SUNY Purchase students in the audience at The Trisha Show as the theater fills up
About 50 SUNY Purchase journalism students were in the studio audience during a taping of The Trisha Show last week, getting an up-close look at a media extravaganza.
The show is in the style of The Jerry Springer Show and The Maury Show and stars a British host, Trisha Goddard. It most certainly is NOT JOURNALISM. But it was educational, and there was a lot to talk about afterwards.
Filed under In the News
Donna Cornachio in red on Regional News Network Discussing the Women’s Vote
Far be it from me to question why Regional News Network would have a panel of five men and one woman to discuss the issue of the women’s vote, but at least the woman they invited on there was as sharp as a whip.
That would be my colleague, Assistant Professor of Journalism Donna Cornachio, who was on a segment hosted by Richard French Thursday to discuss recent comments by Indiana Senate candidate Republican Richard Mourdock who said during a debate that “even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that is something that God intended to happen.”
Filed under In the News
SUNY Purchase Journalism Faculty, from left to right, Donna Cornachio, MaryAlice Williams, Virginia Breen, Ross Daly, Andrew Salomon and Tara George
Dust does not gather under the feet of the journalism faculty at SUNY Purchase! It’s been a banner year for us this year. Here’s how:
Our esteemed co-ordinator, the unflappable Ross Daly sealed his commitment to this fine institution by earning tenure and promotion. You may now address him as Associate Professor Daly if you bump into him in the hallway. Woo-hoo!
Filed under In the News
It’s been a hard slog for SUNY Purchase journalism professor, Andrew Salomon, and his dedicated crew of staffers, but The Beat is finally out and they are celebrating tonight with a launch party. All are welcome: today, Sept. 19, at The Stood from 5:30 onwards.
There’ll be food and drink. But, more importantly, there’ll be performances by beat-boxer, Spencer Polanco, and Purchase band, Coyote Campus.
Independently funded by 96 backers who donated over $5,000 through Kickstarter, The Beat is what SUNY Purchase has been crying out for: a publication about music and arts on campus that showcases the work of journalists, editors, designers and photographers as well as the artists and musicians they feature in their pages.
To critics who say that print is dead and that digital is the way forward, Prof. Salomon, in his memorable Letter from the Publisher, says: “I don’t care.” And in my experience, neither do many students, who, though they may be digital creatures are often drawn to tangible products like vinyl records and glossy print magazines.
Filed under In the News
Kyle McKenzie at the Democratic National Convention for NBC
Purchase Journalism senior, Kyle McKenzie, hasn’t even graduated yet and he’s already covered a national political convention. Kyle was down in Charlotte, North Carolina for the Democratic National Convention with NBC as a runner.
If you’ve ever met Kyle, you only have to be in his company for a moment and hear his deep booming voice to know that he’s destined for TV. (He entered Purchase as a student in the prestigious Design/Technology program for Stage Management in the Conservatory of Theater Arts, but, as he says, his heart was in journalism, and made the rare move of switching programs.)
He very kindly took a moment to answer a few journoprof questions in an email exchange:
1) Tell me about your gig at NBC: How you got it, how long you’ve been there, what you do?
I started with NBC last January as an intern on the msnbc show ‘NewsNation w Tamron Hall’. There I learned about every facet of the television news industry from anchor-producing to editorial meetings. From there I heard about an opportunity to serve as a runner for the upcoming political conventions. I talked to the people in charge of coordinating the runners, applied and was selected to work the Democratic National Convention.
2) Describe how you found out that you were going to the DNC.
I was eating out with friends in July of this past summer and decided to check my email real quick on my iPhone. I had an email in my inbox so I checked it thinking it was going to be some piece of spam mail, when it was from NBC informing me I was chosen to work the upcoming convention. As you can imagine, I didn’t end up eating much of my lunch as I was just too excited. I kept checking my email to make sure that I read the email correctly…which I did 🙂
Filed under In the News
That’s Mary Alice Williams in blue behind Al Roker looking as comfortable in front of the camera as ever. She was back on the Today show this weekend to celebrate 25 years of weekend broadcasts.
Williams, who is assistant professor of journalism at SUNY Purchase, co-anchored with Garrick Utley from 1989 to 1993.
Here’s the Purchase College write-up on it which gives the highlights of her stellar career in TV, including her stint as one of the founding forces behind CNN.
Mary Alice Williams on Weekend Today before and after
Filed under In the News
Journalists Kyle McKenzie and Thomas Falletta (standing). Picture courtesy of Lisa Nguyen.
The journalists trounced the historians 8-1 this year in the Fourth Annual SUNY Purchase KickNic on the Great Lawn Monday afternoon.
Evidently, not only do we journalists write the first draft for them, we have to school those historians in the art of kicking a giant red rubber ball into the wide blue yonder!
Scores of journalism and history majors turned up. Some to play. Others to cheer. Many to eat. Journalism alums were also in attendance, including Jessica Glenza and Mike Zacchio, both gainfully employed as journalists, I might add. Mike as a sports reporter at The Journal News, and Jessica as a reporter at Main Street Connect.
Filed under In the News
Update: Weds April 25. They made their target! The Beat is officially funded. But the fundraising continues. The staff would like to raise as much as they can to be able to sustain the magazine and turn it into a permanent institution at Purchase.
Journalism Prof. Andrew Salomon and his dedicated team are sooooo close to making the $5,000 they need to launch a new music magazine for Purchase.
But they still need a little more. Can you help?
Last I checked, 65 people had already donated and they just had $800 to go. Click here to access their Kickstarter site and donate.
The magazine is not set to debut until next Fall, but they already have a Facebook page with updates about the Purchase music scene, and an able editorial staff has been assembled. Purchase journalism alums, Briana Rodriguez and Scott Duwe are heading up the masthead. A slew of the journalism program’s top talent have signed up to be staff. The articles for the first issue have already been written, the photos have been taken, Purchase design students have created the mag’s logo and page design. They just need the money to print.
Filed under In the News
The outfits! The nails! The hair! The tattoos! SUNY Purchase students have a reputation for their fashion sense. Take a look at this blog, which captures all the creativity that gets paraded around campus each day.
Click on a picture to see the photos up close.
Alina Suriel started this blog using her nom de plume – Alina Angelica – in my Journalism 1 class last semester and she’s worked hard to keep it going. She calls it her “virtual closet” and blogs about her outfits in photo-oriented posts. She also takes her camera out onto the Mall, around campus, and to parties, creating a digital canvas of the groovy Purchase sartorial scene.
She breezed into my office recently, and I persuaded her to answer some questions about her blog, which she was kind enough to do in a subsequent email exchange:
1) When did you start the blog and what was the idea behind it?
I started the blog about 4 months ago in your class. I had been meaning to blog for a while, and so sitting through a whole lesson about blogging was a great kickstart to that. This blog is a virtualization of something I would do when I was younger to keep track of my outfits. I would keep lists of the individual components of the outfit (black cowboy boots, striped blue shirt, etc) on index cards, as a reference if I ever didn’t know what to wear. In my blog when I post about myself I still list the things I wear as tags which link back to other things I’ve worn with that item.
Filed under In the News, Student Journalism
Farewell old friend: Hum 2008
After almost a decade in Humanities Room 2008, I’m moving!
My new office is located in Room 0009G in the basement of the library. In fact, the entire journalism faculty is being relocated to a journalism “suite” down there.
The rest of the Humanities faculty will vacate their offices in the summer and move in to new rooms in various places around campus.
The move is only temporary – while the Humanities Building gets a top to bottom renovation. And we’ll all move back into a lovely new building, we’re told, in a couple of years.
I was sad to leave my familiar old office. How many students have I advised in there? How many papers graded?
I’ll miss my window. We have none down in our new basement digs. And I’ll miss my Humanities colleagues. But at least I’ll be able to hang out with my pals, the five other SUNY Purchase Journoprofs.
Come visit! We have a coffee pot!
Filed under In the News
Meghan Lalonde (second from left) and Damien Echols of the West Memphis Three (second from right). That's her professor on the far left and a classmate on the far right. (Photo courtesy of Meghan Lalonde.)
This is a really interesting story of how Meghan Lalonde (Class of 2010) wrote a blog post, one thing lead to another, and before she knew it she and a group of her New York Law School classmates were at the apartment of Damien Echols, the most famous of the West Memphis Three, having tea and cookies.
As you may know, the West Memphis Three were wrongfully convicted of murdering three 8-year-old boys in West Memphis, Arkansas in 1993. They served 18 years before their conviction was overturned and they were freed in August. Their case was the subject of a series of Paradise Lost documentaries and a Peter Jackson entry at the Sundance Film Festival.
Meghan, who is in the Law and Journalism program, wrote about the case in a carefully researched blog post The West Memphis Three: An A-Z List of Justice Gone Wrong for her class blog Legal As She Is Spoke.
Echols, who spent years on death row, liked the post and agreed to meet Meghan and her class. You can tell from her email that it blew her mind!
“It was absolutely surreal. Damien personally thanked me for writing about the case and did the same with another girl who also wrote about it, and gave each of us a hug and a kiss. My professor was losing her mind…Damien was so nice that he brought my professor and I and a few other students over to his apartment afterwards for tea and cookies.”
Filed under In the News, Purchase Journalism Alums
Check out Purch. It’s the brainchild of Aaron Kass, a sophomore double majoring in journalism and sociology. He’s put together a team of students and here’s what he said about what they’re up to:
“The magazine covers art, entertainment, fashion, technology, and editorials. Our stories range from campus oriented to things that “Purchkids” are interested in around the world. I got the idea while in Los Angeles over winter break. I didn’t think the other publications on campus had what I wanted so I decided to start my own. So, while still in LA, I got a staff together and started getting an article list together. We had our first budget meeting the week we got back to school and took it from there.
We’re definitely looking for contributors! We also have two editorial positions open- technology and entertainment editors.
The magazine is a monthly publication. It will be posted online to save both paper and money.
I haven’t published anything before this. I worked on my high school newspaper and learned how to use the layout program, Quark Xpress. For this, I used Adobe InDesign. I taught myself how to use it, mostly by trial and error.
They have a great tmblr blog where you can watch this video of their first photo shoot:
Is that you on fashion, Cailey Rizzo?!!!!
Filed under In the News, Student Work
Kelly Bruce, Founder of New Regime Group
Purchase Journalism Alum, Kelly Bruce (Class of 2007) has started up a groovy new marketing company called New Regime Group after years of working in large media companies including Us Weekly, Hearst Digital, Maxim, Nylon, Rolling Stone, BlackBook, and Adweek.
After graduating from Purchase, Kelly went on to do a Master’s in Publishing at New York University. She eventually found her footing in marketing and she now describes herself as a “Jane-of-all-trades who loves bringing brands to life.”
Kelly started NRG with a pal and they are based in New York City. Here’s what she told Prof. Virginia Breen about her new gig:
I’m definitely sad to not be working for a media company anymore, but my partner and I had been working together doing the Marketing & Event Director roles for the past two years already and felt it was the next natural step. We’re both incredibly excited.”
Filed under In the News
Prof. Daly and Purchase Journalism Students at the Committee to Protect Journalists in Manhattan
At the height of the Egyptian uprising last year, Purchase journalism students learned Friday, a call came into the offices of the Committee to Protect Journalists. An editor just blocks from Tahrir Square was on the line.
“You have to tell people: They’re killing us! They’re killing us!” he said.
Gypsy Guillén Kaiser, who took the call, shared that chilling story with students visiting the committee’s Manhattan offices.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) works to bring public pressure on behalf of journalists who have been murdered, kidnapped, imprisoned, or threatened in other ways, said Guillén Kaiser, the committee’s advocacy and communications director.
“By journalists, for journalists and using the tools of journalism,” she said. “We want to use our research not only to raise awareness but to provoke action, to bring about some result.”
Filed under In the News
Purchase Journalism Alum Joshua Pramis, New Social Media Editor of Travel + Leisure. Photo courtesy of Joshua Pramis.
I LOVE it when my former students get back in touch to let me know what they’re up to and share their trail blazing with me.
Former student, Josh Pramis, dropped me this lovely message:
“How are you?? I hope all is well at good ol’ Purchase! I really miss that place sometimes! I just wanted to quickly share a new endeavor I’ve undertaken. I’m still with Travel + Leisure (but now am their newly appointed social media editor), but Logo TV/NewNowNext recently reached out to me to offer a collaboration in the creation of some travel videos for their site. I was crazy nervous (filming 5 minutes worth of footage may or may not have taken 2 hours. hahaha), but the first video came out late last week; I’m really excited about it and wanted to share with you, especially since I took the bulk of my jou courses with you, so you really helped prepare me to start this whole journey.”
I can’t tell you how proud I am! Here’s the video. Watch out for the bow tie! Great work, Josh.
Vodpod videos no longer available.
Filed under In the News
journoprof 