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Films of five UM School of Journalism students shown at Oxford’s Burns-Belfry

Posted on: January 11th, 2019 by ldrucker

The films of five UM School of Journalism and New Media students were shown during a recent event called Mississippi Movie Mondays at the Belfry on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

The Oxford Film Festival and Southern Foodways Alliance partnered with Oxford’s Burns-Belfry Museum & Multicultural Center and Lens Collective to host a special movie screening and panel discussion at 10 a.m. Monday, Jan. 21 in Oxford’s Burns Belfry at 710 Jackson Avenue. The event is free and open to the public.

It featured the work of UM students Devna Bose, Ariel Cobbert, Natalie Seales, Gracie Snyder and Maddie Beck.

Alysia Steele, a UM School of Journalism and New Media professor and coordinator for Lens Collective, a multimedia storytelling conference, said the students worked hard on short deadlines to produce the stories.

“In fact, from documenting to producing, students have less than 24 hours turnaround time,” she said. “So, it demonstrates to me that, not only are students learning, but they’re applying those practical skills in thoughtful, quality projects.”

Steele said this lets students know they can do great work on tight deadlines and take pride in what they have accomplished.

“It is quite rewarding to see their smiles when they watch their work on the big screen,” she said. “It becomes emotional for many of us, and that’s a good thing.”

This is the UM School of Journalism and New Media’s second year to offer Lens Collective. Steele said she hopes more students will see value in participating in special projects.

“It’s not easy work, but it’s quite rewarding,” she said. “Students are having fun, bonding with students from other universities, and learning from award-winning photojournalists. The mentors take time off from work to help, and they do it because they care – just like the professors who volunteer their time.”

Steele said this was a networking event that provided skill sets that will help in any journalism or integrated marketing career. And she said multimedia skills – highlighting audio/video and photography – are applicable to many career fields. It’s also a great confidence booster.

“The mentors care, the students care, and the professors care, so it doesn’t get any better than that,” she said. “We appreciate the journalism administrators valuing these out-of-classroom experiences, such as Lens Collective. We are producing great work from diverse opportunities, and I hope students will take advantage of what’s being offered here at the University of Mississippi’s School of Journalism and New Media. Learning outside of the classroom is just as important, and life-changing, as being in a classroom. Real world experiences, right here, right now.”

The series of short films provided for free to the community included:

Bright at Night – The Sunday evening experience at Foxfire serves up a slice of life in Marshall County, Mississippi, where culinary and musical traditions have always been closely interwoven.

Counter Histories Jackson – In this piece, attendees heard from Colia Clark, Joan Trumpauer Mulholland, Bill Minor, Daphne Chamberlain and the Rev. Ed King about the historic sit-in at the 1963 Woolworth’s lunch counter in Jackson, Mississippi.

Country Platter – Jimmy Williams has been the owner of Country Platter in Cleveland, Mississippi since 1994. In its history, Country Platter was previously Lilley’s Soul Food Cafe, a meeting place during the Civil Rights Movement for many influential figures, including Dr. Martin Lather King Jr., Ralph Abernathy and Amzie Moore. Today, Williams works to give back to his community, remembering his past to influence his present.

Delta Dreams – A look at the music of the Delta and the new Grammy museum.

Faith, Hope, & Inspiration – Members of the Clarksdale, Mississippi community reflect on the influence of Dr. Martin Luther King’s visit to First Baptist Church during their civil rights struggles in the 1950s and ’60s.

Otha Turner – In the late 1950s, fife and drum legend Otha Turner began hosting annual Labor Day picnics at his property in Gravel Springs, Mississippi. Turner would butcher and roast goat, pork, and fish, drawing neighbors with the smell of his cooking and the sounds of his fife and drum.

Signs – A short documentary examining the ongoing vandalism of signs marking Emmett Till’s brutal murder.

Vishwesh Bhatt: The South I Love – Vishwesh Bhatt is a Southern chef using flavors from his childhood to add to the lexicon of Southern Food. A short film by Southern Foodways Alliance summer documentary intern Nicole Du Bois.

Two UM School of Journalism and New Media students named as a winners in national journalism contest

Posted on: January 10th, 2019 by ldrucker

Two University of Mississippi student media leaders have been named as winners in the 2018-2019 Hearst Journalism Awards Program.

Abbie McIntosh and Ariel Cobbert both placed in the Hearst Journalism Awards national competition this year.

In the Television Features category, McIntosh tied for 15th place. There were 107 entries from 60 universities. Cobbert placed 21st in the Photojournalism News and Features category, which had a record 128 entries from 77 universities.

McIntosh is station manager for UM’s award-winning NewsWatch Ole Miss – a daily, student-run live 30-minute newscast.

“I’ve had the pleasure of working with Abbie the past two years as she was NewsWatch station manager,” said NewsWatch faculty adviser Nancy Dupont. “Then I had the pleasure of having her in my advanced TV reporting class. She has a goal to be excellent in everything she does. In fact, she will overcome any obstacle getting in the way of her success. She is in the top 1 percent of broadcast journalism students I’ve ever taught.”

 

The two TV packages from McIntosh that were entered in the Television Features category were both from coverage of Hurricane Michael. Three journalism students – led by journalism professors Mark Dolan, Ji Hoon Heo and John Baker – traveled to Panama City in October to report about the hurricane’s impact.

Cobbert, who graduated in December 2018, is former photo editor for The Daily Mississippian and The Ole Miss yearbook. Her Hearst photojournalism entry included her DM coverage of the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and photos she took for the yearbook and for her internships. In summer 2018, she had a photo internship at the Daily Press in Virginia, and she had a fall internship at the Memphis Commercial Appeal.

Alysia Steele is one of the JNM professors who have worked closely with Cobbert.

“I have watched Ariel blossom over the years,” Steele said. “What I love and respect about Ariel is how hard working she is, and how she takes constructive feedback from a good place and applies it to her work. She has one of the best attitudes I’ve ever seen in a student, and I’m ridiculously proud of her. It’s nice to see her place in Hearst. I can’t wait to see what she does career-wise, because I know for sure she’s going to make an impact in the journalism world.”

The Hearst contest has several more categories with deadlines during spring semester.

Winners were selected from 107 entries submitted from 60 schools nationwide. The first-place winner qualifies for the National Television Championship held in San Francisco next June.

Other top winners, along with the top finalists in the next television competition, will submit additional entries for a semi-final round of judging. Four finalists will be chosen from that round to compete in the championship, along with writing, photo, radio and multimedia finalists.

First Place has been awarded to Grace King from University of Florida. King wins a $3,000 scholarship and qualifies for the National Broadcast News Championship.

The top ten finalists and their awards are:

Second Place, $2,000 award, Lydia Nusbaum, University of Missouri
Third Place, $1,500 award, Matt Lively, Arizona State University
Fourth Place, $1,000 award, Meredith Sheldon, University Florida
Fifth Place, $1,000 award, Claire Going, Pennsylvania State University
Sixth Place, certificate, Claire Kopsky, University of Missouri
Seventh Place, certificate, Tom Austen, Syracuse University
Eighth Place, certificate, Payton Walker, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Ninth Place, certificate, Lillian Donahue, Arizona State University
Tenth Place, certificate, Kristen Rary, University of Georgia

The top five winning schools receive matching grants. The University of Florida is in first place in the Intercollegiate Broadcast Competition with the highest accumulated student points from the first of two television competition of this academic year.

It is followed by: University of Missouri, Arizona State University, Syracuse University, Pennsylvania State University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Baylor University, Michigan State University, University of Maryland and the University of Georgia.

The final intercollegiate broadcast winners are announced after the completion of the radio competition and the second television competition. The top three intercollegiate winners earn $10,000, $4,000 and $2,000 respectively, which will be presented at the National Championships in San Francisco this June.

The television judges are: Julie Chin, news director, KNX Radio, Los Angeles; Lloyd Siegel, former vice president of news partnerships, NBC News, New York; and Fred Young, retired senior vice president of news, Hearst Television Inc., Yardley, Pennsylvania.

The 59th annual Hearst Journalism Awards Program added broadcast news to the competitions in 1988. The program also includes five writing, one radio, two photo, and four multimedia competitions offering up to $700,000 in scholarships, matching grants and stipends.

There are 104 universities of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication with accredited undergraduate journalism programs eligible to participate in the Hearst competitions.

The Hearst Journalism Awards Program is conducted under the auspices of accredited schools of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication and fully funded and administered by the William Randolph Hearst Foundation.

The program consists of five monthly writing competitions, two photojournalism competitions, one radio and two TV broadcast news competitions, and four multimedia competitions, with Championship Finals in all divisions, with the exception of team multimedia. The program awards up to $700,000 in scholarships, matching grants, stipends and intercollegiate awards annually.

The William Randolph Hearst Foundation was established by its namesake in 1948 under California non-profit laws, exclusively for educational and charitable purposes. Since then, the Hearst Foundations have contributed more than one billion dollars to numerous educational programs, health and medical care, human services and the arts in every state.

Memphis Public Relations Society Chapter Names UM School of New Media alumnus Otis Sanford 2018 Communicator of the Year

Posted on: January 9th, 2019 by ldrucker

Otis Sanford, Hardin Chair of Excellence in Economic and Managerial Journalism at the University of Memphis, has been selected by the Memphis Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America as its 2018 Communicator of the Year.

The organization honored him at its monthly luncheon Jan. 10 at the University Club.

“I am so humbled to be recognized as the PRSA Memphis Chapter’s 2018 Communicator of the Year,” said Sanford. “This is quite a surprise and an honor to receive such a prestigious award.”

Sanford, a Mississippi native and 1975 graduate of the University of Mississippi, began his professional journalism career at The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi. He joined The Commercial Appeal in 1977 and was part of the reporting team that covered the 1977 death of Elvis Presley, rising through the newsroom to become managing editor and editor of opinions and editorials, before moving into academia in 2011.

Screenshot from otissanford.com

Sanford now serves as the Hardin Chair of Excellence in Economic and Managerial Journalism at the University of Memphis, and is the author of the critically acclaimed book, From Boss Crump to King Willie: How Race Changed Memphis Politics. Sanford also writes a weekly political column for the Daily Memphian online news site and serves as political analyst and commentator for WATN-TV Local 24 News.

This will be the 42nd year that the Memphis Chapter of PRSA will honor its Communicator of the Year. The award is given to a member of the community who exhibits the ability to communicate effectively to general or specific publics; has public visibility and is a respected member of the community, who invests his or her time and talent conveying a specific message.

“In choosing Sanford, PRSA Memphis recognizes his ability as a communicator to raise public awareness concerning the challenges that have affected Memphis over the last 40 years,” said Sarah Sherlock, president of the Memphis Chapter of PRSA.

A nationally recognized speaker on journalism ethics, education, and the First Amendment, Sanford is also the recipient of the Silver Em Award from his alma mater, the University of Mississippi, and the annual print journalism award at the University of Memphis was named in his honor. He is past president of the Associated Press Media Editors and past board chairman of the Mid-America Press Institute. In 2014, he was inducted into the Tennessee Journalism Hall of Fame.

The Communicator of the Year award was established in 1976 with Bud Dudley, founder of the Liberty Bowl, its first recipient. The list of honorees includes, Ron Terry, Cecil Humphreys, Fred P. Gattas, Olin Morris, D’Army Bailey, Judith Drescher, Fred Jones, Gerry House, Dr. Scott Morris, Arnold Perl, Linn Sitler, W.W. Herenton, John Calipari, Beverly Robertson, Bob Loeb, Toney Armstrong, Dr. Todd Richardson, PhD, and Mauricio Calvo.

Tickets to the luncheon are free for PRSA members, $25 for non-members, and $15 for students. For more information or to register for the award luncheon visit: www.prsamemphis.org.