Andy Smith Visit

Andy Smith visits with the Digital Journalism class and shares his experiences from years of working in the industry filming and editing for top local news outlets in Minnesota and other states around the country.


VANTAGE Digital Journalism by Andy Smith

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Pd_HiK3jxg


What is VANTAGE?  by Andy Smith

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2vM31_ExeM

Lindsey Seavert and Bill Middeke from KARE 11

On March 10th, Lindsey Seavert, a reporter from KARE11, and Bill Middeke, a photojournalist from KARE11, were our guest instructors. Lindsey spoke to the strategies of a successful interview. She stressed the importance of the “Four P’s”: practice, patience, people, passion. Lindsey said that “Perfectionism is a hangup. You have creative ups and downs, but fall forward in your failures.” Bill taught us how set up cameras and microphones for an interview. We learned about the “Reporter Sandwich” which is where the reporter should stand when setting up the camera and lights. Lastly, they taught us that during an interview, you go to the them; they don’t come to you. This helps create a more natural-looking interview. Lindsey and Bill gave us information that we can practically use in our course and future careers.  

John Milea from the MSHSL

John Milea from the Minnesota State High School League - December 10

John brought his wealth of journalism knowledge and experience to the Digital Journalism class and talked about what tools he uses to find the story behind the story and his opinion of good journalism.

Kim Insley from Kare11

December 9

Kim Insley, a news anchor from Kare11, presented strategies for storytelling and what goes on behind the scenes in news media today. She discussed the importance behind bringing out the humanity in the people you interview. When you bring out the human side of an interviewee, you get connected on a more personal level. We learned tips when filming short stories and how audio plays an important role in news reports.

Dave Schwartz from Kare11

On December 8th, Dave Schwartz from Kare11 visited us to share his vast knowledge of storytelling and interviewing. Although Dave mostly broadcasts about sports, he occasionally does a human interest story, so he had a broad understanding of the field. Instead of only teaching us about storytelling and interviewing, Dave created an activity to get our entire class involved in a real-life situation of interviewing our classmate and sharing their story similar to what Dave does on Kare11. Before he let us pair up and interview each other, he told us his key advice to interviewing. He told us to first, do our research on our subject, then let the rest flow. Our interview should be a glorified conversation in which we use our questions as guides, but we should not be afraid of tangents. Storytelling, he later told us, is something with a beginning, middle, and end that evokes emotion and paints a picture.

Following his lesson on storytelling and interviewing, he allowed us to choose our partners and interview each other. After interviewing our partner, we wrote a human interest story on our partner and shared it with the class, allowing us to learn more about our classmates.


December 8
Dave Schwartz from Kare11 came over to visit with VANTAGE students about storytelling and interviewing.  Students interviewed each other and shared the story of their classmates to the Digital Journalism group.

Mike Durkin November 24

On November 24th, Mike Durkin, the Managing Content Editor at Fox 9, came to VANTAGE to instruct our class on a lesson on digital news and social media. At Fox 9, Mike oversees daily news content decisions, reporter assignments, and the distribution of news on digital and social media. Throughout his time in class, Mike explained that news is timeliness, currency, proximity, prominence, conflict, consequence, human interest, and oddity. Mike also informed us that to create great content, it must be impactful, inspirational, emotional, visual, and/or shareable. While he taught us key things about news and digital and social media, he closed with the most impactful and informative piece: "If the news is important, it will find you."

Yuri Mamchur from Starkey Hearing Technologies       November 4

Bi-cultural strategist and entrepreneur with exceptional execution and communications capabilities, people management skills, and policy expertise. Over a decade of work experience in the U.S. and Eastern Europe with Fortune 500 companies, foundations, start-ups, media outlets, and government agencies. Energetic leader and passionate networker with a wide range of diverse contacts and significant development track record.

Yuri gave feedback on the student's Listen Carefully PSA's they developed for The Starkey Hearing Foundation.

Tim Blotz talks PSA's with Digital Journalism

Tim Blotz talks PSA's with Digital Journalism     October 30
(see his presentation here)

http://prezi.com/gtp-3bbqbzkz/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

About Tim:
As a news reporter, my stories have appeared on Fox News Channel, CNN, CNN International, Today Show, CBS Morning News, CBS Evening News, and New Mexico Public Television. An archive of my stories can be found at www.vimeo.com/timblotz.

Specialties:

• Visual Storytelling
• Strategic Communication Analysis and Planning
• Media and Political Insights
• Social Media Research
• Writing
• Public Speaking and Presentation
• Speech Writing
• Media Event Planning