An all-star cast of media professionals from USA Today, the Washington Post, Associated Press, Politico, CBS News, Gannett, and WAMU-FM, shared their expertise with the students. Ten of the experts were SOC alums, from the highest levels of network television and the Web, to the newly-graduated and employed.

Technology provided students the opportunity to skype in interviews from Iraq (with alum Rawand Darwesh) and from New York City (with alum Susan Zirinsky). SOC professors were generous with their time as were adjuncts. Students were introduced to SOC’s influential centers, including the Investigative Reporting Workshop, J-Lab, and the Center for Social Media.

Students went on location to Washington, D.C. hot spots such as Politico, Associated Press and the Newseum. The students come from more than 20 states and internationally from India, South Africa and South America.

Watch the following clip to hear Zirinsky discuss how CBS went about making the Cronkite special.

Video should include emotion and a sense of character, according to Roberts. Additionally, video should incorporate compelling images that put the story in better context than words can describe and can help viewers to have a direct connection with the people being filmed, he said. While video does help people see for themselves, video often times doesn’t let the viewer hear the whole story and can seem manipulative, Roberts said.

In addition to offering several techniques such as shooting by using the rule of thirds and capturing an environmental portrait, Roberts gave five rules to follow in order to create good video.

Watch the clip below to learn about the five rules.

Rawand Darwesh was supposed to Skype
with students but students interviewed
him over a conference call.

Rawand Darwesh is an alumnus of American University, School of Communication and currently resides in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. He spoke of the situation in Iraq and gave a different point of view as opposed to what he called “The CNN effect.” The CNN effect reveres to the imagery large corporate media companies focus on, in order to get favorable viewer ratings.

It was nice to hear that certain parts of Iraq, including the Kurdistan Region, have not been affected by the war. Many people live in peace everyday and still have a very normal life. These regions have however, been confronted with the many displaced people who fled the War affected areas.

Rawand also presented a fresh perspective on the love-hate relationship the Iraqi’s have with the USA. Many Iraqi’s were filled with joy towards the USA when they freed the people from the infamous leader Saddam Hussein. Later the relationship between these two countries took a turn for the worse. As Rawand spoke of the gratitude the Iraqi’s had towards the soldiers of the USA, I couldn’t help but recall the images of joy many Iraqi’s displayed when the retreat of the United States’ soldiers was announced. I guess there are always two sides to every story.

This article was originally posted here.

Check out some photos from the day:

Asendio talks about the management and administrative work that he does at WAMU in the clip below.

While working on the American Observer, the online magazine run by the journalism students, Johnson learned some Web production skills that made her resume stand out to one of her bosses. She was offered the chance to work on a soft launch of a new site because of her skills.

In the following video, Johnson speaks about her exciting opportunity.

The old adage goes something like, “he has a face for radio.” While Jim Asendio’s outward appearances are not for me to judge, the news director at WAMU certainly speaks with the velvety delivery of a well-tenured radio veteran. In his appearance in Friday’s Boot Camp session, Asendio served as the perfect teacher to a group of young journalists learning to properly use their voices.

WAMU News Director Jim
Asendio discussed professionalism.

Earlier in the morning, Professor Jill Olmsted had taught the class about the technical side of putting together a news report for radio. Asendio’s speech, however, focused much more on how to move up in the reporting industry. Journalism is not the profession for an introvert, he told the class. Everything in reporting is about connecting, be it with sources or with the viewing/reading public. While this is important advice for learning to tell a news story, the same holds true for finding work reporting the news.

In the news game, he said, anywhere you go, you’ll probably run into someone who knows someone you’ve worked with before. To students trying to move up in the industry, this offers a few very important lessons. Most importantly, don’t burn any bridges. You never know who you might cross paths with again in the future. And for the same reason, never refuse to take a job seriously just because you think it is small-time.

But what about first-time job seekers?

2008 SOC graduate Keosha Johnson joined our class later to discuss how she is making her way through the news world. Johnson first praised the program itself for the multimedia nature of the coursework. In her first job after AU as an associate at NBC News, Johnson was asked to do just as much computer graphic and web-based work as standard writing and shooting. While she initially found herself a bit overwhelmed at the workload she was not personally too proficient in, Johnson used the multimedia background she got at AU as a launching pad for her professional career. She advised, “if you know how to shoot, edit, write, and do web production, you’re golden.”

While Jim Asendio reinforced the message we’ve heard before about, “It’s not what you know, but who you know,” Johnson reminded us that we need to make sure first that what we know isn’t a small amount. She recommended doing as much work as we can get our hands on during the program. During her time at AU, Johnson freelanced outside of class as a blogger for a fashion website. “Always try to be working outside of class,” she told a roomful of students already weary from two weeks of Boot Camp.

This article was originally posted here.

To view some of the students work, click here to see an index of their projects.

Today students learned about the importance of audio. After Professor Olmsted described several types of audio recorders and microphones, students watched some of Professor Josh Hatch’s examples of good audio from USA Today projects. Students were then greeted by Deborah Bolling. Bolling has 20 years of experience as a film maker–she even produced music videos for Public enemy–and about 11 years experience as a journalist.

She said that people have no tolerance for bad sound, so she wanted to explain how to capture good audio. After stepping outside for a few minutes to take notes on the sounds around campus, students participated in a short creative writing exercise incorporating their notes from the quad. This exercise emphasized one of Bolling’s many pieces of advice. Be a storyteller, she said.

“Journalists are living, breathing, walking historians,” Bolling said. She suggested thinking creatively when thinking about telling a story. Be sure not to leave anyone out, and tell the story so someone else can tell it in their own words, she said.

One of the reasons why audio is important is because it can create the mood, according to Bolling. It lets the listener know where they are.

In the following clip, Bolling discusses how someone might collect sound from the beach on a dull day.