Television Studies Professor Attends Poynter Institute

2/13/08

By Norman Johnson
Special to the Critic

Charlotte Albright, Lyndon State College assistant professor of television studies, is attending a seminar at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla. this week to study the evolving resources needed to prepare the new journalist for this rapidly changing industry..

Albright and 22 other educators from around the U.S. and the world are enrolled in: “Multi-media for College Educators,” a four day, 10 hours per day seminar. Enrollment in Poynter seminars is selective, not all applicants are accepted, Albright said.

“Some are coming from a print background and want to help their students learn how to create online versions of college publications, like newspapers,” Albright said. “Others, like me, are broadcast professors who want to teach storytelling in more than one medium, helping students to combine writing, audio, video, and graphics to expand the range of choices we have to engage an online audience.

“Here at LSC, News 7 reporters need to learn how to contribute video to converging media environments, and to re-shape their stories and scripts for the web,” Albright said.

Albright looked to the street for raw material prior to the seminar. She was working on a video “of a guy I spotted on a street corner giving directions to tourists. He’s homeless and can’t figure out a better way to spend his time on the streets; quite a character, and a contrast to the affluence of this booming city.” Albright said. “If I manage to cobble some sort of multi-media story together I will try to drop it into Blackboard and get my students’ feedback at the end of the week before I come home.”

“Teaching by blog, you might say,” Albright said.

Up until now, journalists have been relatively focused in newspaper, radio, or television. Today, that concept is changing rapidly. As large conglomerates buy up independent newspapers and broadcasters, some with agendas, profitability and technology is dictating what careers in the emerging newsroom will look like, especially for the small independent media company.

“Media companies are reorganizing their businesses. People who can function on all platforms will get the job, or keep their jobs when downsizing happens,” Dan Williams, LSC assistant professor of English/journalism with 13 years experience with CNN, said.

The late Nelson Poynter, a publisher who believed passionately that good journalism and good business are directly related, originally founded the Poynter Institute as the Modern Media Institute. The non-profit institute today is funded by profits from the Times Publishing Co., which is the St. Petersburg Times, Congressional Quarterly, and the Florida Times magazine.