Conventional Classroom

BU Student Journalists Turn In Clutch Performances at the Democratic National Convention

by Brian Fitzgerald

	BU student Peter DiCampo (COM’05) jockeyed among frenzied delegates and fellow journalists to get this shot on the final night of the Democratic National Convention, as John Kerry accepts his party’s presidential nomination.

Screaming. Clapping. Fists pumping. Banners and flags waving. John Kerry had just delivered his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, and the delegates were going crazy. Standing amidst a blizzard of confetti and balloons on the floor of Boston’s FleetCenter, Chris Gaylord knew he would never forget the moment.

But with people to interview and a deadline to meet, the COM print journalism major had no time to fully savor the spectacle. As part of a program cosponsored by the College of Communication and BU Summer Term, Gaylord (COM’05) was one of sixty-seven students, sixteen of them from schools other than BU, covering the July 26-29 convention for courses in Political Reporting, Multimedia Publishing, News and Event Photography, and Photo Editing and Design.

Gaylord wasn’t writing a story just for his class or COM’s convention Web site. He was also reporting on the Colorado delegation for the Pueblo Chieftain through the Washington, D.C.–based States News Service (SNS) newswire. He had time only to interview five people, and he struggled to hear the hoarse delegates over the din of the crowd.

Overseeing the program was Robert Zelnick, COM journalism department chairman, who says that Boston’s first presidential convention provided the setting for “the ultimate practicum in political reporting.” And the students, producing coverage for print, photo, and television clients around the nation, he adds, were able to build their portfolios with the help of “the classic blend of classroom instruction and field experience. The bonus was a huge dose of professional work on deadline, and the rare commodity of credentials to cover a national political convention.”

Electric was the word used by several students to describe the climate in the FleetCenter. “There was an odd mix of intensity and optimism in the crowd,” says Paul Imbesi (COM’05), who wrote stories for the Post-Tribune of northwestern Indiana. Lauren Meade (COM’05), covering the Ohio delegation for the Akron Beacon Journal, says that the atmosphere in the building was at times almost overwhelming. “Feeling the kind of energy exuded by 35,000 people all at once,” she says, “is like nothing I’ve ever experienced.”

Rising to the Challenge

Mitchell Zuckoff and Dick Lehr, both visiting journalism professors and Boston Globe reporters, taught the Political Reporting course. Zuckoff says the students turned in clutch performances in a chaotic setting. “One of the most rewarding parts of this course was watching our students — every one of them, without exception — rise to the challenge,” he says. “They carried themselves as true professionals, hit their deadlines, and never flinched when dealing with the inevitable frustrations and foul-ups that come with covering a major event with 15,000 other journalists.”

Pennsylvania delegate Wilhemina Moore with five-year-old Cameron Fattah, daughter of Pennsylvania Congressman Chaka Fattah, at the FleetCenter on July 28. Photograph by Marilyn Chung (COM’04)

Print journalism students’ stories ran the gamut from “a day in the life of a delegate” to covering delegations from a larger perspective, such as the important domestic issues in their states. Meade wrote about Ohio as a battleground state, as well as a feature on Sarah Bender, at seventeen the convention’s youngest delegate. She says that it was quite the effort to keep up with Bender, who was sought for a slew of media interviews, including talks with MSNBC, ABC, MTV, Fox TV, and Channel One News. Both Meade and Bender got less than five hours of sleep a night that week. “I never expected her to become such a starlet,” says Meade.

Photojournalism students worked alongside the national press corps, supplying pictures to SNS and to the New York–based Gamma Press photo agency as part of its convention coverage for clients worldwide.

“We used the three weeks prior to the convention to teach the students how to look for a story and how to bring back photos that would tell that story in a compelling way,” says Peter Southwick, a visiting associate professor of journalism. “We gave an intensive, condensed version of our advanced photojournalism courses, and the students responded very well. We pushed them hard, but their desire to learn brought them up to the task.”

For the Multimedia Publishing class, veteran television producers Susan Walker, an associate professor of journalism, and Bill Lord (COM’59), a journalism professor, prepped twenty-two students with hands-on shooting, editing, and reporting tips and provided a crash course in the software necessary to launch their Web site. The broadcast students also videotaped stories and interviews for Hearst-Argyle television stations in California, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, and Arkansas.

“The Hearst-Argyle TV partnership was like a final exam — no textbook study, no papers — just find the stories from the delegations and report back to stations which otherwise would not have local coverage,” says Walker. “It was an intense, 24/7 boot camp of political reporting.” Several news directors at the Hearst stations told Walker that these real-life job auditions would undoubtedly result in job offers to a number of the students once they graduate.

Valerie Conners (COM’05) covered the Texas delegation for the Amarillo Globe News. The COM and Summer Term program, she says, “was one of the most exciting and intense experiences I’ve ever had. I’m ecstatic that it turned out the way it did, and I hope to see all my classmates reunited at the next convention, in 2008.”