A team of CoJMC advertising/public relations students is working with students in UNL’s Jeffrey S. Raikes School of Computer Science and Management in a new collaboration to become involved with the origins of program development.

The Jeffrey S. Raikes School combines the studies of computer science and business management so its graduates are prepared to create innovative technologies for business. Every student participates in a Design Studio project to create software solutions for actual clients. Now, CoJMC advertising/public relations students are embedded in three of the 11 current Design Studio projects as the Jeffrey S. Raikes School students create the solutions.

CoJMC students work with Design Studio teams for three clients – Nelnet, Speedway and Vestin. The students will develop a communications plan, as well as assist with the program development.

“Our students will bring this notion of user experience, audience and benefits to a target audience,” said Amy Struthers, CoJMC professor of advertising, and also will gain skills and work on a team in digital space.

“Our partnership with the Raikes School has grown a lot since we first discussed it,” Struthers said. They have a new mission statement that defines leadership in different ways and they want to present it to the Nebraska business community, she added.

“They hope to develop a pipeline of talent. Once the business community is aware of it, it will cultivate more student applications to the program and attract more diverse (Design Studio) projects.”

The Jeffrey S. Raikes School, formerly the J.D. Edwards Honors Program in Computer Science and Management, is open to high-ability students with specialized interests in both computer science and management.

Hailey Konnath was one of 19 UNL College of Journalism and Mass Communications students who participated in the India study-abroad experience. In this story, Hailey describes what she learned.

Photo by Matt Masin

The day I figured out my future, the humidity was 100 percent. My feet were bare. Monkeys jumped from thatched roofs in the rain. Muddy children clutched school gates. This was rural India.

From July 16 to 31, the College of Journalism and Mass Communications took 19 journalism and advertising students and three faculty members to India for a digital media class.

Teaching village children how to chant “Go Big Red” wasn’t all we did. Not even close. But visiting villages was a trip highlight for many of us. I remember meeting young women in colorful saris, determined to educate their village’s girls. I remember walking over dried rice paddies and smelling mint oil.

Digital Media India had purpose. Students produced video, photo and print stories, which were constantly uploaded to our website, digitalmediaindia.org. As representatives of UNL, the group was in India to work with the World Media Academy (WMA) in New Delhi and build relationships with the Viewspaper.net and other Carnegie-Knight partners.

Scott Winter, an assistant professor of journalism who accompanied the group to India, said the trip opened the minds of students and provided opportunities students couldn’t have gotten anywhere else.

“Students were put in very uncomfortable situations and they performed,” he said.

Bruce Mitchell, an advertising lecturer, and his wife Nancy, the UNL director of Undergraduate Education, also traveled with the group.

UNL students worked most closely with the WMA students, both past and present. These students provided us with story ideas, food recommendations, help getting around the city, translations and contacts. Many became good friends.

“It was really exciting to see firsthand how people across the world live and go about things,” said Christina Condreay, a senior journalism major.

A day spent in a village outside of Lucknow was Condreay’s favorite part of the trip, she said.

We told stories. The lives of women in a rural village. Arranged marriage. Slum life. Youth activists. Education. Power outages.

We spent most of our two weeks in New Delhi. But we also traveled to Lucknow, where we visited the nearby, rural villages. And we did touristy things too: Red Fort, Qutab Minar, the Taj Mahal and Bada Imambara.

But being a tourist wasn’t what our trip was about. Real India wasn’t taking pictures with eager locals in front of India Gate. We shook the hands of slum children. We rode in rickshaws. We crossed busy streets on foot ­– human “frogger,” we called it.

Real India was crowded. It was loud. It was also chock-full of stories for us to tell, rich in tradition and packed with diversity.

Winter said he’s never seen students’ work improve as quickly as did the work of the students over the two weeks in India. And the partnerships forged were successful, he said.

“We’re a player over there and they want us back,” he said. “And that’s good news.”

The day I figured out my future, I wasn’t in a classroom. I was on the other side of the world. I was sitting on the floor of a classroom, eating out of banana leaves. I smelled spices and sweat. And I wasn’t just learning journalistic skills I’ll use in my career. I was learning a new culture. I was discovering the world.

Photo by Tom Tidball

Paige Cornwell stood on the beach in Trincomalee, a port city in eastern Sri Lanka, armed with a camera and a notebook, talking to a man whose house had been wiped out by the 2004 tsunami.

“I kind of just stood there and thought, ‘Wow, three years ago this was a war zone, six or seven years ago, this was the sight of a massive tsunami. How many journalists have been at this spot right now? I’m so lucky to be able to be here.’”

Cornwell, a junior news-editorial major from Leawood, Kansas, was there with eight other students from the College of Journalism and Mass Communications as part of a trip through Sri Lanka, Singapore and Malaysia to learn about culture, media consumption, press rights and consumer insights on the other side of the globe. It was led by Sriyani Tidball, a Sri Lanka native and CoJMC advertising lecturer.

“When you have a college that offers international experience to its students, that makes you stand out,” Tidball said. “For our trade, we have to be international. Students have to be international.”

The trip was the epitome of hands-on learning: There was no textbook and no classroom. The mission was immersion, to learn by doing, and according to Cornwell, the students did just that.

“In beginning reporting class, you learn how to be sensitive in an interview. But I don’t think you can fully get that until you’re interviewing someone who doesn’t have a leg because they walked on a landmine, for example. Or until you’re trying to talk to someone who doesn’t have a home anymore.”

When on a CoJMC trip to Cambodia, Indonesia and Singapore in 2010, Cornwell interviewed street vendors, some with missing limbs, selling remnants of the Cambodian genocide. She also spoke with young males who’d been forced into prostitution.

On her most recent trip with the journalism college, which lasted 17 days in May and June, Cornwell collected “notebooks and notebooks” of material from her more than 20 interviews with Sri Lankans affected by the country’s civil war or displaced by the 2004 tsunami.

One of those interviews was with the man on the beach. He now sells boat rides to tourists. He requests 2000 rupees for each journey, about $40, but he’ll settle for half that, Cornwell wrote in her blog.

Each student was required to maintain a personal blog, posting roughly every other day about the people and places they visited.

In her blog, titled “Ayubowan,” a Sri Lankan greeting for “welcome,” Cornwell addressed topics as varied as the controversy over abuse at an elephant orphanage the group visited, her pseudo-celebrity in Malaysia (locals liked taking pictures with “tall” Americans), the privatized nature of Malaysian education (the “business of education” is booming) and Malaysia’s and Singapore’s press freedoms (or, at times, lack thereof).

Other students wrote about rural poverty, the battle between boosting tourism and eroding local identity and locals’ kindness.

Students also had to take hundreds of photos at each stop on the trip and post a selection of them to their blogs. A listing of the student’s blogs, with photos, are available from the SE Asia Study Abroad 2011 Facebook page.

Before her trips through Southeast Asia, Cornwell “barely knew how to use a camera at all,” she said. But while abroad, she learned from Tidball’s husband, international photographer Tom Tidball, that photos always need a dominant subject, that the human element is what makes an image great. She learned how to shoot from different angles to add interest to her photos, and she learned to perfect the images using digital editing software. Tidball is an adjunct instructor in the CoJMC.

In addition, Cornwell learned about press rights from journalists at major Southeast Asian news outlets. Students visited the Straits Times, an English publication and Singapore’s best-selling newspaper, to talk with review editor Janadas Devan. They discussed press freedoms in Malaysia, too, when they toured The Star newsroom in Kuala Lumpur.

Students also went to advertising agencies McCann Erickson Singapore, part of McCann Worldgroup, a global marketing company, and BBDO Singapore.

Publications in both Singapore and Malaysia must annually apply for printing permits from the government – the same government they might criticize in their pages, Cornwell explained in her blog. In Malaysia, politics and race are sensitive topics. In Sri Lanka, race and religion are taboo.

Although the trip was media-focused, there was plenty of time to stop at tourist destinations and increase UNL’s profile abroad.

The group visited the Petronas Twin Towers, King’s Palace and the Batu Caves in Malaysia; a Buddhist-Taoist temple and a botanical garden in Singapore; and Polonnaruwa, an ancient city, and Sigiriya, an ancient fortress and ruins, in Sri Lanka.

But one of the most notable stops was at Taylor’s College in Malaysia, home to a host of UNL international alumni and prospective students. The group enjoyed a “Husker Night” party, celebrating all things Nebraska with Malaysian UNL graduates and students who would be coming to Lincoln this fall.

“That was so cool,” Cornwell said. “I talked to this one guy, he went to school in the ’90s and he still has his national championship sweatshirt, and it’s still in perfect condition.”

For Cornwell, the focus throughout the trip was always the people – meeting them, understanding them, learning from them.

“They were so willing to tell their stories,” she said. “So many of those people have gone through what most Americans can never even imagine. I spoke with a kid on the beach, he was first in his family to go to high school, and he wants to go into hospitality and open a hotel in the U.S. Then there was the 28-year-old woman with two kids who wanted to leave her husband but couldn’t.”

Cornwell used the young mother as a subject in a profile she wrote about an apartment in Colombo, Sri Lanka, that was destroyed by the tsunami and rebuilt with $100,000 provided by Lincoln residents. The story was published in the Lincoln Journal Star, where Cornwell is a reporting intern.

Thanks to her CoJMC adventures abroad, Cornwell said she has a better understanding of Asian cultures, contacts at major publications in Southeast Asia and a growing desire to be an international correspondent.

“These trips are life-changing,” she said. “They give you a unique opportunity that I don’t think you could get anywhere else. Very few people can say that they have been in Angkor Wat in Cambodia or that they’ve interviewed genocide survivors in Cambodia or that they’ve been to a former war zone in Sri Lanka and seen a line of soldiers with AK-47s and talked to those people.”

She continued, “I think that’s one of the reasons why the journalism school is so great – not only do they teach you and give you opportunities here, it’s that they create opportunities elsewhere, too.”

You can read about their adventure at http://cojmc.unl.edu/russia/ . Photo by Luis Peon-Casanova

New media is a global phenomenon, and CoJMC students have seen firsthand how journalism and advertising professionals are working to embrace the change across the Atlantic.

Seventeen students from the College of Journalism and Mass Communications traveled to Moscow and Sochi, Russia, in May to learn about and analyze mobile media’s popularity and applications, especially as the country prepares for the 2014 Olympic Winter Games.

Although Russia has been slower than the U.S. to accept platforms such as blogs, Twitter and Storify as legitimate outlets for news and advertising, the students quickly learned that digital tools are a growing force even in a country with an altogether different media climate.

“New media has hit there, definitely,” said Pat Radigan, a senior news-editorial major from Sioux Falls, S.D. “Media outlets have to use these new platforms to stay ahead. They make their content and then push it through all these new channels.”

But, he said, “the way people view the things they’re creating is still in the traditional way. If something’s coming from a newspaper, they still read it like a newspaper story. If it’s from a television station, it’s understood as a TV broadcast.”

There was nothing traditional, however, about the way the CoJMC students approached mobile media. They completed assignments using Storify, a digital tool that allows users to write original content and drag and drop in information, Tweets, photos and videos from other sites to form one cohesive story.

“They had a chance to see how they might tell a story using elements of social media in addition to their own reporting,” said Amy Struthers, an assistant advertising professor. Struthers and advertising lecturers Adam Wagler and Luis Peon-Casanova led the Russia study trip. “They got to practice shooting and editing their own videos, shooting their own photos and uploading it all to the web,” Struthers added.

Three group projects focused on the changing face of Sochi in anticipation of the Olympics.

One examined how the city was marketing itself domestically and abroad. Text explained Sochi’s strategy, but the group pulled in a Russian advertisement promoting a unified Russia, an image of the Olympics logo and a video from national sponsor Russian Railways to show – rather than simply tell – what Sochi was up to.

Another set of students used text, Tweets, photos, videos and a blog excerpt to describe the bond between Sochi and sports. (After the Olympics, Sochi will host the Russian Formula 1 Grand Prix and the 2018 World Cup.)

The third group told the story of the city’s pre-Olympics makeover using text, photos, links, website excerpts, videos, Tweets and Facebook posts.

Students also used Storify individually to document their cultural experiences.

Of course, in accordance with the the trip’s theme, students used mobile devices to execute the assignments.

“We were using iPads to produce text and video,” Radigan said. “We were using cell phones to upload stuff to Twitter as we were at places; we were checking in on foursquare. We got to see how it worked to actually do something using digital platforms instead of just conceptualizing a mobile project.”

The students shared four Droid smartphones and two iPad2s provided by the journalism college.

The trip included eight nights in Sochi and seven in Moscow. In both cities, in addition to media spots, the group sought out tourist locales including the Kremlin, the All Russian exhibition center, which features a cultural bazaar, and Mount Akhun, a castle-like tower offering panoramic views of Sochi.

In Sochi, the group toured under-construction Olympic sites and spoke with officials about the city’s transition from mid-size resort city to world-class sports host.

At Moscow State University, they heard from MSU and UNL faculty and local digital reporters about the history and structure of Russia’s press, its current evolution, website promotion and social media best practices.  They also toured TV news network RT (formerly called Russia Today) and advertising agency McCann Erickson Russia.

The UNL group worked closely with Moscow State University students, swapping experiences and observations about culture and media.

“The (Nebraska) students really got an idea of what life is like for a Russian ad, PR or journalism student,” Struthers said. “They formed some really strong friendships in a very short time. From us, I think the Russian students learned maybe a different attitude toward school. They saw the American students as perhaps more energetic, more innovative in their thinking, more real-world, hands-on.”

She continued, “What happens on these trips is just so far beyond what can happen on campus,” Struthers said. “Of course on-campus courses are essential, and people can get some very extraordinary experiences on campus. But to be able to offer students this mix of opportunities I think is significant because our students had the opportunity to meet people involved in a curriculum similar to ours and yet quite different, in a whole different political context.”

As a result of the trip, UNL and Moscow State have an exchange partnership that will allow Russian professors and students to come to Lincoln and vice versa. The college is trying to arrange a month-long visit from a Moscow State professor next year, Dean Gary Kebbel said.

Radigan said he is considering enrolling at Moscow State or Sochi State University in the future. But for now, he’s working on mastering the language.

He is taking Russian courses this fall at UNL so that he can return to Sochi in a few years and volunteer during the Olympics.

“I always used to say Russians seemed cold and brusque, just kind of guarded,” Radigan said, “But I realized they aren’t, and the country was actually more expressive than Paris and Rome. (Russians) want to get rid of the idea that they’re cold and stagnant. It’s lively and exciting, and I want to go back.”

Mitch Smith is a journalism major who will begin his second year at UNL in August. Originally from Overland Park, Kan., Smith was the winner of Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof’s annual Win-A-Trip contest. Smith, who had never left the United States before, was selected from nearly 900 applicants based on his entry essay.

Smith spent 12 days reporting with Kristof in four African countries in May, covering issues ranging from conservation to maternal health to education. While in Africa, he filed a daily blog post for the Times. You can read his entries at http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/author/mitch-smith/.

Mitch with new-found friends at a mud-hole on Republic of Congo’s Highway No. 1. The truck behind them had been stuck for the last month.

When I was checking in for my flight to Libreville, Gabon, the ticket agent politely asked one of my traveling companions, “Where the hell is that?”

There I was, totally out of my league, standing in the middle of one of the world’s busiest airports, and the person giving me my boarding pass didn’t have a clue where I was going.

If you, like the geographically challenged airline employee, aren’t familiar with Gabon, don’t feel too bad. It’s a relatively wealthy West African nation slightly larger than Nebraska in area but a little smaller in population.  It gained modest notoriety as a host site for Survivor and received some coverage for setting more than 10 percent of its land aside as national parks.

But aside from a few old National Geographic articles, the CIA World Factbook and clips from that ridiculous CBS reality show, I really didn’t know much more about where I was going than that ticket agent did.

I was born in Omaha, grew up outside Kansas City and returned to Nebraska for college.  Driving through the Midwest, I have paid an admission fee to see a five-legged cow, marveled at a cliff with five presidents’ faces carved on the side and spent hours wondering why I have to go through Missouri and Iowa to get to Lincoln when my home state of Kansas borders Nebraska in the first place.

But spending 12 days traveling overland from Libreville through the Republic of the Congo and into the Democratic Republic of the Congo put the five-legged cow and the rest of my Midwestern roadside adventures to shame.

In Africa, I saw camps of the purportedly dangerous “Ninja” rebels who were unarmed and underfed. I encountered six-foot-deep muddy gorges on Congo’s National Highway No. 1 that had ensnared some trucks for more than a month.

And, perhaps most poignantly, I watched a pair of teenagers in a remote village tell me of how they dreamed of attending college and of the hunger that gnawed at their bodies. Their story made my heart sink when I walked into the Selleck dining hall on the first day of my summer class, making me wonder why I had access to a university education and a buffet of endless food when those two teens struggled for both.

Because I had never left the United States before, much of my experience seemed surreal at the time. Things that would be illegal (14-year-olds having children with adults) or unthinkable (a swarm of bats flying out of the roof of a hospital) back home coexisted alongside cell phones and friendly locals. Some parts of Africa were uncomfortably foreign, but always nearby were things that felt not unlike Lincoln or Kansas City.

It was that human side of Africa that transformed my perspective on the world and on my life. I hope to use that fresh outlook to my advantage as I return to my comparatively tame life in the States. But even more, I think this trip transformed the way I look at a story and at journalism.

For years, I had wanted an opportunity to practice “real” journalism and to cover global issues for a wide audience. I was frustrated with the seeming insignificance of things like the investigative project I wrote for my high school newspaper about crosswalks.

This summer, I got the chance to cover those big-picture issues. I learned what I do well, what I need to work on and what it’s like to have my work read by thousands of discerning eyes while writing on tight deadlines and no sleep.

Now I can come back to school and work on making those improvements and finishing my degree. But I feel I do so as a much different person than I was when that ticket agent asked just where we were going.

My ideas about what is important in this world and what journalism can accomplish have changed, and I know that will help dictate where I go from here.

And, hey, if nothing else, I now know where Libreville is in case any other curious airline employees inquire.

(Front) Brandi Kruse, Alina Selyukh; (Back) Emily Ingram, Elicia Dover

Elicia Dover loves New York.

“I think everything happens here,” the recent UNL grad said. “You can walk down the street and always see someone doing something cool and new. There is a reason all of the major news stations are here. I think it’s the center of everything.”

Dover was one of four J school students who interned last fall at UNL’s ABC News on Campus bureau. That experience helped lead her to a spring semester interning in New York City for ABC’s “20/20.” That internship was extended, and then in May, she was offered a full-time job as a digital news associate with the news division.

UNL’s relationship with ABC, which began in August 2009, gives students the opportunity to prepare multimedia news stories for one of the nation’s largest news corporations.

“UNL and the students as the college here should realize they are very lucky to have ABC News on Campus because there are only six in the nation, and the opportunities that are available here through this bureau are unlike any others that are out there,” said Emily Ingram, a journalism and advertising senior from Franklin, Neb., who served as the inaugural bureau chief.

Kathy Christensen, the faculty member who supervises the bureau, emphasized the importance of the real-world experience.

“There’s a huge difference between doing stories for a class assignment and doing them for real distribution on a national platform, and our students have measurably improved their writing, reporting and video skills.  They’ve learned how to find stories of national interest and prepare those stories in the most effective ways.”

(Front) Wade Hilligoss, bureau chief Carson Stokebrand; (Back) Morgan Demmel

Dover, a senior journalism major from Bryant, Ark., was one of four students who began working for ABC on Campus in fall 2009. When she left for New York in January, two more students joined the three remaining interns to staff the bureau during spring semester. The bureau also is operating this summer with three interns.

Dover works on long-term projects at ABC

In New York, Dover did research and logged tapes, essential tasks for “20/20,” one of America’s premier depth reporting programs.  Instead of racing to tell breaking stories as fast as possible, “20/20” spends months, sometimes a year, on a one-hour program.

“It’s not just one day stories with quick turn-arounds. “20/20” is a long process; it’s not like a quick cable story,” Dover said. “It’s important to have in-depth stories to bring to light details people need to hear.”

Every Friday, Dover sat in the control room and watched as co-anchors Chris Cuomo and Elizabeth Vargas delivered stories that researchers had spent months compiling.

“’20/20’ has always been my dream,” Dover said. “I love the program, and I always watch it. I think that’s what did it for me; you always want to work for something you love.”

Dover received an e-mail last fall about the internship and immediately decided to apply. During winter break, Dover sat at home in Arkansas,  with her suitcases packed, not knowing until the last minute where she would be spending her spring semester. Finally, the call came, and Dover flew off to New York City and “20/20.”

Just as news organizations are more likely to hire interns they know, they are also likely to work with people with whom they had success in the past. That’s probably why ABC approached Christensen about opening a UNL bureau. Christensen is a former executive producer of “ABC’s World News Tonight with Peter Jennings” and of “ABC’s Weekend News.”

Christensen contributes to the students’ success

“One thing I think that can’t be overstated is Kathy Christensen is a fabulous mentor to have,” Ingram said. “I often get papers back from her, and they’re torn up — it’s not always rainbows and sunshine — but I feel I have grown tremendously just because of Kathy Christensen and this internship.”

Dover also praised Christensen and described working in the ABC bureau as an unequaled opportunity to engage in backpack journalism. The students are expected to go out into the field and do everything. Not only do they conduct interviews, but they must be able to properly set up the lighting, edit the video and then write a news article. The students’ work is posted on ABC’s campus website but often also appears in other ABC platforms.

In her semester with ABC News on Campus, Dover reported on topics varying from horses neglected because of the economic downturn to a record-setting balloonist turned philanthropist.

Christensen had good things to say about Dover’s work and that of her fellow interns.

“Elicia, like the other students in our first bureau, started off with a bang,” Christensen said. “Her first piece — about a hot air balloonist — was beautifully shot, and she did a terrific job of reporting. She really devoted herself to this experience, which paid off in getting the internship — and I know ABC has been very pleased with her work.”

Interns learn by doing

The On Campus bureau also regularly communicates with ABC executives in New York about the students’ work. Dover said this connection, along with the experience she gained with the bureau, help her get the internship with “20/20.”

“ABC News on Campus opened up the door for me because you work directly with producers in New York every day, and they get to know you on a personal level and what work you do,” Dover said.

Christensen, too, emphasized the importance of the on-campus work.

“This experience has been invaluable for our students,” she said. “Not only have they had an opportunity to do numerous text and video stories that have achieved national distribution and recognition, but they’ve become highly professional in terms of dealing with editors and producers in New York as well as with sources.”

In addition to helping the students connect to ABC, the experience in the ABC bureau has also helped students get internships with other prestigious news organizations. Ingram is working this summer as Web producer intern at The Washington Post. Brandi Kruse is interning this summer in New York at CBSNews.com in the video unit. And Alina Selyukh landed an internship at Thomson Reuters in Washington, D.C., for the summer, where she will be both writing and working with video.

Dover, who spent last summer in New York interning with Fox Business, knows that it takes much more than connections to land a major summer internship. Students must be motivated and willing to take a risk.

“It definitely takes the willingness to leave where you are comfortable, and it takes courage to be able to leave somewhere and give an internship in New York a shot,” she said. “Definitely, when interviewing, put your best foot forward, let them know how hard you will work and then follow through on that.”

It’s not easy to be a journalist in Mexico.

Phyllis Larsen (left), Karen Pedersen and Allie Busch visited a school for disabled children in Cozumel to give them craft donations.

That was clear quickly to the 10 students who spent two weeks on the island of Cozumel in late May, studying the media in a developing country.

The students, led by Phyllis Larsen, senior lecturer of advertising, met with Mexican journalists, business owners and residents during the study abroad trip.

The students saw a number of ways Mexican media are different from U.S. media.

Mexican reporters and photographers have to buy their own equipment. Gustavo Villegas, a journalist for Novedades de Quintana Roo newspaper, said journalists pay for cameras, lenses, voice recorders and other tools out of their own pockets.  That can add up quickly for a journalist whose job doesn’t usually even include benefits.

Another difference the students found was that many journalists train on the job rather than studying for their careers first.

Victor Robledo, a journalist for Por Esto newspaper, said most reporters have little professional training. Some choose to take a ferry to the mainland for classes at a college in Cancun since no courses are available on the island, he said, but it is not required.

Credibility is also a problem Mexican journalists face.  Just as credibility for U.S. papers has suffered in recent years, few Mexicans trust what is published in their country’s newspapers. Robledo said no journalistic standards exist in Mexico for things such as story sourcing.

Many residents believe Novedades de Quintana Roo, a statewide newspaper, is the most serious and reliable of all the papers available in Cozumel. Journalists for Novedades can get fired for printing untruthful information, but that is rare at other Mexican newspapers.

Yet no more than 2 percent of Cozumel residents pay the eight pesos it costs to read a reliable newspaper, Villegas said.

Por Esto is the most popular newspaper on the island with the highest circulation because of its broad coverage of news.  Reporters for Por Esto do not have to cite any sources in their stories, though Robledo said he makes it a point to interview at least two people for every story he writes.

Nora Hernandez, the director of social communications for the government in Cozumel, acknowledged that not all papers in Cozumel are accurate.

Many Cozumel residents said De Peso is similar to tabloids found in the United States  and is full of unreliable information. De Peso’s pages are filled with photos of blood-stained accident victims and barely covered women.

And just like in the United States, newspapers aren’t the main source of news for most people.

Island residents Josefina Gonzalez and her son, Geronimo Hernandez, said they get their news from TV because it is the most reliable source. Cozumel has its own station, Channel 5, which broadcasts news three times a day.

Radio is another source of news on the island. Radio licenses are issued by the government based on population size.

Cozumel has a population of 90,000 people, which qualifies it for only one license, the one issued to Sol Sterio, which is both a radio and a TV station. When its two news programs air on the radio, the DJs can be seen on TV, too.

Cozumel residents listen for public news announcements about hurricanes, health alerts like the H1N1 virus or even schedules of cruise ships coming to the island.

Larsen has been taking students to Cozumel to study media since the summer of 2007. She had made many scuba diving trips to the island over the years  and was sure it would make a safe learning environment.

Through Larsen’s extensive network of contacts, the students added a twist to their study abroad experience by completing service learning projects during the trip. “I never expected to do volunteer work on the island, but I’m really glad we got the chance to,” said Allie Busch, a junior advertising major.

Seven of the 10 students worked with local biologists on the island’s turtle salvation program, searching the beaches for sea turtles laying their eggs. They saw one turtle and found three nests. The eggs were counted and moved to safer locations farther from the ocean.

The students worked with Karen Pedersen, a coordinator for volunteering on the island and adviser to Núcleo de Apoyo Familiar (NUAFA). NUAFA is an organization that provides childcare, support programs and job training for families in crisis in Cozumel.

Each UNL student brought an extra suitcase of clothing donations that were sold at a “Gran Bazar” garage sale to raise money for the group. Craft donations were taken to a school for disabled children the UNL students visited. They played a basketball game against a local girls team and had a picnic with students from the island’s University of Quintana Roo.
“Even though we went to study journalism and advertising, our trip was a lot about building relationships because that is so important in this culture,” Larsen said.

The group salsa danced with students from the Spanish English Academy one evening and practiced their cross-cultural communication skills.  Gonzalez, a cooking instructor in Cozumel, even made the students two authentic Mexican dinners during their stay.

Jessica Sorensen, sophomore journalism major, summed it up: “They let us into their homes and let us help them, but really they gave much more to us in return.”

Matt Gersib was five years out of college when he was approached about mentoring a Public Relations Student Society of America member.

PRSSA member Patrick Roy (left) visits with mentor Paige Zutavern. She is the editor of a local business publication, Strictly Business.

The J school alum thought it sounded like a great idea but wasn’t sure what to expect.

“Initially, I saw it as a way to give back to the college,” said Gersib, now the director of public relations at Snitily Carr, a Lincoln advertising agency. “I didn’t really realize how much it would end up giving me.”

Now in his eighth year with the PRSSA mentoring project, Gersib is still at it, along with 31 other professionals.

Professionals like Gersib help shape the next generation of professionals, and students benefit by observing their chosen career field without the pressure or time commitment of an internship or college course.

New pairs every year expand networking opportunities
The professionals, or mentors, and the PRSSA students, or protégés, are paired for an academic year to develop a professional relationship and provide in-context learning about public relations. Mentors are matched with new students every year so each party has the opportunity to network with as many people as possible.

That doesn’t mean professionals who mentor a student stop mentoring them the next year when they get new protégés, said Jessica Simpson, a junior advertising major and PRSSA president.

Instead, they build upon their friendships.

Simpson, who has had two mentors since joining PRSSA, sees it as a way to branch out even more and discover what a student is passionate about.

“It gives you confidence because this person is willing to get to know you and hear about your day,” Simpson said.

Mentors and protégés meet regularly
Typically, mentors and protégés contact each other two to three times a month. While some mentors and protégés will exchange e-mails and grab coffee, others will spend half a day together and go to lunch.

Some mentors, like Gersib, even invite their protégés to business meetings and client events to see how their job is done. Students get to observe as well as network with their mentors’ colleagues.

Professionals involved in the project come from a range of public relations backgrounds. Healthcare, non-profit, athletics and entertainment are a few of the career paths represented by current PRSSA mentors.

Occasionally the professional friendship results in the protégé getting an internship through his or her mentor. That’s not the point, though, said advertising faculty member and PRSSA adviser Phyllis Larsen.

“It’s most important that they (protégés) gain confidence, contacts and really transition from student to young professional,” Larsen said. “Mentors learn from protégés, too, and profit from the enthusiasm of a young spirit.”

Project helps students connect with professionals
The PRSSA mentoring project started after Larsen saw a need for students specifically interested in public relations. And while the UNL chapter of PRSSA had been on campus since 1998, Larsen felt she could do more to ensure students were connecting with professionals in their field.

“Students wanted to learn about PR, and we didn’t have a major in it,” Larsen said. “We wanted to put students in touch with people who are doing work.”

Larsen, who was a public relations professional for 20 years before joining the journalism faculty in 2000, contacted former colleagues to see if they wanted to mentor students. She also contacted former students who were a few years out of school and into their professional careers.

She told them that if anyone had ever helped them early in their careers, this was their chance to pay it forward.

“I’m really grateful to the mentors who spend time with the students,” Larsen said. “The students tell me how valuable this is to them.”

Center: Morgan McBride, human resources director, Ketchum Public Relations. First row: students Courtney Courelle, Kayla Mosel, Marianne Cicmanec, Anna Woita, Joan Wortmann, Cori Schwabe. Second row: Cydney Rule, Jessica Williams, Tyler Benes, Abby George, Katie Sorensen, Sierra Frauen, Molly Wheeler, Grace Sedlacek.

The buildings are taller and the streets are more crowded in New York City, but 14 CoJMC advertising students from UNL had no trouble navigating the heart of the U.S. advertising industry this fall.

Their trip to the to the Advertising Career Conference, sponsored by the Advertising Women of New York (AWNY), was a chance to meet and mingle with professionals and get a glimpse of the real world.

“The trip keeps growing as we make more and more connections in New York City,” said advertising sequence head Amy Struthers, who has taken students to the conference annually since 2006. “This really is the industry of building relationships.”

Struthers arranged a dinner for the students and UNL alumni who work in New York City. This offered students the chance to discuss how to get — and keep — a job in New York City.

“The most important part to me was learning how different people got in their current positions and what steps they took to get where they are,” said senior advertising major Katie Sorensen.

During the conference, held Nov. 13 and 14 at the Fashion Institute of Technology, students attended workshops specific to their advertising interests. They met with professionals in all areas — from creative and account services to sports marketing and fashion merchandising.

The learning experience was unbeatable. “You actually learn more in depth about advertising because you hear real professionals telling their experiences,” said senior advertising major Tyler Benes.

Advertising professionals stressed the importance of old and new media, expressed enthusiasm for the future of advertising and encouraged students to stay motivated and get internships.

Besides attending the conference, students visited advertising, public relations and media agencies. The variety gave the students, who ranged from freshmen to seniors, insight into different aspects of advertising and integrated communications.

“I wanted to see the advertising world in New York City because it’s larger and a lot more intense,” Sorensen said. “This was my third time here; I love New York.”

Many of the students arrived before the conference or stayed late to experience more of the city. Students shopped, attended Broadway shows, watched a filming of “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” and visited the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State building. For some, the trip reinforced their dream to someday live in New York.

Senior advertising Joan Wortmann attended the conference in 2007 and decided to attend again this year.

“The trip gave me the opportunity to reconnect with contacts I made the first time I went to New York and show them that I’m still interested in the field and have the same goals,” Wortmann said.

Wortmann, who wants to live in New York, knows these connections will be critical after she graduates.

Although the trip was short, the students crammed in a lot.

“I learned a lot about networking and how beneficial it is to you as a student and getting ahead in the career world,” senior advertising major Kayla Mosel said. “It’s definitely about who you know.”

And now, thanks to this trip, these 14 students know a few more pros.

Each year for four years, emeritus professor Bud Pagel has taken a handful of talented beginning reporting students to Nebraska newspapers to report and write a series of stories for the papers. The three-day experience gives students the opportunity for bylines and a chance to work in a real newsroom under the direction of expert editors like Pagel.

In the past, newspapers in nine towns have hosted the Pagel project. Towns include Norfolk (twice), Grand Island, Kearney, Hastings, Fremont, Aurora, Geneva (twice), Blair and Elkhorn.

In the fall of 2009, six students accompanied Pagel to the Norfolk Daily News and six others to the Douglas County Post-Gazette in Elkhorn. Those traveling to Norfolk rote about adjustment problems of returning Iraq war veterans. The Elkhorn team interviewed local citizens who had lived through the Great Depression. The college pays for travel and lodging expenses, and the newspapers pay for the students’ food.

***

Student gets reporting bug after Norfolk Daily News assignment

By ANNA RIPA
J Alumni News staff

Teachers always say to broaden your horizon. Norfolk’s horizon was beautiful at 8 a.m. when I arrived at the Norfolk Daily News, but it was gone by the time I took my eyes away from the computer and my stylebook.

Expanding my horizons in a visit to Norfolk gave me an opportunity to go outside my comfort level: to interview someone I didn’t know, to have my work edited by an experienced journalist and to get hiring advice from an editor.

I was grateful to be given the opportunity by the university and Bud Pagel (associate professor emeritus) to write stories about soldiers for the Norfolk Daily News. I experienced what it is like to go to work, get an assignment, find the news and report it. I took what I have been learning in my beginning reporting class and tried to apply it to a real job experience.

I was nervous showing up at my first interview at Norfolk’s Veteran Home, but all those nerves went away after I found myself being more curious about World War II and Korean War veteran James Kelley. I thought like a reporter, asking tough questions about his experience and the true meaning of patriotism. I found myself repeating the same questions in different ways to get more detailed answers, while I made sure my facts were correct about his being sent to the South Pacific in 1942 and being in the 6th Marine Division. I even asked him to spell Chosin Reservoir, where he fought in a battle.

It was not hard for me to find the news. The news was his pride in his country; I saw that with his Marine Corps flag and the Purple Hearts hanging on his wall.

My second interview was with National Guard member Justin Olson. Olson had been in charge of training 400 Iraq soldiers near Baghdad. Olson showed patriotism for his county and love for his job.  I quoted him saying, “I am going to be part of this place until they kick me out.”

Since I was engaged in my interviews, writing a story wasn’t a problem.  The problem was condensing the information. Understanding what needs to be in the story and what doesn’t is an art. When Pagel edited my articles, I was amazed how much more meaningful and newsworthy my story was after he explained what needed to be cut.

It is important for students to know what skills bosses are looking for. I asked Kent Warneke, editor of Norfolk Daily News, what he looks for when he is hiring.

“Someone who knows how to write, fits well with the current staff, can represent us properly and someone who is curious and willing to ask those tough questions,” Warneke said.

It was important for me to speak with Warneke about my future as a journalist and what he thought I needed to be successful. Applying for internships is important. They give a student an opportunity to see what life would be like working in a newsroom or as a reporter.

When I first came to the college of journalism, I was unsure about whether I wanted to be part of the news side of broadcast or the production side. But spending a weekend in Norfolk made me want to focus on news reporting. I will use this experience to grow as a reporter and find more opportunities to broaden my horizon.

***

Frantic start leads to stellar finish at Norfolk

By ABRAM LUEDERS
J Alumni News staff

I was looking forward to going to Norfolk for a reporting trip on the last weekend in October. But I had overlooked one tiny detail:  The trip was scheduled for the first weekend in October.

At least I got the month right.

I realized my mistake the day before the trip and frantically called Bud Pagel, otherwise known as “Uncle Buddy,” to tell him I wouldn’t be able to make it. In language I will not repeat, Uncle Buddy told me I would be coming on the trip. The next day, I packed up and left.

Soon, things started to look up. My first assignment on Friday morning was going to be a breeze. Three members of the Norfolk American Legion were coming to the Norfolk Daily News office. I would interview one of them and a write a short profile story. No problem.

After our group arrived at the Daily News office, we gathered in a room to meet with editor Kent Warneke. Warneke lost full use of his legs after a childhood bout with polio. But that morning, as soon as he bounded into the room sporting crutches and a Cheshire-cat grin, it was obvious that Warneke wasn’t the kind of guy who’d let a little thing like that get in his way. Rapid-fire introductions traveled around the room. Then Warneke and Pagel worked out the details of our upcoming assignments and left us to wait for the guys from the American Legion.

Soon enough, they arrived, and I was assigned to interview Jerry Landkamer — a quiet, middle-aged man with a mustache and large glasses.

Landkamer was the commander of Norfolk’s American Legion post. As I began the interview, I could tell he was patriotic enough to put a flag-waving bald eagle to shame. But dealing with the press wasn’t his strong suit. Landkamer deflected question after question with constant references to the stack of American Legion pamphlets he had brought with him. To top it off, he made it clear that he believed journalists were a threat to the men and women in the armed forces. Ice-breakers were useless here:  The man was all ice.

It was not a successful interview. My mind was racing. What was I going to write?

But then, Landkamer started to talk about his experience returning from the Vietnam War. On his way home, protesters in San Francisco had harassed Landkamer’s ship. And as he told the story, a bit of emotion broke through Landkamer’s voice. It wasn’t much, but I found I had a story after all.

Several hours later, our group headed out to interview members of the National Guard’s 189th Transportation Co. I interviewed Dale Alexander, a National Guardsman who had recently become a National Guard recruiter. And despite Alexander’s less-than-subtle attempts to recruit me, the interview went well. But compared to my awkward encounter that morning, it was hardly memorable.

That night, our group had dinner with Warneke at a local Mexican restaurant. The topic of the American Legion interviews popped up, and Warneke asked who had interviewed Jerry Landkamer.

I looked up from my chimichanga and told him I had.

Warneke smiled and explained that Landkamer was a great guy, but at times he could be a bit zealous in his pursuit of patriotism.

As a journalist, I know this won’t be the last time I’ll have to deal with a slightly uncomfortable interview — or an unexpected change in my schedule. But if I wanted a predictable career, I could have majored in accounting. I signed up for the Norfolk reporting trip to learn something. And I did.

***

J student survives her first interview in Elkhorn visit

By LACEY MASON
J Alumni News staff

When my alarm clock went off at 5:30 that morning, I immediately regretted agreeing to go to Elkhorn to write a story for the Post-Gazette.

Originally, we were going to go up the night before, stay in a hotel for a couple of nights and have a fun weekend. At the last minute the plans were changed, so we drove there and back and there again to save on the cost of hotels. We had to be at the Elkhorn Post-Gazette by 8 a.m., on a Friday morning, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

When we arrived at the Post-Gazette, we were greeted by a sweet woman named Mary Lou. The office was small and she scrambled to find places for all of us to set up our laptops. Three other girls and I shared a desk that was stuck in an editor’s office and took turns plugging our laptops in.

We would be assigned to write feature stories on some older members of the community who had lived through the Great Depression and drought. I wasn’t looking forward to this.

When I arrived at Allan Neu’s home, I was nervous. And that was an understatement. If I had known my way around Elkhorn better, I may have turned and run.

My assignment was to interview Allan, who was just shy of 84 years old and had spent his childhood on a farm during the Great Depression. I didn’t have much interviewing experience, and I didn’t have much experience with the elderly. I began to feel self-conscious about my nose-piercing and wondered if I should have worn long sleeves. I was a basket case. I didn’t know what to do.

So I knocked.

Allan and his wife, Violet, answered the door. With a smile, I went in.

During the interview Allan Neu was stoic, while his wife across the table smiled proudly. He was the perfect interview. He spoke slowly, and didn’t speak unless I asked a question. He didn’t go off on tangents, and when he was done answering a question he simply stopped speaking. Every once in awhile, Violet would throw in funny quips about paying bills with chicken and how much her husband liked doughnuts.

An hour and a half later, my interview was over. I thanked the couple for their time, sipped on a glass of water and talked with them about the stained-glass wind chimes hanging on the ceiling. I wasn’t any less nervous than when I had come, but I knew, at this point, that the nerves were all in my head.

Violet gave me a ride when it became apparent my ride couldn’t come pick me up. I was happy to be returning to the Post-Gazette.

I settled into a chair that I’d tracked down from another room and squeezed in at my crowded desk. Now it was time to write.

Hours later, after arguments with tired classmates and way too much Godfather’s pizza, I had my story.

We managed to talk Bud Pagel, an adjunct professor and our boss for our reality-check weekend, into not making us drive back to Elkhorn for edits the next morning.

So we arrived at the J school at 9 a.m., tired and anxious to get back in our beds. Uncle Buddy, as Pagel likes to call himself, told us he was proud of us. He said we had the best group of stories he had seen in his five years of taking students on trips to small-town newspapers.  In our pride, we all sat up a little straighter in our chairs.

The high was short-lived.

As Uncle Buddy handed our papers back to us, we gawked at the corrections. Not a single lined was unmarked.

That’s always the hard part:  having to accept criticism. In the computer lab, my classmates and I grumbled about his edits. We complained about words he wanted us to cut out and words he wanted us to change. We knew he was right, though.

Two additional drafts later, I was free to go. Pagel praised my story and told me he thought it was one of the best. I thanked him and wondered how many of us he had said the same thing to.

I can’t say the experience was eye-opening or miraculous. I can’t say that, overall, I had a blast. It was a good experience. I had my first real interview with a stranger, and I survived. Perhaps that’s the best lesson I learned from all of this:  A situation scared me, I confronted it, and I didn’t die.

Everything was OK, and everything is going to be OK.

NOTE: The stories that Lacey Mason and other beginning reporters wrote for the Elkhorn Post-Gazette were published in a package in December 2009 and January 2010.