Are you interested in sports reporting? Would you like to learn how to interview college and professional athletes? Would you like to cover a Buffalo Bisons game at Dunn Tire Park and learn the ropes of a sports reporter?

If you answered yes to any of these questions then send an email to mattykwmcb@yahoo.com explaining what kind of sports reporting that you want to get into and exactly what you want to learn.

Matty K

WMCB Sports Director

Mattykwmcb@yahoo.com

In past weeks I have talked about the different job positions in newspaper offices.Positions included design, editing, writing, and photography. Today, I will mention another, advertising.

Many newspapers, especially those that are free, run primarily on advertising revenue. There for, daily and weekly newspapers hire a lot of advertising representatives.

Working as an advertising representative for a newspaper is a good opportunity, it has the ability to strengthen ones communication, networking, and sales skills. If you excel at selling advertisements, it is very rewarding, as most newspaper pay advertising reps a salary and commission on what they sell.

The neat part of advertising is that you are exposed to a variety of personalities, and learn a great deal about the different types of business that are world is made up of.

Also, selling advertisements allows you to be creative like most other newspaper positions. For example, if an advertising representative is accustomed to using Adobe software they can not only sell the advertisements but design them too. Designingthem allows you to be creative, and once you build relationships with your clients you get a feel for what message they are trying to convey with their advertisement and you can design it for them.

Advertising is a great opportunity because it allows you to strengthen so many areas, not to mention that it can be very enjoyable if you like meeting new people. And what can be better then getting paid for how hard you work? The more sale calls you make the more customers your are likely to have and the more commission you have to make.

Summer Gemmati

danah boyd has written a blog entry about the economics and logistics of academic publishing. For anyone looking for a career in academics, her piece gives a good overview of the trends in scholarship and publishing.

**This information was taken from an e-mail sent out today by club adviser Lisa Murphy. Great job Perspective Staff, we’re so proud of you!!!  **

“The Medaille Perspective has been recognized by the Columbia Scholastic Press Association, Columbia University as a Gold Medalist. The Perspective was judged against criteria for student newspapers as established by a panel of judges at the association. Newspapers are critiqued and points awarded and then ranked against student newspapers in the USA and Canada.

In order to be ranked as a gold medalist, the paper must receive at least 925 points of 1000. The Perspective received 955 points. The judges said “It was a pleasure ‘reading’ you! You’ve obviously worked very hard on your publication, which is reflected in your Gold score!”

The staff of the Perspective would like to thank the entire campus community for their support and continued readership. They look forward to continuing to cover the campus throughout the upcoming semester.  ”

Layout allows for one to be creative, and creates a remarkable design to newspaper pages that appeals to the readers eye. When laying out the Perspective, students on the staff work with a program called Adobe InDesign.

InDesign provides the necessary applications to add drop caps to stories, text wrap articles around photos, add an array of color, create graphs and fact boxes, drop shadow pictures and boxes to give them a three-dimensional feel along with much more.

These elements enhance the appearance of the page and are fun in the process. When joining the newspaper myself, I had no idea that designing the page was something I would have the opportunity to do. Actually, when I joined the newspaper the layout of the page never came to my mind because I assumed it was something the newspaper staff was unable to do. I clearly was wrong, and am rather happy I was.

After joining the newspaper and realizing all you can do with it, especially layout, I was intrigued. After learning how to use InDesign I was able to be creative and layout Feature pages (more artsy then news pages).

My most recent page designs was the feature on Nick Thompson, who can complete the Rubik’s Cube in 74 seconds that appeared in the October 9^th edition along with the Broke feature that appeared in the October 29^th issue.

Anyone who has ever been interested in being creative and artsy, doing newspaper layout is great. Like I said before, being apart of the student newspaper and or any newspaper for that matter truly offers more than just the writing aspect.

Next week, advertising.

~Summer Gemmati

I love being part of the Perspective staff and have such an interest in newspaper because of the creativity it allows you to have. Photojournalism is no different.

Photojournalism is news photography that may primarily focus on pictorial media and can often dominate the written copy. A well-written story is not fully finished until it has a strong image to support it. Having a strong image not only supports your story, but helps convey the message as well. With that said, it exemplifies just how important photography is to a newspaper.

Also, like writing, when photographing pictures you will experience new things. You will also see things, people, and objects in a way you never expected to see them in. An example from a previous issue of the Perspective was an article on the drag show, titled “Drag show sparks controversy.” The photographer was more than just another audience member, but rather had the opportunity to get close to the drag queens and kings and take pictures from both high, and low angles.

Normally, people take pictures looking dead on, and pose the people in the picture. But photojournalism allows you to capture candid shots and be creative with them. We sent a Perspective photographer over to the Buffalo Zoo to shoot pictures for an article. Her photos dominated the article, and were creative. She took a picture of an Elk, but rather taking a picture at eye level a picture was shot looking down emphasizing the antlers.

There is so much to do with photography in itself. It’s fun and for those who don’t like writing, it’s perfect. So, don’t hesitate to join a newspaper staff, there is so much to do. Next week, we talk about layout, my personal favorite.

-Summer Gemmati, Perspective Editor-in-Chief

I started Medaille as a media major wanting to concentrate in advertising. I love being creative and knew that field would allow me to demonstrate my creativity. It wasn’t until my junior year that my concentration changed. Working in Newspaper was where my heart truly belonged.

I joined the Medaille Perspective staff two years ago as News Editor and now, in my senior year, I am the Editor-in-Chief. I have learned that working for a newspaper is much more than just writing, which is what many people think. While the journalism aspect is important; layout, design, photography, and advertising play a huge role as well. This week, however, we’ll take a look at the writing aspect…

News coverage allows you to interview people, discover new and interesting things, and became a more educated person. As a journalist covering news you may see things you never thought you would see, experience things you never thought you would experience, and meet people you never thought you would meet.

Being part of the newspaper has given me, along with the rest of the staff, the opportunity of being creative and discovering new things when covering a story.

Many times a story will be assigned to someone who is not interested in the topic. However, the beauty of journalism is that stories have more than one angle. You can take any story and make it seem interesting to the readers, which is exactly what you want to do as a journalist.

Aside from news stories, there are also feature stories, which allow you to be more creative with your writing and write about topics many people think would not be appropriate for a newspaper. An example of this is a feature on a sophomore at Medaille who can complete the Rubik’s cube in 74 seconds.

Knowing that newspaper writing is so much more than what people think, I am also aware that writing is not for everyone. However, that doesn’t mean you should rule out a job on a newspaper staff. Next week I will talk about the importance of photography to a newspaper and how exciting it can be.

Summer Gemmati is the Editor-in-Chief of the award winning Medaille Perspective. She graduates from Medaille in May of 2008, with her degree in Communication, and plans on going to grad school at either Medaille or UB to study education. She has completed internships with the Buffalo Bisons, Buffalo Niagara Partnership, and Sam’s Club’s marketing department where she has been employed for the past three years.