Public Conversations on JEM

We had another journalism event last week. It was put together by Dr. Jim Stovall and the Tennessee Journalist, with a helping hand from Scripps. The Beacon naturally neglected to mention the Tennessee Journalist bit, but oh well. I liked the format of this one. Kept things pretty simple and put the focus on getting students face-to-face time with local media professionals. The feedback I got was that it was helpful to get the perspectives of practitioners in the field, and to get some advice on getting a job in this climate. My brother was in attendance and spoke to a number of very interesting students. There were a lot of other familiar faces including Bob Benz, Lauren Spuhler, Patrick Beeson, Jack Lail and Chad Parizman. I got to rotate around and chat with a few of them before they left, but most of them know me by now anyway. I've been doing this college thing for five years now and am almost done. My only gripe was that the whole event made me feel a little old. Most of the journalism students in the room were completely new to me, save for a few who have been working with TNJN this semester. I suppose my time has come, but I still never thought it would feel quite like this.

Long story short, I'm getting old, it's time for me to graduate, these kids need to learn the ropes and become better programmers as well as journalists, and Knoxville is brimming with talent.

By the way, Patrick wrote up a great bit on his blog about his conversations with students, and I agree with him on every point, I'd recommend reading it, it's quick and to the point. I even left a (hopefully) helpful comment.