Photo by Lily Bartel
Photo by Lily Bartel
Enoch Wu talked with the feature writing class on Nov. 24 about his work as a photojournalist for the Bowling Green Sentinel-Tribune. He provided insight about how photojournalists can work with reporters on stories, and he shared tips for reporters who find themselves taking their own photos. Wu graduated from BGSU in 2011 in Visual Communication Technology. While at the university he worked on The BG News, including serving as their photo editor.
1997 graduate Betsy Kling is featured in this story on Cleveland.com. Betsy worked as a weather anchor at BG-24 News while at BGSU, and she is now the chief meteorologist at WKYC-TV in Cleveland.
Site leader Amanda Dortch (kneeling, second from left) and bGAB President Maddi Georgoff (second from right, in checked shirt) helped cultivate urban farming with their alternative fall break team in Detroit. Photo courtest BGSU Zoom News.
Public Relations sequence sophomore Amanda Dortch uses her time off from school to perform various works of community service. This article from BGSU’s Zoom News features Dortch, along with other BGSU students doing service work during fall break.
Alumnus Phillip B. Wilson, a sportswriter and videography with the Indianapolis Star for 20 years, has left the Star and joined Scout.com covering the Colts and the Pacers. Read more about his thoughts on the move in this post from “The Blue Mare” or about his move in the changing media landscape in this post from Kent Sterling.com.
Associate professor Catherine Cassara makes time to take in the sites during her July trip to Israel.
by Kathryne Rubright
senior, journalism and public relations
The Department of State warns visitors to Israel that they should know the location of the nearest bomb shelter. But Catherine Cassara found unexpectedly peaceful areas during her trip to Israel.
In July, the associate professor in journalism at Bowling Green State University attended a workshop in northern Israel about the politics of the Israeli and Palestinian conflict. The workshop included trips to various sites around Israel—during a time of greatly increased rocket attacks from Gaza toward Israel.
Cassara was able to visit the Golan Heights, which has carried a violent association for her since it was a battleground in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The Golan Heights she visited this summer was much different.
Cassara described how peaceful it was with its flowers, trees, fields, honeybees and a scenic overlook at a rest stop.
“It’s like being in a state park,” she said. “What the hell is going on here? The Golan Heights?”
In case anyone needed a reminder that the Golan Heights hadn’t always been state park-like, one area had a bunker and silhouettes of soldiers with guns.
“I didn’t go down in the bunker,” Cassara said. “Fat people with bad knees shouldn’t go into bunker places. It’s just not a good concept.”
Other than the fake war set-up, “it was nothing connected to what you would’ve expected,” she said. “It was the strangest, strangest thing.”
Cassara also visited the Dome of the Rock, a site in Jerusalem’s Old City that carries significance for both Muslims and Jews. She found it peaceful as well, despite people holed up in the nearby Al-Aqsa Mosque throwing firecrackers out.
“In spite of the fact that it was really kind of traumatic to be up there while [the firecrackers and shouting] were going on, it was fascinating. … It was peaceful. It was incredibly peaceful, even though you had all these firecrackers and the police arresting them and them all yelling, ‘God is great!’ … The place has just such peace. Big trees, shade, and just this sense of one of those places where people have been praying forever,” Cassara said.
But the reality is that peaceful places are rare in Israel.
“[The] situation in Israel is never good,” said Itay Gabay, assistant professor in the Department of Journalism and Public Relations at BGSU.
Gabay moved from Israel to the U.S. in 2007. All of his family and most of his friends still live in Israel. Some live near the Gaza Strip and left their homes this past summer to avoid the rockets that could have landed on them.
Gabay worried about them more this summer, as the rockets now travel further from the Gaza Strip. Safety is not guaranteed anywhere. Gabay pointed out that Israel is a small country, close in size to New Jersey.
Though Cassara found peaceful areas, she doesn’t expect the conflict to be resolved any time soon. There are many obstacles to overcome, one obstacle being that politicians won’t acknowledge all the obstacles.
Cassara was surprised by a workshop session in which one former Israeli settlement leader acknowledged poor treatment of Palestinians.
“We may never get to reconciliation,” he said, “but we could treat the Palestinians humanely.”
This could include taking down the wall and building better living spaces in refugee camps, he said.
“It was incredible,” Cassara said. “He was admitting to all the things the Palestinians feel.”
But like peaceful sites in Israel, admittances like that are rare.
By the end of her trip, Cassara had decided that she wanted to return. She would love to go back to today’s peaceful Golan Heights, she said. Though she finds it unlikely, she would like to return to an Israel in which peace can be found in more places.
Terry Rentner’s stands next to the poster that was presented at the Society for Public Health Education conference in Baltimore.
Terry Rentner received a faculty improvement leave for the 2013-2014 academic year following a five-year term as the School of Media and Communication director and a four-year term as the Department of Journalism and Public Relations chair.
She spent the year on three college student health grants conducting research, designing and implementing programs and evaluating the impact on changes in awareness, attitudes and behaviors among BGSU students. Her work centered on high-risk drinking, suicide prevention and the misuse of prescription drugs, all serious health concerns among college students.
High-Risk Drinking Campaign
Two of the most difficult challenges college campuses have in reducing high-risk drinking is in changing the campus culture and mandating alcohol education policies. This three-year $514,500 grant, awarded by Ohio Department of Alcohol & Other Drug Addiction Services, aims to correct misperceptions about college drinking. The theory is that changing misperceptions will lead to behavioral changes.
Rentner used findings from AlcoholEdu (an online educational program completed by the majority of first-year BGSU students), the American College Health Assessment-National College Health Assessment survey (ACHA-NCHA) and the Minnesota Institute of Public Health Community Readiness survey (MIPH) to strategically develop the Falcons Flock Together campaign launched this fall.
The Wellness Connection website has more information on this alcohol education program at BGSU.
Suicide Prevention Campaign
Rentner and her grant partners Faith Yingling, director of the Wellness Connection, and Garrett Gilmer, director of the Counseling Center, launched a campus-wide campaign titled “Start the Conversation” that trains students, faculty and staff on how to talk to someone who is in distress.
This was year two of a three year $306,000 grant awarded by the Department of Health and Human Services Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The goal of the grant is to empower the BGSU community to create a culture of care for suicide prevention.
A student-centered approach formed the foundation Rentner used to develop creative and engaging activities.
The program began with a student-produced video contest and a public relations campaigns capstone course that created the “Start the Conversation” campaign.
The BGSU Humanities Troupe offered an alternative to lectures through the use of interactive vignettes and discussions performed throughout the year.
Twitter contests and Messages of Care engaged students in thinking about how to create a culture of care on this campus.
Rentner also created a faculty learning community on helping students in distress that meets every other week this academic year.
Prescription Drug Misuse Campaign
The most recent grant was awarded this past summer by the Cardinal Health Foundation. This is a one-year $10,000 grant to educate the BGSU community about the misuse of prescription drugs.
Among college students, the nonmedical use of pain relievers in the past year by 18-25 year olds in Ohio exceeds the national average by 3.06 percent (SEOW 2010). The ACHA-NCHA survey conducted on this campus in fall 2012 showed that the actual misuse of prescription drugs among BGSU student in the past 30 days was 29.6 percent. Results indicated that 10 percent of students are using painkillers not prescribed for them during the past 12 month.
The Generation Rx campaign, launched this October, focuses on increasing awareness and knowledge about prescription drug misuse. Similar to the other two campaigns, this one is also a student-centered, community based approach to creating a healthier BGSU environment. This campaign will primarily utilize social media to engage students in learning activities.
Rentner also used her leave to present her research, findings and programming on her grants at four conferences including the Society for Public Health Education annual meeting held in Baltimore, Maryland, and Health Communication Division of the National Communication Association held in Washington, D.C. In addition, she had a book chapter published in February and another to be released later this fall.
Dr. Jim Foust, professor in the Department of Journalism and Public Relations, conducted a day-long video training workshop for a group of newspaper journalists. The workshop, organized by the Ohio Newspaper Association (ONA), was held in West Hall on October 23.
Six journalists from newspapers around the state attended the workshop, which consisted of a morning discussion of technical and aesthetic principles of video and an afternoon of hands-on training with Adobe Premiere Pro editing software. Over the lunch hour, participants went out on campus in pairs with video cameras provided by the School of Media and Communication to practice what they had learned.
Foust, who has taught at BGSU since 1994, has a professional background in corporate video and television news videography and editing. He welcomed the chance to share his expertise with other journalists. “I enjoy doing these kinds of training sessions for people in the industry,” he says. “It’s great to see people wanting to learn new tools that they can use to be better journalists.”
“If this seminar is given again, I’d recommend it with enthusiasm,” says Dave Dix, one of the participants in the workshop. “It was excellent. . . . [Foust] organized the day well, had good hand-outs, and devoted two thirds of of the six-hour session to practical hands on.” Dix is publisher of Kent, Ohio’s, Record Publishing Company, publisher of 14 newspapers, including the daily Record-Courier.
Foust helps Randy Roberts from The Findlay Courier edit video footage during the afternoon session.
The ONA, which represents daily and weekly newspapers in the state of Ohio, conducts a variety of training sessions throughout the year. Foust has been a member of the group’s professional development committee, which organizes training, since 2008. “Foust has done training previously for ONA and has been supportive of the training needs of our members,” says Sue Bazzoli, ONA manager of administrative services. “The committee felt that video and video editing would be a good training topic to offer our members and Jim was a great choice as instructor.”
“I think it went well,” says Foust. “Everyone seemed to enjoy it, and they seemed to all be learning something.”
BGSU students joined “Today Show” White House correspondent Kristen Welker (front, third from left) and Jackie Calmes, New York Times White House correspondent (at the podium) in the White House Press Room. Seen (left to right) are Becca Barth, Stevon Duey, Anna Crabill, Lucas Stall and Alexis Martinez.
For six lucky BGSU public relations students, the White House came calling for them over fall break. Members of the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) attended the national PRSSA convention in Washington, D.C., Oct 9-10, but also made another key stop while in town.
The students were guests of Jackie Calmes, New York Times White House correspondent and a BGSU Currier Speaker last in April. When it was announced that the PRSSA National Conference would be held in Washington, PRSSA faculty adviser Julie Hagenbuch reached out to Calmes to see if the club could take a White House Press Room tour.
“We had it all arranged in the spring to go on the tour, but then the security breach occurred with the man jumping over the fence. It didn’t look like we’d be able to visit the White House at all,” she said.
The day before the trip, Calmes called with good news. Not only were they invited and cleared for the tour, they were offered an added bonus: to watch the president take off in Marine One on the South Lawn with the press corps.
On Oct. 9 students Becca Barth, Anna Crabill, Stevon Duey, Alexis Martinez, Lucas Stall, Kristen Tomins and Hagenbuch watched and waved to President Obama as he walked across the lawn to the waiting Marine One.
While on the tour, they were a part of the press briefing and networked with “Today Show” White House correspondent Kristen Welker in the “swamp,” the area where each network does live shots on the White House grounds.
“This trip was truly life changing,” said PRSSA president Lucas Stall, “an opportunity that rarely comes along. I’m so glad I was able to go with PRSSA and hope that future members get to take part in the same activities.”
The trip was paid for through the Student Budget Committee, part of the Office of Campus Activities.
This story is from Anthony Knopps, an adjunct instructor in the Department of Journalism and public Relations and Assistant News Director at WTVG-TV in Toledo.
Can you really teach journalism using a Budweiser ad?
The answer is yes. I’m just back from eight magical days in Hanoi, Vietnam. This was my second opportunity to work with VTV or Vietnamese Television. In August, I worked with their senior staff on how to identify and retain good employees and to improve their leadership abilities. A short time after that exercise ended, I was
Anthony Knopps (center) poses with some of the journalists he helped train in Vietnam.
As began gathering my notes before my departure, I began sketching out an eight-day curriculum that I thought would get them where they needed to go. We focused the heart of good reporting, which as you know, is storytelling. I led several exercises that built their skills in writing for the ear and writing for eye. We also went out in the field with the mission to “find a story that we often ignore.” What my “students” came back with was short of amazing. They found a noodle vendor who saw it her life’s mission to provide food for the less fortunate, they found a train crossing guard that took his work not as a job, but as a family’s responsibility, and we found a man who thought it important enough to beautify Hanoi that he worked above a busy street to make sure all the lights were working.
In all of these cases, the human element was front and center.
So where does Budweiser fit in? We looked at ways to make that connection with our audience and I played a series of Budweiser ads that the beer giant ran during the Super Bowl. In each case, they were looking at how the beer company made that emotional connection with its audience, the importance of doing so, and how that played into the overall success or failure of their stories.
I can honestly say that our lessons were successful in finding ways to make that connection. And it wasn’t just in their stories. On our final day, I remarked that we may have arrived as 19 separate individuals, but we are leaving as one cohesive unit that will have always shared a magical moment in time.
Even today, we are still connecting and I am counting down the hours when I can return to a land that is often misunderstood, but is special in its own way.
Anthony Knopps
Adjunct Instructor
2010 alumna Maia Belay spoke with the media diversity class about her experiences on WTOL, Channel 11 (CBS affiliate) in Toledo. The students also discussed with her national coverage of the coverage of Michael Brown’s killing in Ferguson, Missouri, and other recent racial incidents.
During Homecoming 2014, recent journalism graduate Alex Alusheff spoke to students in the both the public relations and reporting classes about life as a working journalist. He currently is a reporter for The Monroe News in Monroe, Michigan.
Click on the photo to read about Corey Krupa’s summer experience as an intern at the Pro Football Hall of Fame. 
1999 Print Journalism alum Vince Guerrieri has published an article on former U.S. Rep. Jim Traficant in POLITICO Magazine. Guerrieri grew up in the Youngstown area, and has followed Traficant’s career for many years.
Guerrieri has written two books on Ohio sports, and also writes for, among others, Great Lakes Publishing and Belt Magazine.
First year and transfer students who attended the journalism and public relations major meeting as part of Opening Weekend activities pose for a group picture on the front steps of West Hall. On Saturday afternoon of the weekend before classes start, students attend a meeting to learn more about their major program. At the journalism and public relations meeting, representatives from each student media and journalism group got a few minutes to present information about their organization. Nancy Brendlinger, associate professor and adviser to pre-journalism majors for the department, also spoke with the students about required classes and internships. Photo by Alyssa Benes, BG News photo editor
Click on the picture above to view a photo slideshow of the 2013 trip to Paris.
Journalism faculty members Catherine Cassara and Julie Hagenbuch are again organizing a week-long trip for students to travel to Paris for the International Media Seminar.
The group will be in Paris from March 19-29, 2015.
This seminar is an opportunity for students to gain international media knowledge and participate in a study abroad experience.
CNN, People magazine and various French media outlets will be participating. Site visit plans include marketing and PR staffs at EuroDisney and Accenture and Pietris Public Relations.
Students are required to attend daily presentations, most of which are held at the American University of Paris, and must follow guidelines and meeting times given by instructors. Free times are available throughout the trip, giving students the time to explore the city and experience French culture.
Students can earn up to four hours of journalism credit for their work leading up to the trip and their attendance at the seminar.
Anyone who wants more information is encouraged to attend an informational meeting in 310 West Hall. The meeting dates and times are as follows:
Friday, Sept. 19 at 4 p.m.
Wednesday, Sept. 24 at 1 p.m.
Sunday, Sept. 28 at 4 p.m. and 7 p.m.
Questions about the trip should be directed to Cassara at ccassar@bgsu.edu.
Kathy Walker, News Director KOA radio in Denver, Colorado, and chair-elect of the Radio-Television Digital News Association; Amy Tardif, Station Manager and News Director, WGUC-FM, Fort Myers, Florida, and the new chair of RTDNA; and Dr. Kathy Bradshaw, Chair of the Department of Journalism and Public Relations.
Roses left behind on the street where Michael Brown was shot. That was the story that was never told about the aftermath of Brown’s death in Ferguson, Missouri. People went to the scene and left single roses or scattered rose petals in the street where the 18-year old was shot. The street was covered with roses and rose petals, Robert Brooks, Radio One reporter, said at the Excellence in Journalism (EIJ) conference in Nashville, September 4 – 6. EIJ is jointly organized by the Radio-Television Digital News Association (RTDNA) and the Society for Professional Journalists (SPJ). Dr. Kathy Bradshaw, Chair of the Department of Journalism and Public Relations, talked to journalists from across the country at EIJ.
Brandon M. Mercer, Director of Digital Content at the CBS owned and operated KPIX-TV in San Francisco; Dr. Kathy Bradshaw, Chair of the Department of Journalism and Public Relations; and Jam Sardar, News Director at WLNS-TV in Lansing, Michigan.
The EIJ conference included sessions about running a digital news business, reporting for financial literacy, learning coding, and assessing the coverage the Ferguson story in which a police officer, Darren Wilson, shot and killed Michael Brown. Law enforcement officers turned down an opportunity to speak at the conference. The local law enforcement was unprepared to handle the onslaught of reporters, according to reporters who were in Ferguson. Some said that there was confusion about how to define a reporter. The reporters working for news organizations noticed that there were people who were not reporters and wanted access to the police. Other reporters were concerned about what citizens thought was an escalation by the police because police were wearing military gear. Many reporters were aware that some of the actions by some of the protesters were performed only for the TV cameras.
In the discussion of police and reporters, Bradshaw learned that Ohio is one of two states (along with California) in which police may not keep reporters away from a scene for the reporter’s safety. The officer cannot say to a reporter, “You can’t go there because it is not safe.”
Professor Jim Foust gives a presentation on shooting and editing video at KQED in San Francisco.
Professor Jim Foust had several significant accomplishments during his 2013-2014 Faculty Improvement Leave. He spent his time away from BGSU studying new technologies in journalism and working on historical research projects.
The highlight of his FIL was a three-week visit to KQED in San Francisco, one of the leading public broadcasting stations in the country. Foust spent at least 40 hours a week at the station, which–in addition to its award-winning television and radio broadcasting operations–has established a national reputation as a leader in online and mobile journalism.
In addition to observing and talking with KQED journalists, Foust gave a presentation on shooting and editing video for the station’s social media and marketing employees.
He also observed Matter, a news startup accelerator sponsored by KQED and the Knight Foundation.
His trip to the Bay Area was made possible through a competitive fellowship program from the National Association of Television Program Executives. The fellowship also allowed Foust to attend the program executive’s national convention in Miami.
In addition, Foust worked on enhancing his multimedia and programming skills. He completed several online courses on responsive design, mobile journalism, JavaScript and JQuery. He worked on web-based projects that demonstrate these technologies.
He will begin sharing what he has learned with students in his Online Journalism and Multimedia Reporting classes beginning in Fall 2014.
Foust also made two trips to the Washington, D.C., area to continue his work on broadcast regulatory history. While there, he visited National Archives facilities in Washington, D.C., and College Park, Maryland, and the Broadcast Pioneers Library at the University of Maryland.
Part of that research led to his presentation of a paper at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication’s national conference in Montreal in August 2014.
Congratulations to 2001 Broadcast Journalism and BG-24 News alumnus Doug Whitmire, who has been promoted to executive producer of the late news report at WLS-TV in Chicago. Whitmire has been at WLS since 2003, most recently as producer of the morning news show. Read more in this article from Chicago Business Journal.
