I loved the advice from this morning from Dave Seibert, "reporters and photographers must be in the moment, not by appointment."
Sometimes, my students want to sit in the classroom and wait for the news to come to them.
The photograph is an example of a news conference announcing the hiring of the youngest head coach in the district. The publication students missed the opportunity because they were not ready for the moment.
That is my biggest pet peeve with students. . . when they do not get out of their seats and "can't come up with" a viable caption or story, there is simply no excuse. I loved Dave's advise F8 and be there. I'm stupidly not sure what the F8 stands for, and embarrassingly tried to look it up, but there is value to being present. Much like in English, it shows when you read Spark Notes, in journalism it shows when you are reporting from your chair in the journalism classroom.
ReplyDeleteDave's thought on not doing journalism by appointment may stand as the quote of the week.
ReplyDeleteSteve Elliott
Arizona State University
Phoenix
I think almost all advisers have this problem. I ask my students what's going on in class and they respond with "nothing". Then the next thing I know they walking out with cars they built for an experiement, pet fish they're raising for aquatic science, or ingredients to make something in home ec. You and I know these are all great opportunities for photos, but I feel like I face this same struggle every year of getting them to see this as newsworthy or even a photo opp.
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