The Spring 2009 issue of Endeavors showcases JOMC. “Life by the Andaman Sea,” features photographs by students who participated in last summer’s Thailand project. “A Good Swift Kick” features Paul Cuadros, his work in North Carolina, and his book that was selected for summer reading, A Home on the Field. Johanna Yueh, a senior in journalism, wrote a short piece, “No place like it,” discussing migratory patterns of sea turtles and other migratory marine animals. Our master’s student, Prashant Nair, wrote the feature on “Targeting Tumors.” Check it out!

The old Atlanta Journal used to claim it covered the South like the dew, and a group of journalists and bloggers have started a free online newspaper titled “Like the Dew.”  Although I regularly read a variety of online news, this one caught my eye in a particular way.

It is refreshing.

It reads like a group of journalists who have been let loose from the strict bonds of objectivity and who are getting to exercise their literary muscles.

My research specialty is 19th century journalism.  During the 19th century journalists used colorful language and many of them hoped to become novelists once they no longer had to earn a living doing daily journalism.

Perhaps “Like the Dew” is an indicator that we’ve gotten too boring in our approach to journalistic writing.

Yesterday I spent part of the day in New York City meeting with six students who are now interning or working at Bloomberg.

These wonderfully bright students are making a significant contribution to the future of journalism, and they represent the training they get in the school’s business journalism program. In fact, during the last three years Bloomberg has hired nine of our students.

Bloomberg is one of their dream assignments. After all, they get to live in New York City! But what’s remarkable about Bloomberg is that the company believes in training. These students are mentored by experienced reporters and editors like Galen Meyer. He’s proud of their work and they feel great because they continue to grow and learn while on the job.

These journalists are thriving.

Jerry Burns, editor of Blowing Rock’s Rocket since 1966, has announced his retirement.  During the 1930s and 1940s, the Rocket was a summer newspaper and a student from the journalism school here in Chapel Hill was hired to edit the paper.  Today the school partners with the North Carolina Press Association in providing stories about Latino culture and business in the state.  Jock Lauterer’s community journalism class produces an online newspaper for Carrboro.  Jock’s class also serves as a bucket brigade for editors in need.  Last year the students helped write and edit the Spring Hope newspaper when editor Ken Ripley had surgery.  Editing teacher Andy Bechtel recruited students to work with Ryan Beckwith on the Raleigh News & Observer’s Under the Dome blog.  Ryan Thornburg’s students currently are working with several North Carolina papers to cover the statewide issue of high school dropouts.

The school’s association with the state press is a tradition worth keeping.  We hope to continue to be partners with the press as we wind our way through the difficult economic times and the dramatic industry changes of the early twenty-first century.

I just returned from a meeting of journalism and mass communication administrators in Mexico City. Every few years this group meets at an international location in an attempt to broaden curriculum and to embrace global education. This year was particularly interesting.

Alejandro Junco de la Vega, publisher of Reforma, spoke about the challenges journalists face in investigating corruption and drugs - narco-terrorism - in Mexico.

Others talked about partnerships between institutions in Latin America, Mexico and the United States. Prominent public relations personnel in Mexico discussed changes in the Mexican economy and how to shape the public relations message for the future. We visited the Monterrey Tec campus and the AP bureau.

At each stop, I regretted not being able to speak Spanish. I was in a taxi for about an hour from the Tec campus to the airport. And I couldn’t talk to the driver.

As a student, I was told that French was the most important language to know in addition to English. But times change. Now, the languages to know are Spanish, Arabic and Mandarin.

At home, we’re catching up. We encourage our students to study languages. Students with great language skills have greater opportunities at home and abroad.

And we’re leading by example. Every Friday morning about 14 faculty and staff gather to study Spanish in the school. We try to embrace the future. Learning to speak more than one language helps us do exactly that.

Emily Motley, a senior public relations student, has been named a finalist in the PRWeek Student of the Year competition sponsored by Hill & Knowlton.

Today she’s in New York City for the final round of competition. She is pitching the judges with a 30-minute campaign presentation, reacting to a mock crisis scenario, and pitching an international media outlet for her campaign.

She’s the third UNC-Chapel Hill student in three years - yes, that’s one per year - to make the cut in this national competition. Heather Forster was a runner-up in 2008, and Katie Test was a runner-up in 2007.

We’re all cheering for Emily today and tomorrow.

Partnerships are the lifeblood of a journalism school like Carolina’s – a school that strives to have an impact in the state.

Thanks to the work of Jock Lauterer, director of our community media program, and the generosity of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, we can announce a new project with North Carolina Central University. Partnerships are making this project possible.

Professor Mai Nguyen of UNC’s Department of City and Regional Planning, UNC journalism students, and faculty and students at N.C. Central are working together to produce a community newspaper for Northeast Central Durham.

The newspaper will be staffed by local teens to provide neighborhood news, information, videos, photos and features. With both an online and print edition, the publication will offer this often overlooked community a home-grown, timely source of information unavailable anywhere else from a single source.

The year 2009 represents change for the country, for the media industries and for the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

In his inaugural speech, Barack Obama challenged citizens to embrace “a new era of responsibility,” recognizing that “we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.”

The media industries, journalists and communicators for the future, also face a new era of responsibility and difficult tasks. The Project for Excellence in Journalism, in its “State of the News Media 2008,” reports that newspaper advertising revenue fell 7 percent during the year. Earnings were down 10 percent, and stock prices for public companies plunged for a third straight year. The economic woes of the automobile and real estate industries exacerbate the problem for newspapers. Online revenues are growing, but not as fast as media companies had hoped. Broadcast stations and networks are feeling the pinch now that political advertising has evaporated.

Is this a report of gloom and doom? It does feel gloomy for many who have thrived in traditional media companies. But for the school, the current situation is a baseline for innovation. We are introducing a new curriculum, with heavier emphasis on multimedia. This emphasis permeates the print and broadcast journalism programs as well as the advertising and public relations areas.

We also are focusing increasingly on media economics, entrepreneurship and leadership. We are working to build a generation of leaders who will be able to innovate in the information business. People want information. We know that patterns of news consumption change, attention spans change, demand for video versus print change. The need for information remains.

We hope, through our participation in the Carnegie-Knight Initiative and other innovative projects, to be in the forefront of examining and testing new business and information models.

Meanwhile, we hope students and parents will support our efforts. My greatest concern is that parents will read headlines about a declining newspaper industry and will encourage their children to steer clear of journalism and mass communication education.

Please heed these words: this is the information age. Our country and the world needs, more than ever, young people who have the power to communicate and who understand the impact of their words.

Enrollment in JOMC is up this year, with 390 students enrolled in the various journalism specializations and 416 in advertising & public relations. Of the journalism students, 150 are news-editorial majors, 92 are broadcasting, and 148 are in visual communication, which includes multimedia, graphics and photo. Public relations students total 238 and advertising 178.

As we begin a new curriculum in the fall of 2009, the old sequence designations will go away. All Journalism students will be required to take media ethics, media law, newswriting, reporting, and audio-video information gathering. They also choose a specialization in editing/design, reporting, multimedia, photojournalism or electronic. Each student also is required to take two courses in an “immersion” cluster, introducing them to media research in areas such as diversity, global communication, and political communication.

Advertising and public relations majors will be required to take media ethics, media law, newswriting, introduction to advertising and public relations, and advertising/pr research. Students will choose to specialize in advertising, public relations or strategic communication. Strategic communication combines the two areas of advertising and public relations. These students also will take an immersion cluster.

These changes reflect conversations I have had with more than 50 alumni during the last two years and an analysis of the needs of the industry. We think the curriculum changes will preserve our traditional core values and create opportunity for innovation.

One of the expressed missions of UNC-Chapel Hill and of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication is to serve the state.  In a time of turmoil in media industries, we at the school take this mission seriously.  We work with the North Carolina Press Association and the North Carolina Association of Broadcasters to make sure we’re educating journalists with the skills, tools and critical thinking they need.

But journalism schools need to go beyond educating a workforce.  We hope that our research mission can blend with our service mission to offer help.  School faculty include skilled producers of multimedia and experts in the business of journalism.   Jock Lauterer, director of our Community Journalism Initiative, works with staffs of community newspapers to help them improve their skill sets.  Knight Professor Penny Abernathy is launching a project with a major daily in the state to create a case study that analyzes incorporating the web into the newspaper operation.

That’s why we appreciate Johnny Whitifield’s column in the Eastern Wake News.  Take a look at this community paper on the web.  It reflects the new world of journalism and serves its area well with good stories, photos and video.