Al-Baaj, 35, and her family are living proof that Iraqis can successfully adapt to the U.S. / Photo courtesy Nebraska Mosaic–Gabriel Medina

Since the 1980s, thousands of refugees have rebuilt their lives in Lincoln. They’ve come from Afghanistan, Vietnam, Bosnia, China, Sudan and dozens of other countries, placed by resettlement agencies, or relocating in Lincoln from elsewhere in the United States after receiving good reports from family or friends.

But Lincoln’s refugee communities aren’t immediately visible — at least they weren’t to Jacyln Tan, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln student working on her master’s degree in journalism.

And over the course of the past semester, she’s learned why.

“They’re not in the grocery stories or downtown,” said Tan. “They’re in their own communities.”

This semester, Tan and six other UNL journalism students are working to make those communities more visible. Their medium is an online community called “Nebraska Mosaic,” which strives to be a resource for both non-refugees and refugees in Lincoln, said Tim Anderson, UNL associate professor of journalism. The site went live on Nov. 3, the same day as a celebration of the project at the Ross Film Theater.

The site currently features stories and videos by Tan and others about refugees’ lives in Lincoln. Among the first stories posted to the website were a profile of an Iraqi refugee who was helping to build his own family’s Habitat for Humanity house and a story about the recent influx of the Karen refugees — an ethnic minority who live mostly on the border of Thailand and Burma — into the Lincoln public school system.

The project began unofficially more than a year ago when Anderson and journalism professor Jerry Renaud taught a multimedia class together and required their students to write half of their stories about immigrants.

“What we discovered was that these were very rich and robust stories,” Anderson said.

That class piqued both Anderson’s and his students’ interest in Lincoln’s many refugee communities. It also spurred him to apply for a grant from J Lab, which aimed to fund journalism efforts based in communities that had either lost their voice or never had one, Anderson said.

The College of Journalism and Mass Communications received the grant, and last fall Anderson and advertising professor Phil Willet offered a class, evenly divided between journalism and advertising students, that researched the refugee communities in Lincoln. The class’s goal: Find out what kind of news and information the refugees wanted.

Martha Riek of the South Sudan is learning English / Photo courtesy Nebraska Mosaic–Becky Gailey

This fall, with additional funding from a Knight Community Information Challenge grant, matched by the Lincoln Community Foundation, Anderson has been teaching the journalism class not only on campus but also at a Community Learning Center in Lincoln. At the Community Learning Center refugees join the college students to become involved in telling their own stories.

The semester has been a learning experience, Anderson said. He and many of the students initially envisioned writing dramatic, emotional stories about refugees’ lives before relocation. But the research last fall indicated that Lincoln’s refugee communities, particularly those of Iraqi, Sudanese and Karen people, weren’t particularly interesting to refugees: Nearly all of them had had painful and dangerous experiences before moving to Lincoln.

“What they were more interested is what is life like here,” Anderson said.

So the students have focused on stories like the Habitat for Humanity house, about a local Baptist church that has seen its congregation swell with Karen refugees, and about the Family Literacy Program, which recently lost its funding.

Charlie Litton, Anderson’s graduate assistant, said it was also important for non-refugees to be more aware of their new neighbors.

“They’re not really welcome in their own countries, and they don’t quite fit in this one,” he said.

For his master’s project, Litton is working on an interactive map for the Mosaic website, which will include bus routes, listings of free and inexpensive community events and activities and other services that refugees might find useful.

In time, Anderson said, he hopes that refugees will want to contribute their own stories to the website.

Haider Al Haider, an Iraqi refugee who came to Lincoln with his wife and five children 19 months ago, attended the Nov. 3 launch event.

He first became acquainted with Nebraska Mosaic when Litton wrote the story about the Family Literacy Program, which had helped Al Haider’s own family, losing its funding.

It’s important for people outside the refugee community to be aware of circumstances like that, he said.

But he said it was also important for his family to be part of the Nov. 3 event, where he was joined by refugees from other countries, by UNL students and faculty and by others who live and work in Lincoln.

“I think it is necessary,” he said.

As J school graduates and successful professionals, you have expert insight on potential nominees. The CoJMC presents awards to outstanding advertising and public relations, broadcasting, and news-editorial alumni. Additional awards are in the category of service to the profession by a non-alumnus, Dean’s Award and the Broadcast Pioneer Award. All award winners must accept the award in person. Awards will be presented during the J Days celebration April 2-5, 2012.

J Days began in 1992 as a celebration of the successes of students and alumni. The weeklong festivities include a journalism honors convocation and the induction of scholars into the journalism honors society. In addition, it provides an opportunity for students to network with alumni and journalism professionals.

The presentation of the Alumni Awards of Excellence will be held during a luncheon Monday, April 2, 2012.

Please submit nominations by Monday, January 30, 2012.

Nominations may be submitted on line at: http://www.unl.edu/journalism/cojmc/alumni/alumniaward.shtml

A reporter these days has an awfully lot of ways to tell a story.

Traditionally, a print reporter used words and still photos, and a broadcast journalist used words and video. Now, of course, journalists can and do use video clips, audio slideshows, and, increasingly tweets, Facebook posts and more.

And that holds true for many communications jobs, said Gary Kebbel, dean of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln College of Journalism and Mass Communications. Jobs that once required curiosity and strong writing skills now also require skills in video and audio editing, photography, social media and perhaps a bit of Web design, too.

And who knows what’s to come?

It’s an exciting time for the communications world for sure. But it’s a time that presents a bit of a challenge for journalism educators, too.

“As educators, how do we teach (students) to be ready for that environment? How do we prepare them for jobs that don’t exist yet?”  Kebbel asked.

For at least part of the answer, he decided to call on the college’s alumni.

Over the past few months, he’s approached graduates at the top of their fields as well as a few non-alumni who have been leaders in Web and social media journalism. The group met for the first time in early November, saw several UNL journalism student presentations, and discussed what the college was doing well and what it could be doing better to prepare students for the media world these professionals already live in.

LaSharah Bunting

LaSharah Bunting, a 2000 graduate and national news editor at the New York Times, said that UNL, like many other top journalism schools, has been quick to incorporate new technology and ways of telling stories — audio features, short videos, interactive graphics and more — into the classroom. The downside of that kind of broad preparation is that it may spread students too thin.”

“The problem is that they come out of school being mediocre at a lot of things and not great at anything,” she said.

It’s important, she said, that the basics of good storytelling don’t get lost in the effort to keep up with rapidly changing technology.

That has provided a challenge, Kebbel said. As the journalism industry is changing and requiring more versatility of its students, colleges and universities — including UNL — are trying to limit the number of hours required of their students for graduation. At UNL, most journalism students take 13 journalism classes, Kebbel said.

“That’s not that many classes,” Kebbel said. “You could spend all 13 honing reporting skills.”

Faculty and staff are still figuring out the balance, he said.

Greg Andersen

They’re getting plenty right, said Greg Andersen, a 1990 UNL grad and current CEO of BBH, New York, an advertising firm that counts Google, Axe and Sprite among its clients.

Among the things Andersen was most excited to see at UNL was the new JACHT Club, a student-run advertising firm in which student members create real advertising campaigns for real clients.

Andersen said it was good for students to experience the real excitement of deadlines and successful campaigns before entering the job market. And just as importantly, he said, it was important for them to experience real mistakes and to learn from them.

Andersen agrees with Kebbel that students need to be adaptable and stressed that looking outside the journalism college could be one way to help students succeed in a changing business. For example, Anderson said, the journalism school could work more closely with the computer science department to ensure that CoJMC students know more than just the basics of Web design and programming.

“Those are the realities of how the business world is aligning,” he said.

Kebbel said the advisory board will meet again in 2012, and between now and that next meeting, board members said they are excited to continue to offer feedback. Many have offered to Skype into classrooms to speak  with students directly.

In the meantime, journalism faculty will do their best to prepare students to be adaptable and flexible to the demands of a changing workplace, Kebbel said.

“We want to be able to teach students to be leaders in a culture of constant change,” he said.

“What we are teaching are survival skills for the future.”

— James B. Milliken, President, University of Nebraska

Follow Joe's adventures at joeweber.org

JOSEPH WEBER WON’T BE IN HIS OFFICE on the second floor of Andersen Hall today.

In fact, he won’t be in his office all of this fall semester, because the UNL College of Journalism and Mass Communications associate professor is teaching at Tsinghua University’s School of Journalism and Communication in Beijing, China.

University of Nebraska President J.B. Milliken and University of Nebraska–Lincoln Chancellor Harvey Perlman place great importance on international collaborations and international experiences for both students and faculty, as does the College of Journalism and Mass Communications.

Weber said he hopes this is the beginning of a university relationship that will allow students and more faculty members to take part in exchanges with Tsinghua.

Weber, who specializes in business and economic reporting, is teaching graduate students in the Global Business Journalism program, which was organized by the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) in Washington, D.C.

“I am doing this because it is a remarkable opportunity to learn, from the inside, about one of the world’s most important and intriguing nations. I get the chance to work daily with Chinese students and teachers for nearly four months and to see the country the way they see it,” Weber said.

In a recent blog post, Weber wrote: “Each morning, I hop on my bike and trundle over the journalism school at Tsinghua University. The ride takes me a bit over a mile through what may be the prettiest campus in the world.”

His communication skills are improving, too. He started this adventure with a “rudimentary” knowledge of Mandarin, the dialect spoken in Beijing, after having taken a class through the Confucius Institute at UNL last spring and a beginning class at Rutgers University in the 1970s. Weber blogged that “communicating with people has been surprisingly easy. Somehow, the shopkeepers know how much to charge me and I know how much to pay. I know now how to order hot black tea – “hong cha” – and I can understand when they say ‘here’ or ‘to go.’” He wrote that he has found a Subway sandwich shop and can communicate well enough to get the sandwich and fixings he enjoyed in the U.S.

Prior to joining the CoJMC in 2009, Weber worked for magazines and newspapers for 35 years. Twenty-two of those years were spent at Bloomberg Businessweek, with two of those years as Toronto bureau chief.

The program at Tsinghua is backed by Bloomberg, Weber said, and one of the teachers in it is a Bloomberg bureau chief. But the Bloomberg connections don’t end there.

Joyce Barnathan, who runs the International Center for Journalists, was one of Weber’s bosses at Business Week before it became Bloomberg Businessweek, Weber said. Bob Dowling, one of the program’s early teachers, was another of Weber’s editors at the magazine.

Weber is teaching (in English) as many as 40 students in the business and economic journalism class he’s teaching this semester, and 15 in his multimedia journalism class.

“I am looking forward to getting a better handle on this place, which can be overwhelming at times. My students – probably the most diligent and eager I have ever encountered – will teach me a lot about it. I am keen to see the journalism they produce. And I’m thrilled about the prospect of seeing more of this at-times magical place,” Weber blogged.

Weber’s 35-plus years of practicing business and economic journalism “has given me a worldview that the students may find useful as they embark on their careers,” he said. “I expect most of the students will go on to report for Chinese news organizations, though some could wind up at Bloomberg, Reuters or Dow Jones,” he said.

Besides the possibility of continued collaboration, he said, “I believe I will be a better teacher with more experience to share with Nebraska students because of this global exposure.”

You may follow Joe’s adventures at joeweber.org.

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.

The Innovators in Residence program brings students and media innovators and entrepreneurs together. Innovators in Residence in the college to date are Shiv Bhaskar Dravid, founder and chief executive of The Viewspaper – The Voice of the Youth of India; Susan Poulton, head of National Geographic’s digital sites and projects; Jessica Mayberry, founding director of Video Volunteers in India; Oh Yeon-ho, founder of South Korea’s citizen journalism website OhmyNews; and Alexander Zolotarev, founder and CEO of SochiReporter.ru in Russia.

Poulton and Dravid both visited the UNL College of Journalism and Mass Communications in September 2011.

NatGeo Digital VP Fourth CoJMC Innovator in Residence
Susan Poulton, vice president of content and production for National Geographic digital media, visited the CoJMC September 19-21 as the college’s fourth Innovator in Residence.

Poulton joined National Geographic in 2006 with more than 14 years of experience in online media, developing digital strategies for both the nonprofit and entertainment industries.  Before joining National Geographic, she worked for AOL, rising from a line producer in 1997 to the position of director of programming in 2004, where she worked until she became director of feature programming and promotions for National Geographic Digital Media in 2006. She became vice president of content programming and production in 2007.

Media entrepreneur Dravid is Fifth Innovator in Residence
Shiv Bhaskar Dravid, the founder and chief executive of The Viewspaper – The Voice of the Youth of India, was the fifth Innovator in Residence at the College of Journalism and Mass Communications. He visited UNL Sept. 26 and 27.

Theviewspaper.net presents opinions of youth on a variety of subjects that include politics, environmental issues, entertainment and literature in India and the United Kingdom. The website itself is a combination of documentaries and videos, music, games and photos.

The Viewspaper is India’s largest youth paper with a network of 6,000 contributors, 149,000 Facebook followers and a small paid editorial team. The Web paper plans to expand into the U.S., Dubai, Australia and Singapore.

Founded only four years ago, The Viewspaper is gaining national recognition from the global entrepreneur community. In 2010, Dravid was a finalist in the Staples Young Social Entrepreneur Competition, and The Viewspaper made the short list of the TATA NEN Hottest Start-up Awards. TATA is an Indian business group with international ties, and the National Entrepreneurship Network is India’s leader in entrepreneurship education.

The Viewspaper generates revenue from advertising placed on the website and became self-sustaining in 2010.

Dravid is a graduate of the University of Delhi’s Shri Ram College of Commerce.

More details at: http://go.unl.edu/cze

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.”

My first opportunity to write for the New York Times was a stroke of luck. I was in the right place — Arkansas — at the right time, when the New York Times was in need.

My invite to write for the publication was quite a shock since I didn’t personally know anyone who worked for the Times.

When the email came and the subject line read “From the New York Times” I figured it was spam.

Still curious, I opened it. After reading for a few seconds I almost spit out my post-lunch coffee.

“Hi Alissa,

I’m the retail reporter for the New York Times. I read some of your clips online and liked them, and was hoping you might be free next Thursday and Friday to cover Wal-Mart’s shareholders’ meeting in Fayetteville. I usually go, but I have to cover a couple of stories elsewhere. Would you let me know if you’re free and interested, and I can give you more details?

Thanks!
Stephanie Clifford”

Interested? Yes!

I received the email while I was working at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette as an intern. I had been working my tail off and had no idea if the paper would allow me to take two days off to report for the New York Times.

My editor said I could go this one time as long as I made up the hours I missed. So it was official. Less than a week later I was off to Northwest Arkansas.

The first day of the event was a prep day for the actually shareholders’ meeting. I talked with Wal-Mart top executives and took notes elbow-to-elbow in a Wal-Mart Express store freezer with reporters from Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, the Financial Times, the Times of India and many other journalists.

I had an hour to write a story about Wal-Mart’s new express stores while riding on a charter bus. After I got off the bus, I ran to my car to find an Internet connection so I could file. I ended up filing at a gas station a minute before deadline.

The next day, I was up at 4 a.m. ready to venture into what felt like the MTV awards intertwine with an official business meeting.

In between listening to top Wal-Mart executives speak, Will Smith cracked a few jokes as the host of the event, and the Black Eyed Peas, Alicia Keys and American Idol winner, Scotty McCreery took the stage.

Employees from around the world were at the meeting waving flags, cheering and doing the Wal-Mart squiggly dance. The African employees kept tooting their vuvuzela horns.

There I was — the rookie— standing with my notepad and pen in one hand, and smartphone in the other ready to write and tweet furiously about the Wal-Mart shareholders’ meeting for the New York Times.

The experience was unforgettable. I learned a lot and realized I have a lot to learn about business reporting. I often read about the stock market, but the Wal-Mart shareholders’ meeting was my first experience reporting and writing about hard business news.

Before the meeting, I felt that I didn’t know what I was doing.  But hey, the story turned out great. I knew more than I thought about stocks and shares, and I figured out what I didn’t know along the way.

I learned from this entire experience to always do my best on every story I write — I advise other journalists to do the same. Who knows, a New York Times reporter could be paying attention to your work.

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.”