Here I am in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, some 7600 miles from home, at the end of a one-month, four-country, five-city tour. My sleeping nights have journeyed through four time zones (what time is it?), the drawing of routes flown on my map shows New York to Stuttgart to Dubai to Chennai (India) to Berlin and last stop here in Riyadh. During the fourth week of a trip, you begin to resent your entire wardrobe, get tired of having only one pair of shoes and you give waiters in the hotel restaurant a room number that you had three stops ago at another hotel.
With that as a backdrop, you have every reason to be tired, apathetic and ready to board the flight to take you back home.
But then you realize why you are here right this moment. Indeed, my presence here is to be the first speaker in a new program to train young Saudi journalists. It has been a rewarding experience for all, but significant for me, realizing that teaching is one of my passions, especially because there are moments like we had today here, when an idea connects with the students. You, the instructor, have the best view of the room. You are facing all those eager young people who have come to learn.
The feeling of satisfaction goes beyond the geographic location, the language or the culture. I have always known when an idea was transmitted and received by looking at the students’ eyes.
Here, where the women students wear a Niqab to cover their face, the eyes become even more prominent.
This is why we teach
Five decades of teaching, both at the academic and professional level, and I am still mesmerized by the moment when an idea presented lands gloriously in the mind of an eager student. You know that the idea, like a seed, will germinate, take root and grow.
Here in Riyadh we have 36 students, all in their early 20s, pretty similar to my graduate students at Columbia University. They are all eager to become storytellers. As I introduced them to the Landscape of the Media today, or Storytelling for Mobile, I emphasized that they will practice our craft in the midst of what I call the journalism of interruptions.
“Think from small to large as you conceptualize your stories,” I told them. “Create your story for the small screen of the phone, then adapt it to larger platforms.”
“Think video, audio, animated graphics. Be a cinematographer, a radio person, a reporter, but, mostly importantly, a visual storyteller.”
I see the students taking notes furiously in Arabic. Some not too shy ask a question in English. Others wait till the end of the class to tell you how much they have learned from the presentation.
Then, for a moment, jet lag, distance, language differences all dissipate. In fact, you feel rejuvenated and even though you have been doing this for 53 years, starting at Miami Senior High School, then Miami-Dade College, Syracuse University, University of South Florida, the American Press Institute, Poynter Institute for Media Studies and now Columbia University, and hundreds of presentations at conferences and seminars worldwide, you feel as if this was your first day teaching.
As you leave the classroom to walk back to the hotel, you wonder how many of these students will be guiding the future of Saudi journalism.
And, while that thought is something to celebrate with a glass of bubbly, you remember that alcohol consumption is not possible in Saudi Arabia.
So I hold that thought, but the high is still there, even without the glass of Clicquot.
Bring our mobile storytelling workshop to your newsroom
It is a mobile world, and 82% of all content is consumed on a mobile device worldwide, not just news, but all sorts of documents, especially pdfs. If your company is in the business of creating content, then you need to start thinking from small to large. Create that content for the smallest platform, where a majority of the users are consuming it.
Our Garcia Media Mobile Storytelling workshops are proven to introduce your editorial team to the way we write, edit and design for mobile platforms. It is a one-day program that involves a presentation (where I summarize my Columbia University class content), and follow it with a hands on workshop.
I urge you to consult my latest book, The Story, a trilogy full of tips and explanations about mobile storytelling, which represents the latest genre for journalists to explore. See information below:
The full trilogy of The Story now available–3 books to guide you through a mobile first strategy. Whether you’re a reporter, editor, designer, publisher, corporate communicator, The Story is for you! https://amazon
TheMarioBlog post # 3358