The first of the Traveler Magazine hit the news stands on April 13th.

The Traveler released a new student magazine, April 13, after much anticipation.

The magazine was an opportunity for students to read lengthier, literary pieces that the Traveler isn’t able to offer on a weekly basis, said editor Bailey McBride.

“I hope the magazine will really take off,” she said. The magazine will offer a great new opportunity for student writin more long-form, literary pieces.

McBride said the magazine will have something to interest everyone.

“We have a variety of content that is sure to interest readers of all backgrounds. From the everyday humor of Delcie Kincaid’s account of the Hogeye Mall, to the dedication of one man to the Fayetteville arts scence in Taniah Tudor’s cover story.”

McBride also hopes the diversity of the magazine will attract new readers.

“I think with the magazine we are reaching a different demographic of reader, we are also showing people the breadth of talent we have in the department and on the Traveler staff.”

McBride pitched her idea for the magazine to the journalism faculty in January, and they’ve been working non-stop since then to make that idea a reality.

Students hand out the Traveler Magazine on campus.

The magazine would still be a dream if not for the combined effort from students both on the Traveler staff and outside the staff.

“The stories in this particular issue came from Bret Schulte’s feature writing and advanced feature writing classes, and the photos were shot by Eric Gorder’s photojournalism classes,” McBride said.

Some changes had to be made with regard to the layout and length of the magazine.

“It was originally just going to be 24 pages. Because of the phenomial interest in ad sales we went to a 32-page full-color magazine,” McBride said.

The magazine can also be viewed online at www.uatrav.com

Story Credit: Caroline Reddmann, Broadcast ’11

Photo Credits: Andrea Waddell, Advertising/PR ’11

David Russell

For David Russell, it’s rewarding to know that he’s making a positive difference in so many people’s lives. It’s an important responsibility, and one he doesn’t take lightly, he said.

Russell is a former editor of the Arkansas Traveler who graduated in 1974 with a degree in journalism. He is now the vice president of external affairs at Verizon Wireless.

After graduating Russell didn’t look for work in the corporate sector, he began working in the print business, with a little help from a UA faculty member.

“Professor Ernie Deane helped me get my first jobs in the newspaper business,” Russell said.

In October of 1981, with his wife pregnant with their first child, Russell lost his job as an editor with the Jacksonville Daily News.

“I was devastated. My wife Debbie was pregnant and we were broke. I felt like I had let my family down,” Russell said.

Russell credits his work in journalism as a “protracted internship for my corporate career.” He became vice president of external affairs in 2000.

As vice president, Russell is responsible for external communications, community involvement and charitable contributions by Verizon in the central United States.

With help from Russell, the journalism department received three generous grants from Verizon to assist with improving technology in the department.

Russell said he loves his job and is grateful that every year he gets to give away thousands of dollars to improve people’s lives.

One of his favorite memories from the university is graduation, Russell said.

“It represented the potential for a better life for my family’s descendants- it’s something I’ll always remember.” Russell said.

Russell began his journalism career on a typewriter, and although technology has changed dramatically he said the need for journalists remains unchanged.

“The need for the ability to study reams of data to extract the salient facts and then communicate them in a sufficient and easy-to-understand manner hasn’t changed. And that ability is desperately needed in the corporate sector, legal sector and in a lot of sectors, not just journalism or public relations,” Russell said.

Russell loves Razorback Football, something that hasn’t changed over the years. Russell and his wife  will celebrate their 34th anniversary later this year. They have two sons, ages 28 and 24, who are both married.

Story Credit: Caroline Reddman, Broadcast ’11

Photo Credit: Courtesy Photo

Chuck Carney

Chuck Carney is a graduate from the UA journalism department with his bachelor’s degree in 1985 and master’s in 1998.

Carney is the director of media relations and communications for the Indiana University School of Education in Bloomington, Ind. His responsibility is to disseminate information to alumni, students, faculty, friends and the world at large about the school, which is one of the country’s leading schools of education. Carney’s day-to-day tasks include writing news releases and making contacts with local, state and national media regarding events at the school or students’ achievements.

Carney is pursuing a doctorate in higher education at Indiana University School of Education. Carney is married to Connie who is a UA Law School graduate. They have two children: Claire, who is 12, and Caroline who is almost 3 years old.

One of Carney’s significant memories of the Journalism Department is when Larry Foley and Dale Carpenter joined the faculty. “They offered me a chance to help start and shape UATV, an experience that was great fun and really helped me learn things about management and organization,” Carney said.

That experience led directly to a job at the University of Florida and his teaching position at Indiana University, he said. One of Carney’s biggest turning points was when he left his full-time anchor job to come back to the UA and pursue his master’s degree. He said after making that decision it opened a new world of academia. “It’s never been dull, and that’s what I have always hoped for my career,” he said.

Story Credit: Paige Brown, Broadcast ’11

Photo Credit: Courtesy Photo

Kelly Robason

It may have been more than 15 years ago, but it was an event that Kelly Robason draws upon even today.

Robason, a 1995 Lemke graduate, helped coordinate and promote the visit and performance of the Tibetan monks from the Drepung Loseling Monastery in the early ’90s.

“Several students from the department were asked to create posters, press releases and radio spots to advertise the event,” Robason said.

The event, which lasted several days, opened Robason’s eyes to different cultures and practices, and introduced him to a new group of people and their political and personal struggles.

“That experience and curiosity, has, I believe, helped to shape my professional career and aided me in doing business at the international level,” Robason said.

Last July, Robason was hired by Hewlett-Packard as a global account manager, where he is responsible for the global PC sales to the largest retailer in the world (Wal-Mart), headquartered in Bentonville.

“I think what I enjoy most about what I’m doing right now is working with my different contacts around the world to create solutions to solve my customers’ business challenges,” Robason said.

Robason left the department with the intention of getting into music promotion in Austin, Tex., but a door opened in the technology industry instead.

“I have two University of Arkansas alumni to thank for my entry into the business,” Robason said. “My friend Katy Nelson (now the director of development and external relations in the Walton College of Business) introduced me to Shawn Riley (another UA alum). He worked for Dell and took a huge chance in hiring me; someone with zero high-tech experience. But what I lacked in industry experience, I made up for with a passion for the business and a determination to be successful.”

Since Dell, Robason has gone through a variety of jobs: two software start-ups, a technology services company, a specialty barcode printer and RFID supplier, and his current role with HP.

“I have been laid off twice when the technology bubble burst and the economy took a dive,” Robason said. “And while some of these moves were successful and some did not quite turn out how I expected, I do not regret one decision.  Each experience has been instrumental in forming who I am and where my career has gone.”

Having seen upheaval in both his individual career and the economy, Robason offered a bit of advice to those looking to succeed in business.

“Network, network, network,” Robason said. “Networking and building relationships with people is what got me to where I am today.  Take advantage of chances to meet new people and get to know them.  You never know where it could lead.  If you are good at what you do, opportunities will present themselves.”

Story Credit: Derek Oxford, News/ Editorial ’11

Photo Credit: Courtesy Photo

Fosu moved to Fayetteville in 2005 and has taught the campaigns class ever since.  He said the idea behind the class is “to give students an opportunity to apply what they have learned in previous classes to a real-world campaign.”   The class does everything from research to suggesting a budget to designing advertisements and promotional items.

“The class is always rewarding to the students,” Fosu said.  “I’ve gotten messages from former students who have commented about how the class has been helpful to them.  They use it in their portfolios at job interviews and show it to prospective employers who have been really impressed. This is always rewarding to me as well.”

The class is structured each semester with a new client.  The class has about 15 students and is split up into three or four groups, and each group approaches the campaign from different directions, as if they were each a different agency, he said.

“Many clients in the past have made donations to use as a budget,” Fosu said.  For example, last semester, the client was High Density Electronics Center and they donated $1,000 to pay for printing and material costs for the campaign.  The semester before that, the client Grid-Connected Advanced Power Electronics Systems made a $750 contribution for printing and material costs as well.

At the end of the semester, each group will present its campaign to members of the Athletic Department, who will then choose one (or parts from each one) to use as its advertising promotions.

Story Credit: Jillian Oyler, Advertising/ PR ’11

Photo Credit: Andrea Waddell, Advertising/ PR

Eric Gorder, professor of photojournalism.

New technology is changing the way journalists can report and illustrate stories to their viewers, and UA journalism faculty are finding different ways to help their students adapt to new media.

“One of the things we need to do as a department is to make sure we’re giving students the kind of experience that will get them jobs—and that involves technology,” said Dale Carpenter, journalism department chair and a broadcast professor. “But our most important goal is to make sure that people understand what is to be a journalist, understand how to write, understand how to research and be a reporter, how to value accuracy and fairness. Those sort of values that journalism has had forever don’t change just because the technology changes.

“That being said, there are all kinds of new ways to be a journalist and report, so in all our classes we’re responding to that,” he said.

Eric Gorder, a photojournalism professor and the MultiMedia Resource Center operations manager, is having his photojournalism II students post their work on a blog.

Students have to complete slideshows with audio and post them with a treatment and reflection on their work.

“This will give people some insight and what they [the photographers] thought about,” Gorder said.

Posting onto a blog makes it easier to store and track changes over time, he said.

The blog is hosted at posterous.com, but is not yet available to the public.

Gorder also contacted Stephen Farrel, who oversees the New York Times “At War” blog, to ask if Farrel would speak to his class over video-conferencing software like Skype. Skype is a program allows users to videoconference over their computer or cell phone.

The New York Times issued iPhones to its Middle East reporters, to help decrease their risk of being attacked.

“It started basically in an effort to avoiding standing out,” Gorder said, because reporters traditionally walked with large cameras and equipment, and using an iPhone gives them “immediacy and portability.”

“The technology is changing everything,” Gorder said.

Photographers can take photos and automatically send them to the photo editor for a newspaper, or upload them to the web.

“The immediacy of the deadline [has changed],” he said. “If you attend an event you can upload it immediately.”

Gorder is also setting up a videoconference between UA journalism students and students in Moscow, because of a student in his photojournalism II class.

“Hopefully we’ll be able to get that set up and have a discussion about journalism and freedom of the press,” he said.

Broadcast students are also facing changes because of technology.

“In broadcast classes we’re now starting to ask students to use Twitter and social media to do their reporting,” Carpenter said.

Students are also writing print versions of their television packages to go onto a website, he said.

Writing a story for broadcast is different from writing a story for a newspaper because the story has to correspond with their video segment, Carpenter said.

An advantage that broadcast students could have over print students is their ability to shoot and edit videos.

“That’s a specialized skill, you don’t just pick a camera and start looking like a professional,” Carpenter said. “It takes our guys two to three semesters before they even start looking like they know what they’re doing.”

Despite the changes and the amount of information that could be “overwhelming”, Carpenter stressed that the basic principles haven’t changed.

“I edited on film, then we moved into videotape, and now shoot on SD cards and edit on a computer,” he said. “Though I’ve gone through three or four technological changes, the essence of what we do is still the same.”

Story Credit: Jordain Carney, News/ Editorial ’11

Photo Credit: Laurel Pelton, Broadcast ’12

Lindsey Pruitt, features editor of the Arkansas Traveler

Facebook, Twitter and iPhone applications are some of the ways that the student-run Arkansas Traveler newspaper staff is harnessing social media and other technologies to get their stories out.

The Traveler staff began incorporating social media into their work with Facebook. On the Traveler page, which is linked with the website, stories are posted continuously. For those who wish to find out more, links can take them back to the Traveler website, which is updated daily.

On the Twitter site, the Traveler staff can share stories with followers, exchange stories with other news agencies and find story ideas by using Twitter to stay informed about world events. The Traveler’s twitter handle is uatrav.

As well as social media, the Traveler staff is able to use new technologies.

A notable addition of new technology to the Traveler is the use of Quick Response codes. The codes, usually a square shape with seemingly random patterns, can be scanned with an iPhone.

“It’s a new technology which is just now catching on,” said Erik Northfell, lead designer and web administrator.

After being scanned, the code will link to any number of additional materials including maps, websites, addresses, contact information, more coverage, photos and many other items that complement the story. QR codes can be found in the weekly edition of the Traveler – mostly at the edge of the pages.

QR codes, created by Toyota, are popular in Japan, but are slowly becoming more prevalent in the West.

The Traveler is the top link under news on the UA iPhone app. The app, which launched last semester, allows students and faculty to access the directory, search for classes and keep up with the latest news.

“We’ve also talked about creating our own app,” said Editor Bailey McBride. “Maybe that will be a next step.”

The use of social media and new technologies will not affect the printing of the newspaper, McBride said.

“We’ve talked about ways to start printing more than weekly,” McBride said.

The Traveler, published in print Wednesdays, features more in-depth looks at the popular stories of the week as well as investigative pieces about topics relevant to student and campus life.

While new technologies spring forth constantly, students will just have to wait and see what happens now and where the Traveler will go in the future.

Story Credit: Jessica Browne, News/ Editorial ’11

Photo Credit: Andrea Waddell, Advertising/ PR ’11

Regina Hopper

This March the journalism department welcomed a special guest back to campus, courtesy of the prestigious Johnson Fellow endowment.  Regina Hopper was able to return to campus and share her many successes with students.

Hopper graduated from the UA with a bachelor’s degree in political science in 1981.  She went on to obtain her law degree at the UA in 1985. She is now president and CEO of America’s Natural Gas Alliance.

Jeff Johnson and his wife Marcia, who are both UA graduates, endow the Johnson Fellows program.  The purpose of the program is to bring esteemed alumni back on campus to inspire students.

Hopper certainly left her mark during her two-day visit to campus.  As a former Miss Arkansas and Springdale native, Hopper related to students while visiting with them in the Lemke Journalism Department and the law school, among others. Hopper spoke to a number of journalism classes including broadcast II and the art of interactive journalism, and a faculty social media marketing group.

Hopper has worked in a number of different careers, but her start as a reporter was in Arkansas.  While working as an attorney in Little Rock, Hopper became interested in the world of broadcast.

“I would practice law during the week and on the weekends I would go and sort of stand behind the scenes, like you guys are doing here, see how the news was written, see how the news was gathered,” Hopper said during a UATV interview.

After working for KATV in Little Rock for several years, she went to work for CBS News in New York, and then worked her way into politics, transferring to the network’s Washington bureau.  In Washington, Hopper covered President George H.W. Bush’s term in office and then President Bill Clinton’s campaign and presidency.

As a correspondent for CBS News, Hopper won an Emmy for a story on a physician recovering from a medical malpractice lawsuit. The story was far from her comfort zone, but Hopper said that’s what made it such a great piece.  She was able to explore it from an entirely new angle.

Hopper’s career has taken her beyond the news world, but she said journalism still plays an important role in her life.  “In essence, my one career has always been, whether it be in law or in media or in public advocacy, talking about the message and what you are trying to get people to understand,” Hopper said.

The methods of research she gathered as a journalist help her in her current role.

She now spends her time promoting the clean and affordable use of natural gas.  Her daily duties include speaking with state electric utilities and engaging in energy policy debates.

“I guess that’s the message. You take the opportunities that are given to you; you look for the holes that need to be filled. Then you take the advantages and your education and the opportunities you have and you fill those holes.”

Story Credit: Ashley Shelton, Broadcast ’11

Photo Credit: Courtesy Photo

Dennis Kirkpatrick, Chuck Barrett, and Whitney Boatman

The Lemke Department has launched a sports journalism program, one of few such specialized programs in the country.

Thanks to backing from UA Athletic Director Jeff Long and Fulbright Dean William Schwab, journalism students can now study the developing field of sports information and get hands-on training working with the Athletic Department to help produce UA sports events.

Courses, which started in the summer of 2010, were developed by Dennis Kirkpatrick, who was hired to head the sports journalism program. Kirkpatrick graduated in 1974 from the UA with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and continued his education for a master’s from the University of Southern California in communication and journalism. Since then, he has gained a background of 20 years in broadcast sports reporting and producing at a national level. He has worked with major sports broadcasting networks such as Fox Sports Net, ABC, Raycom Sports, and ESPN.

Kirkpatrick brings his experience to the students in the journalism department through the new sports journalism program. A friend told Kirkpatrick about the job opportunity. Kirkpatrick said “absolutely” after receiving the job offer.

“This was an opportunity I could not pass up,” Kirkpatrick said. Long came up with a concept for the sports program to merge the journalism and athletic departments, which was also influenced by his idea of RazorVision.

The program brings the members of journalism department closer to the athletic department.

“We must have the academic community to be able to support the athletic department or you are not going to be successful,” Kirkpatrick said. In the Athletic Department, Bobby Petrino does a great job recruiting by making sure to bring in professors to choose players. It is not all about the playing; the academics need to be good as well.

The basic outline of the sports journalism program, Kirkpatrick said, is having a professor teach sports television and in return the students do a telecast for RazorVision.

Professor Kirkpatrick and broadcast students produce show Ask the AD

“I teach sports television and sports journalism to the kids, and then we turn it around and do webcasts for the Arkansas athletic department,” Kirkpatrick said. “A goal of ours is to teach students what is necessary in sports reporting and giving them actual practice.”

RazorVision is a premium content, subscription-based web product that is found at http://www.arkansasrazorbacks.com/. It is produced by the UA Athletic Department and focuses on streaming live or archived video and other exclusive content. Through RazorVision students are able to hear and watch various sports broadcasts.

Working with RazorVision, his students are able to broadcast a live pregame show including interviews with football coaches, homecoming queens, ex-players, current players and fans from Reynolds Razorback Stadium. The show is produced solely by students giving them practice with interviews and production skills.

“Everyone gets a chance to do any job that they want to in class,” Kirkpatrick said.  He wants to be able to teach students they can do what they want, once they get a taste of it and go with it, he said. Kirkpatrick is working with the university staff to expand the program’s coverage to other sports such as basketball, softball and track.

Kirkpatrick’s class is able to Skype, or live video broadcast, with people he has met over the years who work or have worked in sports broadcasting. Students are able to ask questions and receive information from a professional view. Kirkpatrick’s career-long networking is paying off for students through possible internships. He is working to find internships for students at CBS, Fox and ESPN.

“This is not easy work… it is a particular art,” Kirkpatrick said. “You have to work and believe in yourself to accomplish it.”

“This is the students’ first time to do this, and I feel the same way. I have never taught before… it is something new for me too, something fun to do.” Kirkpatrick said.

Kirkpatrick has high goals for the sports journalism program.

“I want to give students the chance, all they need is an opportunity and they will go far,” Kirkpatrick said.

Story Credit: Andrea Waddell, Advertising/ PR

Photo Credits: Andrea Waddell, Advertising/ PR

Taniah Tudor

UA journalism alum Taniah Tudor was named a winner in the 51st annual William Randolph Hearst Foundation’s Journalism Awards Program. Tudor placed 10th in the program and received a certificate of merit for her story.

Tudor wrote her story, “From Behind the Windshield: an In-Depth Report on Midwestern Speed,” for an advanced non-fiction writing class during the fall semester and it was published in an online edition of The Arkansas Traveler.

“I have always had a strong interest in cars and car racing but have never had the chance to explore that interest,” Tudor said. I was planning to write a story about the vintage car show circuit, but it turned out it was too late in the season. I was put in touch with a racer, Tim Webb, and it was his passion for racing that got me onto my final story choice.”

Her research led her to a road racing track west of Tulsa, Okla. one of the few tracks of its type in America. There, she met everyone from the drivers to the track’s owner. The story ultimately put her in the passenger seat of an Ariel Atom as it roared around the track.

“It feels really great to have all your hard work acknowledged,” Tudor said. “It was, in a sense, a validation of my choice to become a journalist.”

Tudor is from Natural Dam, Ark., and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and Latin American studies from the UA in December 2010. Tudor said she decided to go back to school while living in Fayetteville and chose to attend the UA because it was the most convenient and affordable option.

“I also understood that the university had a good journalism program,” Tudor said. “I chose news/editorial because I have always been a strong writer, and I wanted the opportunity to expand on that strength.”

The Hearst Journalism Awards Program is conducted under the support of accredited schools of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication and is funded and administered by the William Randolph Hearst Foundation.  The competition consists of six monthly writing competitions, three photojournalism competitions, three broadcast news competitions and two multimedia competitions with championship finals in all divisions.  The program awards as much as $500,000 in scholarships and grants annually.

The program gives students a chance to shine. A total of 98 students from 57 universities participated in the program’s third writing competition of the 2010-2011 academic year.

“It has already helped me with my future – the editors of two publications contacted me after hearing about the award, and both have offered me a writing position,” Tudor said.

The Hearst Journalism Awards Program was founded in 1960 to provide support, encouragement and assistance to journalism education at the college and university level, according to the Hearst Journalism Awards Program website. Scholarships are awarded to students for outstanding performance in college-level journalism, with matching grants to the students’ schools.

Life after graduation has been anything but dull for Tudor. She has been spending time with her husband and family, working a full-time job and has accepted a full-time position with the Press Argus-Courier in Van Buren.

“I have been decompressing from school, but now I am ready for the challenges of a new job and am excited to be getting back to journalism,” Tudor said.

Story Credit: Kristine Gaffney, News/Editorial

Photo Credit: Courtesy Photo

Photo by Kristine Gaffney

Photo by Andrea Waddell

Photo by Kristine Gaffney

Photo by Kristine Gaffney

Photo by Andrea Waddell

Photo by Andrea Waddell

Photo by Kristine Gaffney

Photo by Kristine Gaffney

Photo by Kristine Gaffney

Photos by Andrea Waddell

Photo by Kristine Gaffney

The project was designed as an opportunity for 12-15 students to work with three professors in a realistic news environment, said Gerald Jordan, a professor in the Newsroom in 2010.

Katherine Shurlds and Robyn Starling-Ledbetter also taught in the Newsroom.

Offered only during the fall semester, the 15-hour block met four days a week and integrated print, broadcast and new media instruction. Students graduating from journalism schools must be able to produce and edit content on a variety of platforms to remain competitive in a changing job market, Ledbetter said. Ledbetter specialized in broadcast methods.

“Journalism is changing every day, as is technology,” she said. “We need to prepare students for those changes, or we’re not being fair to them.”

The program is also designed to help students identify whether they are truly interested in journalism, Jordan said.

The demanding course load is what drove some students away, but such demands are necessary to give students a real-world experience, he said. “By the end of the program, only one or two students realized they really wanted to go into newspapers, and maybe two or three were interested in broadcast.”

“There’s no job out there where you only go two days a week,” he said. “I think part of our responsibility as a faculty is to teach students a work ethic, and if we fail at that, we fail at our jobs.”

Working solely in the newsroom also gave those involved an opportunity to focus on journalism.

“With 15 hours of courses, neither student nor professor has to worry about conflicts with western civ. or biology classes,” Jordan said.

Though students admitted growing weary of the constant course work, for junior Saba Naseem, the ability to work in a variety of mediums gave her some valuable skills she might not have gotten otherwise, she said.

“I learned how to use a Mac, how to edit stories, videos, and audio. I became much better at reading the news every day and knowing what is going on around me,” Naseem said.

The hands-on experience was valuable, though the learning curve was steep when learning several multimedia-based programs simultaneously, she said.

Adaptability was one of the most important skills for students and teachers during the first semester, Ledbetter said, as teaching methods changed to suit student needs and time availability.

Patsy Watkins will be joining the Newsroom for the Fall 2011, providing more in-depth photography instruction.

“The Newsroom is going through some changes, but I think it’s a worthwhile program and one that needs to continue,” Watkins said.

The program is an important one at Arkansas, though the Newsroom is not yet on par with others nationally such as the Universities of Florida, Kansas and Mississippi – some of whom have multi-million dollar programs.

The final budget has not yet been decided, though Verizon Wireless donated $5,000 to the project, and a fundraiser through the Lemke Alumni Society also brought in nearly $3,000.

Story credit:  Nick DeMoss, News/ Editorial ’11

Photo credit: Andrea Waddell, Advertising/ PR