Dr. Spaulding

This is the most important question we have to discuss today: What ground rules should we operate by to produce ethical, accurate news coverage? We’ll base this discussion on both your homework reading (Lieb Ch. 14 for MCOM 257 and the SPJ code of ethics for MCOM 407) and our collective community experience. Here’s two [...]

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. It’s pretty simple: take the book you are currently reading, randomly flip to a page, select a few sentences from that page (being careful not to reveal any major spoilers, of course) and post it as a Facebook note or on [...]

I saw this on The Towerlight website today: Lindy 500, sponsored by Charm City Swing and the Towson University Ballroom Dance Club, ran August 27 through 29. “Charm City Swing does [Lindy 500] every year, but this is the first year that Towson is holding it. We’re the only school with an attached garage and [...]

A short meditation on writing and reporting to start the week. On the subject of generating story ideas, from America’s Best Newspaper Writing: The best writers see the world as a storehouse of story ideas, see through the walls of faceless institutions to find the human characters within them. These writers lack the ability to [...]

There are plenty of opportunities for you to begin writing and freelancing while you are still in college. The Towerlight news editor Alissa Katz is looking for writers. She sent this for me to pass along to you: I’m Alissa Katz, the news editor at The Towerlight. The Towerlight is always looking for MCOM students [...]

AOL employs over 1,500 journalists and plans to hire hundreds more to launch hyper-local online news sites this year. These new hires include three Towson alumni. Former MCOM 407 student Nick DiMarco is editing a site for Lutherville-Timonium, which went live this week. Tyler Waldman will be covering Towson and Josh Flynn will be covering [...]

Welcome to all my Towson j-students. Question for you: is this video newsworthy? Here’s what your textbook says: News is information that has impact, prominence, unusualness, currency, conflict, timeliness, proximity, affinity or human interest (p. 26-30). Which values are evident in these stories: Joppa Road bridge reopens Tower B squirrel clings to life Ravens unveil [...]

A short meditation on writing and reporting to start the week. Former Evening Sun newspaperman Jon Franklin writes in his book Writing for Story: How many attempts it takes to finally write a powerful story depends on two factors: Your ability, and the difficulty of the stories you choose. Neither reflects your own worth. Your [...]

Rafael Alvarez interviews author Dan Fesperman (right) at Roman’s Place on South Decker Avenue while journalism student Ken Stukes listens in. From the weekly “Aging Newspapermen’s Club” lunch in Highlandtown.