One-day J-training with YHC

Amy Dalton, a junior at Young Harris College, found it extremely hard to wake up before noon on Thursday.  Even still, she woke from her summer slumber for a one-day training session with UPIU staff in preparation for her student newspaper duties in the fall.

After the early-morning pitch session and lecture about Web writing, seven YHC students hit the streets to tackle their individual assignments utilizing “shoeleather” journalism. The students had five hours to do their reporting and for some this was their first reporting experience.

“I was impressed with the quick turn-around because I knew that this was the first reporting experience for one or two of them,” UPIU International Coordinator Harumi Gondo said. “4 p.m. was supposed to be their deadline, but it became a feedback sessions because they filed their stories so quickly.”

UPDATE:  The students received real-time feedback via online video chat on their stories from the UPIU team. Senior mentor Tom Ramstack gave students advice on story organization and interviewing difficult sources. Dalton had problems getting information from a PR representative for her story on the Georgia “texting while driving” law.

“I tried to just keep asking the question until he answered it,” Dalton said. “And I tried to call other people that would possibly have the same information but they didn’t get back to me, so I had to call AAA, which I thought was just as good.”

Be persistent yet cordial when pursuing sources, and don’t alienate them or damage a new organization’s reputation, Ramstack advised.

“I have talked to my students about this program as a ‘crash course in (new) journalism,’” wrote YHC professor Nick Bowman in an e-mail. “I like that my students are working on a one-day turnaround for their stories from conception to final edits; this really gets them used to how things work in the ‘real world.’”

Two YHC students, freshman Ethan Burch and junior Callie Stevens, became involved with the program to learn more about online journalism and found the program informative and helpful.

Dalton agreed. “I got involved in the program to learn more about Internet news writing, to network and hopefully add this to my résumé,” said the media communications major from Augusta, Georgia.

The UPIU team will also be working with YHC journalism classes in the fall.