We wanted to remind you to book your room now for the faculty adviser's retreat in the historic Smoky Mountains. We'll take time to relax, chat about the life of a faculty member at a Christian institution, and the latest things that have landed on our plates as advisers. (And, of course, plates will be full of good food at this retreat center.) We'd love to have you there.

The retreat is from June 5-7 and costs $125, which covers meals and lodging. The Baptist retreat center is a full-service conference facility with access to hiking trails, swimming pool and easy access to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge.

Carson Springs Baptist Conference Center
1120 Carson Springs Road
Newport, TN 37821
877-704-6336
smason@tnbaptist.org
www.tnbaptist.org/full.asp?page=30

Let us know if you are interested. We look forward to seeing you there!

Oct. 29-Nov.2, 2008
ACCM National Meeting and Awards Ceremony
Make plans to attend the ACCM National Meeting and Awards Ceremony. The event includes fellowship time where advisers can trade tips and students can gain insight on tough stories or chages in their media. Staff members from Christian schools all over the U.S. typically gather afterward to travel the host city, sample great food and see the sights.

Visit http://studentpress.org/acp to register and get more information for the convention.

Adviser Q&A

Need some help on a story?  Want some advice on a budding career?  Contact our media professionals for help.  We would love to guide you or connect you with others who can help.  Email us your questions at accm@christiancollegemedia.org.

>>News archive
 
Past ACCM press releases

From the Adviser's Desk

Keeping up: convergence offers new challenges

Journalism is not dead.  As Philip Meyer, Knight Chair in Journalism at the University of North Carolina has observed, “Most of the things that I needed to know for my Twentieth Century journalism career I learned in high school, and they are still useful today: Touch typing, writing a simple declarative sentence, respect for scientific method and the Bill of Rights.”

But journalism is changing, and Meyer is trying to keep up.  His 2004 book, The Vanishing Newspaper: Saving Journalism in the Information Age, is a call for, well, keeping up.  He believes that “we need good reporters who can bring appropriate tools to bear on constantly changing situations.” He’s right, of course, even though Christian college communication programs are often still mired in print while the digital age marches right on by.

 If you haven’t seen the video on Amazon.com promoting the new Amazon Kindle you should take a look.  It’s not just the tools for creating that are changing; the means of delivery are changing too.  You can bet your iPhone on that.  With the Kindle you can download books, magazines and newspapers onto a portable print-quality screen wirelessly.

Will one of your students be the first to publish a Pulitzer Prize article that isn’t distributed on a piece of paper? In Ecclesiastes we are told that of making many books there is no end.  But the Preacher wrote that with a quill on a parchment.  The technology changes. Our students have much to learn, and so do we.  

One place to start is with a new book by Mark Brigg, assistant editor for interactive news at the Tacoma News Tribune.  He says he is “a recovering sportswriter who discovered what the Internet could do for journalism in 1998 and has been sharing his enthusiasm with whomever will listen (and some who won’t) ever since.”  

His book, a joint project with J-Lab and the Knight Citizen News Network, is Journalism 2.0:How to Survive and Thrive is available free, and of course it is an ebook.  You can download it here.  (It’s probably a little elementary for some of your students, but it’s the advisors I’m worried about.)

Another resource is the Center for Innovation in College Media at Vanderbilt. Conferences, contests, critiques, consulting—they will do just about anything to help, as long as it starts with a C.

Maryn McKenna, a guest columnist for the Poytner Institute, discusses the resistance to innovation in many newsrooms, particularly among mid-career professionals.  She writes: “Here's the opportunity that's being missed: The central issue for writers isn't where the story is, local or national; it's how rich the story is, and how deep they are allowed to go.“

Media convergence allows our students to go deeper.   It would be a shame if the fear that kept them from doing so was ours.