Radio demigod Ira Glass came to Missoula last week to entertain the public radio faithful, and to speak to J School students. Of the many lessons he imparted, one stuck with me: don’t wait, he said, before starting to create the journalism you have in your head. This is good advice for many reasons.
Ira confessed it took him decades to get good at radio. He stressed that the only way to get good at journalism is to do it. If you could buy journalism training at the drug store, the directions would read: write, edit, repeat. Learning about the history of journalism is a noble pursuit, so is trying to analyze trends in coverage. But the only way to become a great writer is to write. Great photogs need to shoot, radio folks need to gather sound, and of course we all need to post and tweet.
Part of Ira’s point is that there’s no need to wait until some employer gives you permission to do a story. Reporters—and students—today can develop their own news products, and can publish without a big backer. The podcast explosion has opened up new possibilities for many creative minds, and has turned out to be a great source of revenue for Ira’s show, This American Life. The barriers to entry are dropping. Your audience will be small at first, but you will be learning, and you may come up with something that will impress a prospective employer. So why are you wasting time with this blog? Go start your own.
This American Life’s Ira Glass shared words of reporting wisdom with UM students last Saturday.
Glass began his career in public radio in 1978. He began as an intern for NPR and has a wealth of broadcasting experience. Glass has held every production job from tape-cutter to newscast editor before finally settling in as the host and executive producer of This American Life.
Saturday, Sept. 12, Glass taught a master class for University of Montana School of Journalism students. He began his lecture by saying he was there to “serve” the students and answer any questions they had about the business.
Glass shared clips from his early career when he was at NPR, and admitted some of his own insecurities about being on the air.
“I didn’t like the way I sounded,” Glass said. He explained how he would cut his narration out of his first broadcasts, letting the interviewee tell the story.
Glass used his old clips to illustrate the importance of narration in a radio broadcast. He explained that the script could potentially make or break a show. He also emphasized the importance of good quotes, adding these add intrigue and keep a listener engaged.
Students had the opportunity to ask a plethora of questions and Glass was happy to answer all of them. He told students the key to a great show is plot and narrative. He said the key is to keep listeners asking “What’s going to happen next?”
He ended the class by encouraging students to read “Out on the Wire” and offered to buy the book for anyone who was interested. The book is an illustrated guide to making radio shows. Glass collaborated on it, as did many of today’s top radio producers.
Monday, Leslie Hittmeier heads to Chile for ten days to write and photograph a story on a ski guide and avalanche training advocate.
“We’re going to just get pretty gritty and camp,” Hittmeier says, “it’s cool because anything that happens there’s still going to be a story that comes from it.”
23 years old, one year out of the University of Montana School of Journalism and working as Associate Digital Editor at Skiing Magazine, it’s safe to say Hittmeier’s living her dream.
Leslie Hittmeier in Teton Pass, Wyoming. Photo by Ben Hoiness
Jeremy Lurgio, Associate Professor of photojournalism, isn’t surprised Hittmeier has gotten to where she wanted to be so quickly. “She had a vision of what she wanted to do when she came to the J school,” Lurgio says. He adds she was willing to work hard and sacrifice to get there.
To get to her current job, Hittmeier credits a few good breaks, determination and the storytelling skills she learned in school. After finishing classes in the spring of 2014, she looked for internships and got one at Climbing Magazine. They kept her mostly in the studio, photographing “oatmeal and other lame stuff,” as Hittmeier puts it, but she was still writing and shooting and meeting great climbers and athletes.
After Climbing Magazine, it was on to another internship; this one with Teton Gravity Research (TGR). There, she had far more freedom to develop editorial content. “They let me write about whatever I wanted to write about,” Hittmeier says. As always, she wanted to write about climbing and skiing. At TGR, her work helped inspire a new column called “Women in the mountains.”
After a brief move back to Missoula, she saw an opening at Skiing Magazine. She applied and got the job. Her internship at Climbing Magazine helped her application, as both publications are owned by the same parent company, Active Interest Media.
Hittmeier knew from the beginning she wanted to photograph and write about skiing and climbing. Her advice to incoming students reflects that path; “figure out what your goal is, and then intern.” She emphasized developing multiple skill sets to stick out from the crowd. “If you’re a photographer, become a writer too,” she says, adding students also need to be active and able on social media.
Lurgio cites the back to back internships Hittmeier did as evidence of what it takes to get ahead in journalism; hard work, good connections, and an early willingness to forego higher wages in exchange for increased opportunities.
At the Journalism school, she credits photo classes with Lurgio for teaching her to broaden photography into story telling.
“I remember Lurgio was always kind of like ‘Leslie there’s no story here you just take pictures of climbing,” she recalled. Hittmeier also said she still keeps her notes from Jule Banville’s feature class.
Lurgio also remembers pushing Hittmeier to improve on her already talented photography skills when she was a junior in the photojournalism program. “The trick was getting her to think beyond how to make a pretty picture,” he said.
Hittmeier almost didn’t take the job at Skiing Magazine because she was terrified of being stuck at a desk, but she’s glad she did. “It’s crazy how worth it it is,” she says.
Montana Journalism 