Look at all those doohickeys! And elephants!

I loved visiting the Arizona Republic/ amazing-converged-newsroom-run-by-Republic Media.  It was like being in my Newspaper class on a massive scale and with wonderful techno-doohickeys and much more experienced reporters.  It made me wish that I had some time working as a journalist prior to teaching journalism.  Not that museum work and managing bug reporting for a software team and being an English/Social Studies teacher don't overlap with journalism, but... It just isn't the same. I wanted to be part of the team there, even if just for a little while.   Internship at a CO news outlet next summer?  Maybe.

In the meantime, there is plenty to digest related to the job I have right now as a journalism adviser.  I found it interesting that even with all the high tech tools and the converged news center, there were still plenty of low tech systems in place, such as whiteboards and clocks and face to face meetings.  In general, much of the overall structure of what happens is not all that different from what happens in my classroom.  It just happens all day and much more rapidly.  And with nicer doohickeys.

But I guess my biggest inthought that I am chewing over right now is how curated news really is.  You have to filter, of course.  But it was fascinating to observe how a major news organization emplaces their filters.  It is much more consequential than my high school student editors deciding that they will cover one club over another.  What someone says on air about Governor Brewer (and what all the signage rolling across the screen adds to that), for example, might affect public opinion, might even affect passages of legislation in AZ or the path of her career.  What lands on A1 might place a permanent stamp on a tourist's view of Arizona.  It occurred to me that editor choices in big media markets could have tremendous influence.  What gets covered--or not--affects the trajectory of public attention. And that brought home to me the hugeness of our responsibilities as the storytellers.

On a side note, I was interested by the market research and circulation/tracking weaving its way into the meeting, especially when editors acknowledged that we were there or answered our questions.  What interests readers is, of course, part of what makes it into print.  I am going to be reflecting on how we gather that information and will certainly share with my students how much that question matters in the big leagues.

So what issues at my school are not receiving enough attention because we  chose one topic over another?  And how much does that matter? 

And why did the elephants come up so many times?  (On the other hand, my school has never been visited by elephants, so what do I know?)

Bonnie Katzive

Monarch High School

Louisville, CO