Three officers elected to lead the chapter

Paula Christine Schuler

The college chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists is re-energized this semester and has elected officers.

In the most recent meeting, the group had a three-member panel on digital media with panelists San Antonio Express-News columnist Ben Olivo, Palo Alto College Professor Denise Richter and Laura Garcia, a former student and currently a senior at Texas State University.

Eighteen students attended the 6 p.m. meeting, which adviser Jerry Townsend described as "the best showing in a LONG time."

President Paula Christine Schuler  changed from a business major to journalism after learning about the award-winning program at San Antonio College and calculating she might never have a better opportunity to try journalism.  

In the summer of 2012, Paula began to write a book she had envisioned for several years and realized she needed more training. It was perfect timing. The power of the pen to create change, speak truth and inspire fascinates her. Interviewing is her favorite part of the process. 

Long-term plans still include writing books and possibly exploring documentary film making. Schuler has lived in Texas since 1989, has been married 27 years and has three sons, two of whom have been in the Armed Forces.

Vice president Riley Stephens is a communications sophomore at San Antonio College with an emphasis on photojournalism. He is multimedia editor for The Ranger, and he plans to transfer to the University of North Texas.  

Chapter secretary Carlos Ferrand is a sophomore journalism major, and he serves as sports and entertainment editor of The Ranger. He is a Yankees fan and lives and breathes sports.

What's happening in the media world?

Newspapers: Stabilizing, but Still Threatened

By Rick Edmonds of the Poynter Institute and Emily Guskin, Amy Mitchell and Mark Jurkowitz of the Pew Research Center

If the newspaper industry had theme music in 2013, it might use “Been down so long it looks like up to me,” the much-recycled line from a 1920s blues song.

For the first time since the deep recession that began in 2007, newspaper organizations have grounds for a modicum of optimism.

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Journalism education cannot teach its way to the future, veteran journalist predicts

 by Howard Finberg 

As we think about the changes whipping through the media industry, there is a nearby storm about to strike journalism education.

The future of journalism education will be a very different and difficult future, a future that is full of innovation and creative disruption. And, I believe, we will see an evolution and uncoupling between the value of a journalism education and a journalism degree.

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Some stuff about sports writing

Check out this site for more about sports writing and other specialized writing styles. There's more to journalism than the inverted pyramid, but that's a good place to begin.

Any form of journalistic writing must keep the reader in mind and KEEP IT SIMPLE. Tell the story and then take your fingers off the computer keys.

So you want to have an SPJ group blog?

What is Tumblir?

Put simply, Tumblr is a service that does exactly what WordPress does for blogging, but for microblogging, or tumbleblog’s instead. To fully understand what Tumblr does, you first need to understand what these so-called tumbleblog’s actually are.

What does this mean? Well basically, Tumblr fills the gap between Twitter, where people tweet resources, images, and thoughts, and traditional blogging platforms, like WordPress where each post is a proper article. Instead, Tumblr works with seven types of post; text, photo, quote, link, chat, audio and video, and it handles them all very well.

Check out this educational tour of Tumblelog service, Tumblr.com, from July 30, 2007.



So, how could this service benefit the San Antonio College student chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists? Count the ways. It's like Twitter on steroids. No limit to messages. It's like Facebook, but without all the uploaded photos of people you don't know.

Other than that, the sky's the limit.