About the Instructors
Jill Olmsted is the journalism Division Director of the School of Communication and teaches many of the skills courses in audio, video and online storytelling. Before entering teaching she was an on-air television and radio news anchor, reporter, and editorialist as well as a producer, editor, photographer, and news manager for stations around the country. She covered local, national and international news events on issues that included national political conventions, the Pope’s visit to the United States, U.S. Open Golf Championships and a terrorist attack in Israel. She also worked as a Washington, D.C. correspondent for nationally syndicated programs, covering the White House and federal agencies. She also provides media training for law enforcement and government agencies and writes about media issues. BA Journalism, University of Minnesota; MA Journalism and Public Affairs, American University.
Josh Hatch is a multimedia producer for USA TODAY. There he works with photo and video journalists, editors, reporters, designers, programmers and more to produce award-winning interactive graphic and multimedia stories. He is also a consultant and trainer, freelance writer, editor, and Web developer and will be teaching this fall as an adjunct professor in the SOC MA Interactive Journalism Program. In his spare time, he tends to his wife, daughter and chocolate lab and overgrown garden on Capitol Hill. Josh is an SOC alum who earned his MA degree in the New Media Studies Program.
About Boot Camp
For the next three weeks, you will be immersed in work on the American University campus, at locations around Washington, D.C., and on assignment in the metropolitan area. The MA program in journalism stresses the fundamentals of critical thinking, news judgment, interviewing, fact checking, ethics and law – all against a backdrop of a changing media industry.
If it sounds like a lot, it is. Through a combination of class lectures, online tutorials, guest speakers, and multimedia reporting assignments, you’ll learn the skills you need to survive in journalism’s digital age. It won’t be easy. You’ll learn on assignment, getting honest and sometimes tough feedback that you haven’t heard in a while. Expect long hours – including overnight homework and weekend assignments — that’s why we call it “boot camp.”
You’ve chosen to specialize in print or broadcast, but as you know, a lot of the traditional distribution methods have changed. Every student in boot camp is expected to learn how to function in a multimedia world. Every student will study journalism and storytelling in text, audio, video, still photography, interactives, mash-ups and more. After boot camp, some of your classes split you into your tracks, but a lot of your work still lands on the Web.
But don’t worry. It is still journalism after all. You will learn the values, the ethics and the guidelines. You’ll hear directly from some of the nation’s top broadcast producers, Web executives and investigative journalists – many of them AU alums.
Course Objectives:
- Introduction to AP Style and Grammar Basics
- Intro to basic HTML, CSS concepts
- Creation of a Digital Portfolio
- Familiarity with Interviewing, Writing, Reporting Basics
- Creation of a blog with audio, video, photos and ongoing coverage of Boot Camp
- Understanding of social media for news
- Intro to digital audio-gathering, writing, editing & public radio
- Intro to digital still photo’s and Photoshop editing for online storytelling
- Intro to audio-photo slideshow storytelling
- Intro to basic video storytelling, shooting & editing
- Intro to Ethical Journalism
- Intro to Mashups using maps for illustrative storytelling
- Hear from expert journalists on cutting-edge issues & tour facilities
