Journalism

One of my best friends got married yesterday.  I miss her already, but I'm so happy for her and her husband.  They're great.  :)  I have two more weddings to go to this summer, and I thought that I would be freaking out more about the fact that my friends are getting married, but I'm really not, because I know that it's right and I'm so happy for them.  Change is part of growing up, but that doesn't make it easy.  :)

Grad school starts on Tuesday!

Okay, so the point of this post: my journalism major.  I've spent the better part of the last five weeks working on my capstone project for my journalism major.  This has at times caused me great frustration.  The journalism school at W&L has professional majors (like me) complete a six week in-depth journalism project to show off the fact that we've actually learned something in the past four years.  Each group of four has a topic that we're supposed to investigate in current events and especially in how it relates to Rockbridge County.  This year's groups are looking at alternative energy, emergency management, the mortgage crisis, and senior care facilities.  I'm in the alternative energy group.  We are supposed to report on multiple aspects of the topic, culminating in 15-20 minutes of video for the broadcast component, four or five print stories, and a Web site to tie it all together with fun elements and such.  My role has mainly been to build this Web site, so I've spent a lot of time learning CSS, HTML, and Dreamweaver templates, as well as going on interviews and all that jazz.

This is a good way to culminate the major in a couple ways.  First, it allows us to look at a topic over a period of time and really get to know it.  This is how journalism is supposed to be.  Granted, getting the story out on deadline, especially if it's a big story, is very important.  I'm not disputing that.  However, I feel that a lot of problems in contemporary journalism could be solved if journalists just took the time to sit down and think about what they're doing, and not just take information for granted.  Second, contemporary journalism is no longer separated.  Broadcast, print, and Web journalists all work together and journalists need to be able to produce content for all platforms.  This is an integrated project that helps to utilize all of our journalism resources.  Third, lots of contemporary journalism is done in groups.  It's better for your story if you can get a range of opinions on how to present it ... this helps with objectivity, and creativity.

But there are some drawbacks to this capstone.  There's not much room here for people who want a journalism major but who aren't actually going to be journalists (like me).  Also, many of these topics are so big that they're hard to cover, even in such an in-depth fashion.  Groups also don't always get along, and that can really put strains on friendships.  The biggest thing, though, is that this is a spring term, the six weeks before graduation, class, and everyone really just wants to be done with it.  Even the kids who are going into journalism.

Either way, it's been an interesting class.  I'll be VERY happy when it's over, in the very near future, but it hasn't been a bad way to spend the last five weeks.  Regardless, I can't wait to go to Williamsburg tomorrow!