Since my blog is about Student Media and my experiences and experiments within it, I figured my last post should be a wrap up of everything I learned and what I am taking with me to the next phase of my life and continuation of my career.

Student media is at the very least a great place to learn. I learned a lot about the industry and about life.

I learned that Journalism is not dead and that we need to change our ways in order to cater for an ever-changing audience and its needs.

People will never stop consuming and needing news; therefore, society will never cease to need journalism.

Although I think that we still don’t know exactly where all this is going to end, we do know that there is a long way to go.

Technology definitely brings a major shift to the industry and we at student media felt the changes right inside our newsroom by recently adding positions and changing job descriptions.

Some editors became directors and had a boatload of responsibilities added to their day to day activities—all in the name of convergence.

Both the news and the sports editors became directors, meaning that they would now take care not only of the content on the newspaper but also on the Web site and the radio; their check doubled and so did the hours put in.

Major print newspapers started going online; TV channels and radio stations started sharing their content on the Internet as well.

Since student media is a place to learn, it is no surprise that the “convergence” would soon come.

Point is: how well are students being prepared to the industry?

Students that wish to learn and maybe eventually work for the entertainment industry have to sharpen and, rather than specialize, widen their skills.

Today, writing only for print isn’t the case anymore. Reporters are required to know how to also write for a Web site, write scripts for radio, shoot, edit and produce video and so on.

In the news industry, the cuts are so bad that most of the times people are multitasking, from reporting to copyediting to designing both a print and an online product. Is no different in student media.

“The convergence has not been an easy transition because, as a student media outlet, we lack the resources and talent to consistently produce a quality product,” said Sergio Bonilla, sports director of FIU’s Student Media. “Resources being money and talent being experienced multimedia journalists. It’s an outlet to learn, and we all understand students have classes and other responsibilities to attend to.”

The obstacles are many but student media is where we learn on the job the skills that are going to be required from us in the near future.

You like getting your information in print form? We got it. You want to get it online? We got it. You want to get while driving to school? We also got it.

When we finally got this whole media convergence down, we were presented with yet another challenge: incorporate social media into our work flow.

I don’t think we are there yet, but I believe we are on the right track.

“Social media is so important in journalism today,” said Jorge Vales, assistant news director for FIU’s Student Media. “As a news director, I would use this tool to not only broadcast stories and links for readers, establishing a presence for FIUSM News online, but also pay attention to what FIU students are posting.”

Whether we made the right decisions only the future will tell us, but we had the chance of running and administrating something from the beginning, making tough yet essential decisions that we had to stand by day after day.

Student media is a great opportunity to put all we learn in class into practice. The industry requires more and more from us and being prepared is now a must. I was part of the production of a product that I am proud of. I learned that getting involved on something so gratifying is an opportunity that we all have, but not all of us know how to recognize it.

I tried to make it clear how we work regarding production cycles, story editing and the like.

Here is a cool blog I wanted to share:  Media Convergence Matters.

It has great info and varied posts on the topic. Enjoy.

This is obviously a hypothetical situation because neither the government nor Obama funds The New York Times, or the news industry for that matter.

A thousand miles south, however, this situation was well alive, in a much smaller scale, but with proportionally devastating outcomes.

“We even had a member of the student government tell us ‘It won’t be up there for long’ when we refused to remove a story,” recalled Devin Desjarlais, editor in chief of the University Press, student newspaper of Florida Atlantic Univeristy, which made news in 2005 when their student government tried to cut student media funding by almost one third.

This was not the first time that a Florida law caused clashes between student media and student government members throughout the State’s universities.

The law states that all funds from student fees must go through student government for proper allocation. Thus far student media is funded by the latter.

Even though the money is technically from the student body and the statute specifies that under any circumstances student government can cut funds to student media based on content, it still creates First Amendment issues and censorship opportunities.

“There have been cases over the years that when the student government doesn’t like something that is written about their practices in the student newspaper they have punished the paper by withholding the funding,” said Ron Spielberger from the College Media Advisors.

Spielberger suggested that it is never a good idea to have student government administer the funding.  “It would be as if the mayor of a city was controlling the funding of the daily newspaper in a city,” he said.

School officials and members of the student government may not take any action whose substantial motivation is to censor, manipulate, punish for or otherwise control the content of their student media, according to the Associated Collegiate Press’s interpretation of the statute.

The flip side of that, however, is that they do very often have the ability to make life miserable for the student press where their motives are not content-related, states the ACP’s Web site.

“At Florida International University, I have never seen SGA cut the newspaper because of anything it printed,” said Larry Lunsford, FIU’s associate vice president of Student Affairs, who has a degree in journalism, worked as a professional journalist and advised several college papers. “I know this action would be illegal, so I wouldn’t allow it to happen.”

Sholom Neistein, president of the student government council at FIU’s Biscayne Bay Campus, thinks that student government officials should never censor or dictate coverage.

“If there is a situation involving SGA that needs to be reported to the students, whether it has positive or negative affects has no bearing,” Neistein said.

“There is no place for censorship,” agreed Anthony Rionda, president of the FIU’s student government council at Modesto Maidique Campus. “The only thing I care about is getting the facts right.”

Christopher Necuze, editor in chief of The Beacon, FIU’s student newspaper, said that even though student media is protected by the statute, he still fears a possible cut in the paper’s funding.

“I have to think twice whether I want to run the story and as a journalist I want to run it but at the same time I don’t want to hurt the paper,” Necuze said.  “In the past our reporters have been approached by members of student government who told things like ‘remember who funds you … who you have to come talk to.’”

Spielberger said that he thinks that the clause in the law prohibiting student government of cutting student media funds based on content is not enough.

“There are implied threats,” he said adding that a possible solution would be that the funding allocation is decided by a mixed panel, consisting of student government members, administrators who know about finance, faculty and student leaders who are not on the student government.

“That would give a much fairer approach to the distribution of the funds,” Spielberger said.

However, an underlying problem for student media remains, states the Associated Collegiate Press: there must be demonstrable proof of intent to censor student speech.

Many Florida universities’ student media, after conflicts with student government corporatized and are now independent from the university. One example is the University of Florida newspaper, who became the Independent Florida Alligator in 1973.

“This is a First Amendment issue,” Lunsford said. “Student newspapers have the same press freedom as professional papers. SGA members sometimes believe they can censor because they fund; however, the latter can be attributed to their ignorance of the law …  It is the responsibility of the press to educate.”

From copy editor to news director, I am part of this extraordinary opportunity for three years and counting.

I am currently the News Director at Florida International University’s Student Media.

My position requires me to know what’s going on in the University and in the community 24/7.

Sometimes, it is overwhelming and frustrating but this is where I will make mistakes, learn from them and get a real hands-on experience on the field I want to work at.

In this blog, I will post my and my co-workers experiences in our day to day lives as students, journalists, leaders and young adults.

As News Director, I am responsible for the news content in the newspaper (The Beacon), the Web site (www.FIUSM.com) and the radio (Radiate FM).

The news team has a news radio show, PantherWire, which goes live three times a week for one hour. On The Beacon, we usually have to fill from two to four pages with news content, and on the Web site, we have daily updates, videos and special projects.

–> Here, I will tell how we work, what we do and the innovative things we are trying. I also hope to hear from you, media experts, students and professors, and get your insight, your comments and maybe even YOUR experiences in the field.