities in the land, Michigan State has clearly not only been giving a great experience while they attend, but it has also been preparing its students to be successful after college. 

A degree from one of the top schools in the country and a lifetime of memories are just part of what MSU brings its students.

Word Count: 724

ASSIGNMENT GRADE: (REDACTED)

INSTRUCTOR COMMENTS: THE BIGGEST PROBLEM WE HAVE WITH THIS STORY IS THAT IT IS TOO ONE-SIDED. ALL WE HAVE ARE QUOTES FROM PEOPLE WHO WENT TO SCHOOL HERE: NO SCHOOL OFFICIALS LIKE CAREER COUNSELORS, NO PEOPLE WHO HIRED MSU GRADS TO SEE IF THEY ACTUALLY USED THE PERSON’S MSU EXPERIENCE AS A REASON TO HIRE THEM; NO NEUTRAL EXPERT LIKE A BUSINESS PROF WHO SPECIALIZES IN EMPLOYMENT ISSUES TO COMMENT ON WHAT FACTORS DO MATTER WHEN GETTING HIRED AND HOW WHERE YOU WENT TO SCHOOL RANKS, AND NO DATA TESTING YOUR PREMISE THAT MSU GIVES PEOPLE AN EDGE. WHAT IS THE DATA FOR MSUERS GETTING JOBS, AND HOW SOON THEY GET THEM, AND HOW IT COMPARES TO NATIONAL AVERAGES? PLUS, WE DON’T GET ENOUGH INTO DETAILS; WE HAVE SOMEONE SAY MSU GAVE THEM AN EDGE, BUT THEN WE DON’T SAY WHAT THAT EDGE WAS, OR HOW IT PLAYED ITSELF OUT. DON’T JUST TELL ME SOMETHING IS SO; SHOW ME THE DETAILS PROVING IT.

Job Shadows: What You Saw, Part 2

Here's a sampling of some of the various job shadows done by you all. Take a look and see what you can learn from everyone's visits. There's a lot of good stuff here to help you decide what you want to do with your lives; what you need to be doing to get there; and what to expect when you do get there.

We will add more job shadow reports to the blog as they are completed. Please give each one of these a quick read, will you?

*****

I spent my day job shadowing reporter/anchor/multimedia journalist, Susan El Khoury, from WILX 10 in Lansing.

Susan requested that I come in later in the day so that she would have the time to talk to me more and give me a better outlook on the job. When I arrived in the afternoon she went over what the morning meeting was like and showed me around the office. I noticed that everyone was concentrating very hard and working quickly in order to get their news stories ready for the 6:00 broadcast. We then went over to her desk where she showed me the story she was working on about Lansing schools shortening their summer vacations. She explained to me how she went out that day to record interviews and shoot footage for the story. She also showed me the video of her broadcast of the story that was ready for the nights show.

Then when it was time we went into the newsroom where the anchors were conducting the 6:00 news. It was really interesting to see it behind the scenes and got me excited for the future. She told me that she anchors the news on the weekend mornings and she enjoys that part of her job but likes reporting and finding her own stories better. She explained how she wasn’t always set on being a journalist and how she received her master’s degree before finding a job in the field. She told me that it was easy for her to get this job but it isn’t always like that.

She also gave me tips on how to find stories, like having regular sources who call you to let you know when something interesting is going on, and staying up to date on police department’s Facebook pages. I thought this was helpful and will definitely think about that when finding my next story.

Throughout my time there I saw how hard it would be to be a reporter, but I really like fast paced jobs and think that I may enjoy being a reporter in the future. However the news she reported on is not something I am interested in, I would much rather write for a magazine like Cosmo on fashion and beauty than on local news. My favorite part was seeing behind the scenes with the on air anchors, which is definitely something I can see myself doing as a possible career. 

Blog/Tweets #1: Some Good Examples

First, regarding your grade on this assignment if you did not receive an email back from me with a grade, that means you got a 4.0 on each segment of the assignment, with the tweet street, , the preview post and the recap post each counting as a practice story grade toward your final grade.

Some general observations, first for tweets:

• Don't forget a lede tweet! People need to know what you are about to start streaming, right?
• It's good to use pics and hyperlinks in your tweet stream.
• It's also good to have some quote tweets embedded in your stream.

Now, for blog posts:

• Be sure to lede each post like we would a story, with end result and ultimate outcome.
• Remember blog posts are intended to be read in a stream, so make it complementary to the previous post or posts.
• Then again, remember that when blog readers start reading a blog, they don't go all the way back to the first post ever and then work their way back; they start where they start. So each post has to have just enough background to get people up to speed.
• Don't forget hyperlinks!

Now, some examples of the work that you guys did. Do take a look to see how it compares to what you did:

Hannah: summer fun day tweets and blog posts #backyardsummerfun

Simone: youth championships tweets and blog posts #wearewatchinghistory

Amy: summer camp tweets and blog posts #summercamp2k16

Patricia: family basketball tweets and blog posts #budreauballgame

Carina: toddler goes to the beach tweets and blog posts #zandertakesonthebeach 

Jake: watching a movie tweets and blog posts #classicmovieswwithjakeandshawn

JRN 200: Your Homework For The Week Of Monday 7/18

Now that your second out-of-class story and blog/tweets assignments are in, I'll start going over them. Here's some work to keep you busy until then:

First, start working on your third and optional fourth out-of-class story pitches. Use the same formats as before. If you choose to do a fourth story, it will replace your worst grade from your other three stories. Your pitch deadline is no later than 9 a.m. Monday, July 25 to omars@msu.edu.

Second, we now have a video story assignment. For this assignment, you will be asked to create a news video no shorter than 1 minute long and no longer than 2 minutes long, on the subject of, what have people been up to this summer? Your interview subjects can be working or going to classes or hanging out; whatever. 

You will be required to interview at least two people on-camera and shoot b-roll (a video camera would be great, but a simple Flip cam or a good smart phone will suffice); edit the raw video using iMovie or FinalCut Pro or some other comparable video editing software; create an edited news video with a lede and attribution and such; upload the video to the YouTube account you were supposed to create for this class; make sure that the YouTube account is set to a public setting (and not private); and then email me a link to the video to omars@msu.edu, with  a subject line of video #1.

As long as you meet the basic parameters of this assignment, I will give you a 4.0 equal to that of a practice story. Those parameters include:

-- staying within the 1-2 minute range and on-topic
-- containing at least two human interviews on tape
-- containing B-roll
-- showing signs of editing; that is, not simply pasting entirely unedited tape onto YouTube. You want to create a video story using raw video as a base to be edited and moved around, in the same way we want to write a text story using raw information as a base to be edited and moved around.
-- containing NO fatals

The penalty for failing to meet these parameters is 0.5 of your grade, per error. In addition, a fatal resulted in a 1.0 grade. And failure to turn it in, of course, is a 0.0. Please review the video links provided in the earlier blog post to get an idea of what this assignment may look like, in finished form.

These same deductions will apply on all future multimedia assignments. But future assignments WILL include consideration of content and journalistic value.

The deadline for this assignment will be no later than 9 a.m. Monday, July 25 via email to omars@msu.edu. Again, you should be emailing me links to your YouTube account, and not an attached video file.

If you are unsure about your topic or fuzzy on some of these concepts like B-roll or captions or whatever, or if you have any questions whatsoever, PLEASE DO NOT HESITATE TO CONTACT ME AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!

Third, I will have your graded out-of-class stories back to you later this week. Your rewrite deadline will be no later than 9 a.m. Monday, Aug. 1 to omars@msu.edu.

Now, how do you do the video assignment? Follow along in the following posts, and good luck, everyone! 

Video #1: What Are You Doing?

For the first video assignment, I am asking you to do a news video on the topic of, what are people doing with their summer?

For this assignment, you will have to interview at least two people on-camera about what they've been up to this summer.

The videos must run between 1 and 2 minutes long. Each must start out with some sort of a title caption (sort of like a lede), so that the audience knows what the story is going to be about. The story should include video of your interview subjects talking (sort of like quotes in a story), and those subject shots should include captions identifying the people who are speaking (sort of like attribution).

Of course, the stories should have no fatals -- not in terms of what people are saying (it must be true), and captions should have proper spellings and titles. All because it's video doesn't mean we operate at a lower standard than print. Be sure you do thorough double-checking of the information you gather.

(See? Lots of concepts we worked on are true regardless of medium.) 

Also, the videos should contain B-roll. What is b-roll, you ask? It is video showing what your story is about, that you use to break up segments of the video.

For example, let's say you are interviewing people about what they're doing this summer, and one interview subject is making burgers at McDonald's, and the other is going to the beach every day. B-roll would be showing what they're doing: shots of one person flipping greasy burgers, and of the other person laying on the beach as waves roll in.

Then, we would use some of that b-roll to break up the interview segments. For example,you know that standard shot of someone talking in a video interview, where you just see their head and they're talking blah-blah-blah? You would start a segment with that, then while they're still talking, you roll some b-roll over the sound, so that people can see what the person is talking about at the same time they're talking about it.

(That goes back to a print concept: show the audience; don't just tell them. At the same time, it breaks up that monotonous shot of someone just talking).

Then, you return to the head shot and end the segment.

Also, B-roll can be used during transitions between segments, to help illustrate those transitions.

Some good b-roll examples can be found in the following videos from some past classes, where the topic was, "What have you learned sofar in JRN 200?" Classmates were used as interview subjects. Like your assignment, it required two human sources on tape per video. 


Off we go:

Andrea 

Shanin T.

Emily

Julia

Video #1: How A Past Summer's Bunch Did It

Okay, so here's a recap of some of the videos from a past summer's first assignment,which is the same as yours. Overall, I thought they did very, very well on this assignment, espcially considering it was a first-time video in this class. Lots of good B-roll, good story flows, ect. Certainly some things that can be tweaked, but that's to be expected.

Let's look for what worked and what didn't and what you could borrow. Here we go:

Julie: This one is a lot of fun. Notice the home-made graphics, which help tell the story textually, but in a visual manner. More good B-roll ideas here for an otherwise hard-to-illustrate story, by showing screen grabs of weather forecasts. Other B-roll ideas could have come from getting generic video of people doing summer activities: hanging out at a pool or the beach, people jogging and sweating, ect. That's B-roll any of us can shoot, and at any time. 

Aaron: Want to see an example of lots of varied B-roll? This video got a bunch. See if you can get some ideas on how a simple topic can have varied B-roll, showing all aspects of something routine.

Kristen: More good use of B-roll, with the B-roll matching what the person is talking about at that particular moment. We want to be sure to match the sound to the visual when mating B-roll to audio.


Also, again we had redundancy in having a caption naming the speaker, and the speaker saying their own name. Ideally, just let the caption do the identifying, and save air time for the substance of what the person is actually talking about.


Daniella: This vid used still photos as B-roll, which is totally acceptable. Note how she fades in and out of the still images, to create a sense of movement within the video. Nice job.

But we're missing captions to tell us who we're talking to -- just like attribution in a written story -- and the vid is well short of the 1-minute minimum. We could have filled more time in a meaningful way by extending the interview segments.

Robert: We're missing a title slide, but there's other things executed well here. Note the captions identifying the speaker; it helps with attribution without the speaker having to name himself and waste air time doing so. And this is how B-roll is best used: to roll in the middle of the interview, while the interview is still going on. But make sure that the B-roll matches what the interview subject is talking about at that moment. In the second interview, the speaker is talking about out-of-state trips and the B-roll was of a campus building. Better B-roll would have been something representative of out-of-state vacationing.

Khadija:  Here, we are heavy on the use of a narrator to help move the story along, and that's fine. Whether you use narration or not depends on which ways are best to tell a particular story. Like in print, we pick presentation style not based on our preferences, but by what better and best tells the given story. Also, the first interview segment better uses B-roll, with the B-roll being specific to exactly what the speaker is talking about at the moment.

Speaking of speakers, not the audio is uneven. I'm not gonna ding you for that, because you're working with pretty basic equipment. But it's something we need to be aware of as we get experience and better resources; bad audio can make great video irrelevant. Let's make sure we get mics as close as we can to our subjects, and get clear audio.

Danielle: Nice array of interviews, but we sorely needed B-roll to show the actions of what people were talking about, and to break up those long interview segments. Also, like with print attribution, on first attribution in captions we need first AND last names. 

Brittany: Again, we need B-roll. In a video format that emphasizes activity and action, it's not enough to have people telling us what they're doing; we need to see what they are doing, as they are doing it.

In the second of two interviews, the image is upside-down. Did I ding you for that? Not on this first one. I'm letting go a lot of technical problems just on this first one so you can get used to shooting and editing and the problems that can ensue, and at the same time allow you to get the hang of technical aspects like B-roll and captioning and such, while giving all of us some things to look at, build off of, emulate and/or avoid in the future.

JRN 200: Your Thursday 7/14 Homework

What is due will be:

-- At least 12 tweets regarding a happening or event you are observing; and,
-- Two breaking news blog posts on the same event, with one post previewing the event, and the other recapping it.
  Parameters of that content include:

-- Each breaking news entry being about the SAME topic, being covered as a preview and then a recap of what happened;
-- Each breaking news story staying between 100 and 200 words each, with each being no shorter than 100 words;
-- The breaking news stories being written in a journalistic style, as opposed to a first-person blog-like style;
-- Each breaking news item containing two working hyperlinks, inserted onto text;
-- A minimum of 12 tweets on the same subject as the breaking news topic; and,
-- Each tweet having a consistent unique hash tag, to allow the tweets to be chained together.

Now, on these assignments, everyone will get a 4.0 as long as long as we meet the basic parameters of the assignment.

The penalty for failing to meet these parameters is 0.5 of your grade, per error. So, if your tweets lacked a consistent unique hashtag, you got a 3.5. If your breaking news stories lacked topic consistency AND the minimum hyperlinks, you got a 3.0.

In addition, a fatal resulted in a 1.0 grade. And failure to turn it in, of course, is a 0.0.

These same deductions will apply on all future multimedia assignments. But future assignments WILL include consideration of content and journalistic value.

Your deadline will be no later than 9 a.m. Monday, July 18 by email to omars@msu.edu. Again, you should be emailing me links to your Twitter and Blogger accounts, and not actual text.

Now, how are you supposed to do this assignment? Please follow the latest blog updates below to get that straightened out. This assignment isn't a hard one; you'll see.

If you are unsure about your topic or fuzzy on some of these concepts like hashtags or hyperlinks or whatever, or if you have any questions whatsoever, PLEASE DO NOT HESITATE TO CONTACT ME AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!

Plus, don't forget you still have your second out-of-class story is also due no later than 9 a.m. Monday, July 18 via email to omars@msu.edu.