journalism – Page 20 – Montana Journalism

September 14, 2015September 17, 2015 montanajournalism Feature, guests, J-School, Student

Ira Glass Teaches J-School Students About Radio

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.

By Alyssa Rabil

September 8, 2015 montanajournalism Feature, J-School, Student

Environmental Journalism Students Kick Start Program

By Andrew Graham

For new graduate students at the J-School, there’s no better place than Butte and the Clark Fork river to experience the contrast between Montana’s natural beauty and the toll of natural resource extraction. The new group took a day to explore the Butte Silverbow Superfund Site. Led by Professor Nadia White, the trip began with a look at the former open air mine the Berkeley Pit, and then followed a story of mining degradation and subsequent environmental restoration all the way back to Missoula.

“The whole point of this tour is that all over Montana the landscape has remarkable stories to tell,” Professor Nadia White, the trip’s author, said. “The Butte-Silverbow Superfund site happens to wear them close to the surface.” Deemed the largest complex of environmental clean-up sites in the U.S., the site is a massive effort to restore health to the Clark Fork River.

group photo of UM J-School grad students — Photo by Katy Spence

For these students, entering the Environmental Science and Natural Resource Journalism Masters Program, it’s a chance to learn about a home that is new to many of them. For the next two years, they’ll cross almost daily over the Clark Fork River, which runs through the heart of Missoula.

For Madison Dapcevich, 25, the tour was a chance to learn something new about Montana. She was largely unfamiliar with the story, and it left her with a question valuable to any budding journalist: “To what extent do people know about this?” Dapcevich came to the program most recently from Washington, D.C., where she worked for the media advocacy non-profit Internews, while also interning on Capitol Hill.

After Butte, the group stopped in Anaconda to view the old smelter tower; at a ranch where they saw restoration of the river’s flood plain in action, and at the Milltown Overlook, where a dam built in 1906 and removed in 2008 once held back the Clark Fork and the mine waste it carried.

As with any good story, White provided characters as well as settings. Students met restoration engineer Tom Molloy, a Butte resident and reclamation engineer, and Maggie Schmidt, a University of Montana graduate and manager of the Dry Cottonwood Creek Ranch.

Benjamin Polley, 37, has been living, working and writing in Montana for a long time. His latest job was as a field assistant on a ranch dedicated to conservation. He particularly enjoyed their time with Molloy. “That guy’s just an awesome story teller,” Polley said. The experience left him with new questions about the state and about ecological restoration, he said.

September 3, 2015 montanajournalism J-School, Montana Kaimin, Student

The New Weekly Kaimin Starts Strong

By Andrew Graham

Wednesday morning, University of Montana students woke up to their first Montana Kaimin of the school year, in its new weekly and full color format. The change from a daily to weekly printed paper came at the end of last year, as the Kaimin adapted to industry wide changes in print journalism.

The new format will feature 24 pages and be in news racks every Wednesday. The first issue paid homage to the Grizzlie’s come-from-behind thriller against North Dakota State, with a large cover photo of running back Joey Counts breaking into the end zone.

“It’s awesome, it’s beautiful,” said Editor-in-Chief Cavan Williams, “the colors really pop and we’ve got a great picture on the cover.” Inside a pair of feature stores from Sports Reporter Andrew Houghton support the cover, with one recapping the game and another describing University of Montana’s acquisition of new head football coach Bob Stitt.

Williams said he’s pleased to be at the helm of a paper going into a weekly format, where writers and editors for the print edition will always be thinking two weeks ahead. Breaking news will be covered from the Kaimin’s revamped website and social media platform.

Kevin Van Valkenburg, Senior Writer at ESPN the Magazine, is helping to guide the Kaimin’s transition as the visiting T. Anthony Pollner Professor for the fall semester. “I think it was great to see the Kaimin start strong with the new year, after all the change it underwent,” he said.

In the paper the change was greeted with excitement, as well as a certain amount of hat tipping to the new world of journalism today. “Change is often scary, exciting and chaotic, but to not embrace it is foolish,” Williams wrote to Kaimin readers in a Letter from the Editor. It’s a message journalism students especially can embrace.