American University journalism students blog about….me

One of the things I love almost as much as creating stories, taking pictures and shooting video is teaching. As one of my professor friends says, teaching is not only a way to impart knowledge but a way for a piece of you to live on in your students – and in the world – after you’re gone. A good teacher and his or her lessons will stay with you forever.

This is all just a long-winded and slightly sentimental way for me to say that I had a blast teaching photojournalism and Photoshop basics today at American University’s School of Communication journalism boot camp for new journalism grad students. All three dozen students are required to blog about each day of boot camp like it’s a news story, which means there are pictures and more pictures (a funny one here) and video and word stories and bits of written stories about….me.

I felt so weird being on the other side of the camera/video camera/microphone (though it’s not the first time.) Right at the start of class there was this funny, paparazzi-like moment when seven or eight students stood up almost in unison to take pictures of me talking. My first thought was: whoa! My second thought was: at least they’re standing up instead of sitting down to take this picture! And now, having seen the pictures and the video of me talking, my third thought is: I need to improve my posture. Ha!

Anyway, the students were all fantastic. They asked a ton of good questions, especially about photojournalism ethics. The few students I had the chance to talk with one-on-one are thoughtful and hopeful about the stories they’ll be telling during grad school. I’m heartened to see so many eager people entering the profession, especially at such a difficult time in the industry. I hope I’ll run into them all again someday.

Aug 03, 2009 | Uncategorized | 2 Comments »