Meet Mo Krochmal, an assistant professor of journalism, public relations, and media studies, at Hofstra University in New York.If you look at his weblog, you get a sense of what is happening in his classroom, right down to reading assignments(“The students had three chapters to read from the textbook on writing for print, broadcast and the web”) and activities (“The class then went into Google News and looked at the Tom Daschle story in today’s news and selected two stories to cut and paste copy and the url from the web into a Microsoft Word document.”) You also get a sense that Mo teaches his students from a completely multimedia approach.
Ironically, Mo’s background is not pure online journalism. More like small community newspapers which he is quite fond of, and where he thinks the students he now trains will have the best opportunities to transfer their storytelling techniques.
“Small community newspapers are where I earned my salt as a young journalist and it’s where my passion lies today as a teacher. There are some 6,000 community newspapers in the US and I believe they have a trusted position in their communities and provide a unmatched service. It is there that I see a rich field for my students to take their multimedia skills and work to re-invent this profession with a strong grounding in the fundamentals of journalism and a spirit of innovation and fearlessness about technology.”
Probably he feels right at home at Hofstra University, whose journalism department, like a small community newspaper, has a small staff. There are 5 journalism professors in addition to Mo, plus a lot of adjuncts. The department concentrates on two tracks—print and broadcast. Mo says he is in the middle and has just completed his second year. “I teach students from each of the two tracks as well as other students from our department from public relations and media studies.”
The Hofstra program is accredited by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC).
The department includes a new half-million dollar newsroom that serves as a place that brings together students for practical experiences.
I interviewed Mo about making changes to the curriculum in such a small department, and whatever progress has been made there.
Mario: How is Hofstra University dealing with the specifics of changing the curriculum to adapt to the new realities?
Storytelling for a multimedia world is slowly working its way into our program as much as from pressure from the dynamic environment the media world finds itself in, as well as through our initiatives.I’m pretty much the guy on the cutting edge. I teach Online Journalism, which is for upper classmen, and Journalism Tools, a new course for those students beginning their journey through our curriculum. And, I run the NewsHub, that brand new half-million dollar newsroom that serves as a place that brings together our students for practical experience.
Curricular-ly, we are starting to require students from each class to participate in the news operation on a weekly basis. This is mostly voluntary across our classes, but the momentum is building for students to either work one hour a week, or complete one assignment. We staff an assignment desk and the curricular students’ job is to fill that assignment desk with . . . assignments. They can also opt to cover a story of their choosing from that schedule.
The creation of NassauNewsLive.com
Mo relates how they have a small group of “very talented volunteers, graduate and undergraduate, who manageNassauNewsLive.com, which is separate from the curricular operation and entirely student-run, with me as the advisor—and financier. This has been one of the most meaningful things that have happened for me. We switched on NNL in January, concurrent with the start of the semester and within 30 days, we were indexed on Google News, bringing in traffic and a interacting audience from our community and beyond that is has just floored me in terms of its growth and enthusiasm.”
Mo designed all the work flows and connected the technology so that students can enter text and video, integrate live text blogging with CoverItLive and Twitter, and live streamcasting with Mogulus.com.
Ideally, our student reporters go out with Flipcams and gather interviews as well as taking photographs and filling their notepads. They can file automatically by telephone to a voice post, or soon, voice-to-text posting. Their work is edited and approved by their peers and multimedia is an integral part of their toolkit.
Mario: Mo, how do you see yourself? You are a professor in a small department, probably wearing many hats, and with a strong background in print journalism at small community newspapers? Wow, isn’t that kind of a weird mix by journalism school standards? Yet, you are so successful in what you do. Tell me about it.
I’m introduced as the technology guru, though I’m just a journalist who is comfortable with tech. I can hardly plug in a printer. But, in a previous work life, I covered the rise of the Internet as New York editor for TechWeb.com and part of my duties were to evaluate new technology and services so adopting and testing new technology and devising work flows is part of my everyday work. I test it before I hand it off to the students. I really don’t care too much about them being tech wizards, I just want them to get to the story and to be able to have any tool they need to tell it.
Mario: I have been in academics. I know that even the biggest schools sometimes don’t have the money to pay for what professors and students want. So, how do you manage in a small department?
We don’t have a lot of financial resources. The school has purchased 35 Flipcams over the last two years, three webcams, and about 20 computers in the NewsHub. We have about 400 students in both tracks of journalism and have all of the basic broadcast cameras and production facilities, as well as a public radio station (WRHU-FM). Part of my background was as an independent online journalist, where I was always looking for an inexpensive (no, free) tool that would enhance my storytelling and that’s what I bring to the table. I want my students to be able to go out there and report and not worry about spending $700 for Photoshop, or $2000 for a laptop. Just get to the story.I also covered the world of molecular biology where innovation is a way of life and technology is an important tool as we discover the power of the genome and DNA etc.
Mario: What is the official change in the curriculum at Hofstra, which indicates that you guys are serious about teaching storytelling in a multiplatform world?
We have in place a new curriculum that merges our traditional tracks of print and broadcast and requires all students to take online journalism and journalism tools as part of the sequence. It will become official in the fall semester after receiving blessing from a New York accreditation agency.We will not have an online track, and I, frankly, hope that in five years, that distinction will not be necessary and I hope that students will proudly wave a degree that says, proudly, simply, journalism.
Mario: I know that many professors will be reading this and looking at you for inspiration—-especially as you show that you can do so much, with limited resources in a small journalism department, so, where do you get your inspiration? Who are your role models out there?
I don’t think there is any one role model program. I am a graduate of Columbia’s journalism program, I was a member of the 1995 class, the first that could have a concentration in new media. I drank that Kool-Aid and have been an online practitioner for the last 14 years. I see Columbia moving to change its curriculum, and I see its cross-town competitor CUNY doing the same with some high-profile personalities like Jeff Jarvis. Elsewhere in the area, our Long Island colleagues at SUNY-Stony Brook are also doing interesting things. Point is, this is a very volatile environment, there are no blueprints and textbooks are laughable. As educators, we have to balance our non-negotiable duties to impart the fundamentals of journalism (writing, reporting, ethics) with these new storytelling methods and a little bit of wisdom and common sense. We need to think innovatively and try new things all the time, and stop those that don’t work just as quickly.
Mario: is Twitter something you teach in a class? Is it instinctive? Twitter 101? Facebook 202?
I have taught Twitter in my classes since 2007. Now, I don’t hear the “what’s the point of this,” question from my students, many of whom are hard-line technophobes and proud of it. Students organically discover that some of these new tools can really extend their abilities and give them new channels for doing news, and they get really excited. I care less about the tools, and want them to be a seamless platform for doing what is really hard, and that’s shoe-leather reporting. I’m old-school that way. Some students love me, some . . . not so much. I love the letters I get, “Professor, you were right.” But, that’s a hard standard to uphold in this changing environment. Questions about how to integrate social/participatory media as well as how to finance mobile media (those contracts get expensive over two years!) remain, as well as: Should we teach journalism students computer programming and business/entrepreneurship skills too?
We have done lots of innovative things over the last few semesters as we had the presidential debates on our campus (seenassaunews.org/news for October) and the presidential election (see nassaunews.org/news for November). But those were one-off big operations that were amazing but not replicable for every semester.
Contact for Professor Mo Krochmal:
mo.krochmal@gmail.com
Link to his webblog:
http://krochmal.wordpress.com/
Mo’s project page
http://krochmal.synthasite.com/
This is a contest whose title we like: “Teaching News Terrifically in the 21st Century”
The results are in for the first teaching ideas competition sponsored by the Newspaper Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Prizes of $100, for the top ideas for teaching newswriting, reporting or editing, went to two professors at Arizona State University and to a University of Maryland graduate student who teaches as an adjunct at Towson University.
Interested in the results:
http://rci.rutgers.edu/~susank/NWSP/TNT21.html
Great idea to reward teachers who are inventive in how they teach newswriting.I would be interested to hear from the winners with highlights of their ideas.
Forbes India appears today
Here is cover of ForbesIndia’s first edition, out today. Cover story is about the success story of Lakshmi Mittal, Indian’s richest man and the 8th richest in the world
It is almost one year late in making its grand entrance—with big gala party in Mumbai, and Steve Forbes here for the occasion—-but finally, Forbes India is here.
From Steve Forbes in Mumbai:
“I doubt there’s been a better time to launch Forbes India. In the midst of economic doom and gloom, India’s story is one of resilience in adversity and optimism for the future,” a press release said quoting Steve Forbes as saying on the occasion.”
Starting print run is about 50000 copies for the weekly Forbes India.
Forbes is America’s third biggest business magazine after BusinessWeek and Fortune, and it was supposed to appear in 2008. The project was reportedly plagued by all kinds of problems leading to the delay, such as finding themselves in need of a partner, which they found in Television18, and losing their original art director, Anup Gupta, formerly of MINT, and who returned to the Hindustantimes, where I now work with him.
The first original design of the new Forbes India was reportedly created by Walter Bernard, of New York, but I understand that the product out in the streets today does not carry much—or any—-of the Bernard concept. I have not yet seen a copy of the magazine, but expect to do so during lunch time today, and will update this entry accordingly. If anything, one can always identify a Walter Bernard design (he is associated with Milton Glaser) for its elegance, integrity, good taste and a sense of visual gravitas.
Forbes Media is primarily famous for bringing out its list of the best among various fields – like richest people, best hotels among others.
Forbes , says an official press release, will take on the role of “the drama critic of Indian business,” adding that the magazine will help readers connect the dots, form patterns and see beyond the obvious, giving them a completely different perspective.
India is a coveted area for all major media publishing houses worldwide. It is a market with an ample supply of young consumers; most importantly, Indians still love print, and read magazines and newspapers ferociously and assidiously
This will enhance Forbes’ global reach. Already there is Forbes Asia, Forbes China/ Russia/ Arabia among others.
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TheMarioBlog posting #268