STL Public Radio tour rescheduled & extra credit opportunity

We have rescheduled our tour of St. Louis Public Radio for Oct. 26.

Fun extra credit for today: Instagram the #slupoweroutage for up to 5 extra credit points!

• Take a pic showing what students (or faculty/staff) are doing with their “snow day” today
• Write a caption of at least three sentences that explains the photo and power outage. Also include one quote from a person in the pic, and their Instagram handle if they have one.
• Use #slupoweroutage, #slublackout2015 AND #mpj2015
• You don’t have to be on campus to participate. Take a pic of what people are doing where you are!
• Due by 5 p.m. today

Sept. 30 update: SLU classes canceled

I’m sure all of you were sleeping soundly when you received texts/calls/emails from SLU with the news that several buildings on campus do not have power. (Sorry if any of you live in Gries, which is the one residence hall without power.)

This means we do not have class today, even though we were meeting at St. Louis Public Radio for a tour.

I’m waiting to hear back from Kelsey Proud on how she’d like to proceed, but here are our options:

1. The St. Louis Public Radio tour becomes optional and you can choose whether to meet us at the station at 1:10 p.m.
2. We reschedule the tour and hope the electricity gods smile upon us. Third time’s a charm.

I will let you know what I hear from Kelsey. Stay tuned!

Enjoy your September snow day!

Sept. 30: Field trip to STL Public Radio

Sept. 30 class: Field trip to St. Louis Public Radio! We will meet there at 1:10 p.m. The station’s digital innovation editor, Kelsey Proud, will lead us on a tour and then we’ll chat about St. Louis Public Radio’s social media strategy and related topics. The station is at 3651 Olive St., which is one block north of campus.

• Please arrive promptly at 1:10 p.m. We will meet in the lobby to begin our tour.
• Check #mpj2015 on Twitter for details about an extra credit opportunity related to our visit!

Due Sept. 30: Follow St. Louis Public Radio on Twitter and Instagram, and write a 250-word blog post that analyzes the station’s social media accounts. Use at least one in-text citation from a reading we’ve done (or another relevant you’ve found) to support your conclusions. Consider these questions for your blog post:

• What appears to be the station’s strategy for each social media platform? Does the station appear to be using its social media accounts effectively? What does it do well? What could be improved?
• How does its social media content differ from its website?

Oct. 5 class: We’ll spend the day in class working on your Spotify news playlists. I’ll put you into groups of three and you’ll work together to curate 10 recent news stories and pair them with relevant, appropriate songs available on Spotify. Happy National News Engagement Day on Oct. 6!

• See the previous post for details on the assignment.

Due Oct. 5: Be familiar with recent news stories before you come to class. Ideally, your group will be done with the Spotify news playlist project by the end of class. We’ll see how it goes.

Spotify news playlist guidelines

In honor of National News Engagement Day (#NewsEngagementDay) on Oct. 6, we are breaking up into groups on Oct. 5 to create news-inspired music playlists based on stories that have appeared in St. Louis news in the past week.

Here is your group’s mission on Oct. 5:

• Come up with a fun, newsy name for your group! (Examples: The Deadlines; Off The Record)
• THIS IS IMPORTANT:Take a look at the playlist examples to get a sense of how to combine news and music. Watch out for pairings that could be offensive. (We’ll take a look at some in class.)
  • Example: The news set to B.B. King songs
  • Check out the master playlist from last year’s SMU class to get a sense of how to combine news and music.
  • Watch out for pairings that could be offensive.

• Plug in your headphones and earbuds and start browsing local news sites. Make a list of at least 15 stories and save the links to those stories. You’ll choose 10 stories from this group to build your playlist.
• Search on Spotify for songs that somehow relate to stories/videos published in the past week.
• Be creative! Have fun! Feel free to include songs that your parents and professors have never heard of! But it’s also OK (encouraged, even!) to include music from different decades and genres.
• Get together as a group. Settle on 10 songs suited for the stories on your playlist.
• Divvy up the duties to write 3-4 sentences explaining the news connection to each song.
• Appoint a Spotify-savvy curator to compile your playlist and a WordPress-savvy scribe to embed the playlist and write/publish your post. Each member should publish to their own blog – it is OK to copy & paste from your group members.
• By the end of class, each group must publish a post containing: 1) The name of your group in the headline; 2) An embedded Spotify playlist of at least 10 songs; 3) A brief explanation of why you picked each song, along with a link to the story it was inspired by; 4) The name of each person in your group, with links to your Twitter handles.
• Last step! Each group member should tweet the link to your published blog post/playlist, along with the hashtags #NewsEngagementDay and #mpj2015. Explain it to your followers with some context.
• PRIZES!! Your entries will be judged by students at SMU, and you will evaluate theirs as well. Prizes for the best playlist!

Remember these helpful tips on compiling a newsy playlist, created just for you by the Texas Tribune’s Reeve Hamilton:

• The connection to the story should be clear from the title of the song.
• If you can’t follow the first rule, you can explain why the lyrics work. But as they say in politics, when you are explaining, you are losing.
• With exceptions, the lyrics of the song should seem applicable to the news situation if you use your imagination and squint a little. If this is just impossible, that’s ok. But before you settle, see what other options are out there.
• The playlist should be listenable (obviously this is subjective). But if you are going to take the time to make something like this, make something people can actually get enjoyment out of.
• Don’t take it too seriously (but do put effort into it).

Kudos to SMU Prof. Jake Batsell for masterminding this project!

Meet local broadcast journalists & get career advice

Interested in working in news television? Take advantage of this opportunity to attend a student professional development event on Oct. 3 to meet local broadcast journalists, and hear their advice for getting internships and starting out in the profession. REGISTRATION IS FREE BUT ENDS TUESDAY. Space is limited.

Session 1
Panel Discussion: Staying Relevant to the News Audience
Panelists include regional EMMY® winning award professionals from the St. Louis market:

• Reporter, Casey Nolan, KSDK
• Reporter, Laura Hettiger, KMOV
• Videographer, Wade Smith, KTVI
• Producer, John O’Sullivan, KMOV

Session 2
Panel Discussion: Realistic Expectations for a Television Career, Internships, resume reels and starting out

• Students are invited to bring resume reel and samples of work for feedback. Samples should be  on FLASH DRIVE or on a website URL. NO DVD’s.

(Thanks to Brendan Williams for alerting me to this opportunity!)

Sept. 28: Social media analytics, cont’d

Sept. 28 class: We’ll talk about what you learned in the analysis of your social media data, and discuss other ways to examine questions in social media data.

We’ll also set up Spotify accounts for each of you, which we’ll use for a project next week.

Due Sept. 28: Complete your Analytics worksheets and share them with me. Also write a blog post of 250-300 words based on the Analytics questions to consider file. In particular, reflect upon:

• Thoughtful comparisons
• Possible implications
• Assess what you can improve

Sept. 30 class: Field trip to St. Louis Public Radio! We will meet there at 1:10 p.m. The station’s digital innovation editor, Kelsey Proud, will lead us on a tour and then we’ll chat about St. Louis Public Radio’s social media strategy and related topics. The station is at 3651 Olive St., which is one block north of campus.

• Please arrive promptly at 1:10 p.m. We will meet in the lobby to begin our tour.

Due Sept. 30: Follow St. Louis Public Radio on Twitter and Instagram, and write a 250-word blog post that analyzes the station’s social media accounts. Use at least one in-text citation from a reading we’ve done (or another relevant you’ve found) to support your conclusions. Consider these questions for your blog post:

• What appears to be the station’s strategy for each social media platform? Does the station appear to be using its social media accounts effectively? What does it do well? What could be improved?
• How does its social media content differ from its website?

Sept. 23: Social media analytics

Sept. 23 class: We’ll go over some simple social media analytics. Then we’ll start digging through your Twitter profiles to find stories in your data.

Due Sept. 23: 1) Your completed Storify must be posted as a link on your blog and tweet it. 2) Download the past six months of your own tweets and email them to me by 11 a.m. Wednesday.

Storify assignment

Your Storify based on the scavenger hunt should be posted to your blog. You can embed the link to it in a post, but give at least two sentences as context. You also need to tweet a link to your Storify (don’t tweet the link to your blog post — use the Storify link).

A reminder: A Storify provides context for the material you bring in from Twitter. Think of the tweets as quotes for your first-person news story — you need to write original transitions and other content to help explain your “quotes.”

• Do not stack more than three tweets together without writing a transition or other contextual material.

You need to include:

• At least four of your own tweets
• At least three tweets from your classmates
• At least three tweets from LU students
• At least two of your responses to LU students’ tweets

Downloading tweets

By 11 a.m. Wednesday, email me your Twitter export.

• Go to analytics.twitter.com
• Go to the Tweets tab
• Change “Last 28 Days” to “September 2015” & click Update
• Click Export data
• File will download to your computer as a .csv file
• Repeat for August 2015, July 2015, June 2015 & May 2015
• Copy & paste all .csv month files into one main file
• Email me the main .csv file with your last name in the file title

Sept. 28 class: We’ll talk about what you learned in the analysis of your social media data, and discuss other ways to examine questions in social media data.

Due Sept. 28: Complete your Analytics worksheets and share them with me. Also write a blog post of 250-300 words based on the Analytics questions to consider file. In particular, reflect upon:

• Thoughtful comparisons
• Possible implications
• Assess what you can improve

Learn more about social media from local professionals

STL Design Week is underway and one of its events might be of interest to you — and present an interesting opportunity to network with local professionals! Even better: the event is just a couple of blocks from campus!

Sept. 21: Creating Storify stories of #SLUvLU

Sept. 21 class: We have a change in plans – our St. Louis Public Radio visit is postponed until Sept. 30.

• We will meet in our classroom on Monday

In class, we’ll begin building Storify stories of the #SLUvLU Scavenger Hunt.

A Storify provides context for the material you bring in from Twitter. Think of the tweets as quotes for your first-person news story — you need to write original transitions and other content to help explain your “quotes.”

• Do not stack more than three tweets together without writing a transition or other contextual material.

You need to include:

• At least four of your own tweets
• At least three tweets from your classmates
• At least three tweets from LU students
• At least two of your responses to LU students’ tweets

Due Sept. 21: #SLUvLU ends at 9 a.m. Monday. (I know LU students haven’t posted much, so reply to what’s available and we’ll discuss in class.)

• Read the Storify examples folder before class to get some ideas for yours

Also of help:

• Examples from previous scavenger hunts: SMU and Texas State
• Examples from fall 2014 MPJ students: Ariana Martinez and Maddie Lena
• Examples from spring 2015 MPJ students: Josh Connelly, Katherine Kelliher and Macey Kate Herges.

Sept. 23 class: We’ll go over some simple social media analytics. Then we’ll start digging through your Twitter profiles to find stories in your data.

Due Sept. 23: 1) Your completed Storify must be posted as a link on your blog and tweet it. 2) Download the past six months of your own tweets and email them to me by 11 a.m. Wednesday.

Storify assignment

Your Storify based on the scavenger hunt should be posted to your blog. You can embed the link to it in a post, but give at least two sentences as context. You also need to tweet a link to your Storify (don’t tweet the link to your blog post — use the Storify link).

A reminder: A Storify provides context for the material you bring in from Twitter. Think of the tweets as quotes for your first-person news story — you need to write original transitions and other content to help explain your “quotes.”

• Do not stack more than three tweets together without writing a transition or other contextual material.

You need to include:

• At least four of your own tweets
• At least three tweets from your classmates
• At least three tweets from LU students
• At least two of your responses to LU students’ tweets

Downloading tweets

By 11 a.m. Wednesday, email me your Twitter export.

• Go to analytics.twitter.com
• Go to the Tweets tab
• Change “Last 28 Days” to “September 2015” & click Update
• Click Export data
• File will download to your computer as a .csv file
• Repeat for August 2015, July 2015, June 2015 & May 2015
• Copy & paste all .csv month files into one main file
• Email me the main .csv file with your last name in the file title

Communication-related opportunities

From time to time, I share info about upcoming events and opportunities relevant for communication students.

Interested in public relations?

The first PRSSA (Public Relations Student Society of America) meeting is *today* at 5 p.m. in Xavier Hall 207. Pizza will be served at the meeting, and they will briefly go over our outline for the year and a little bit of what PRSSA is all about! If you cannot attend, please email Prof. Jennifer Korte (jwilli29@slu.edu) about your interest.

Other student organizations include the Student Advertising Club, the University News, SLU-TV, and KSLU.

 

Thinking about an internship, job or grad school?

The Fall Career and Graduate School Fair is Sept. 23 from noon-4 p.m. in the Busch Student Center Wool Ballrooms.

Almost 150 employers/institutions registered for the event. Students can view a list of who will be attending on Handshake via the fairs tab. Attire for the Career Fair is business casual, but active job seekers are encouraged to wear professional attire.  The fair is free to SLU students and advance registration is not required.

• Career Services has open walk-in hours on Sept. 21 & 22 from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. for help with resumes.
• Career Development Specialists are doing 15-minute workshops on Successfully Working a Career Fair  on Sept. 21 & 22 at noon, 1 p.m., 2 p.m., 3 p.m. & 4 p.m. in BSC 331 (Student Success Center).

Students will be able to navigate the career fair via the mobile version of Handshake, which will include a roster of the organizations represented, a map of the booths, and links for the employers/institutions for further information.