Brant Ward, a San Francisco Chronicle photographer, taught an amazing photojournalism course last semester. I think it helps that Brant was a reporter before he picked up a camera -- telling the story is always paramount for him. My beginning reporting class partnered with his class for a "how-to" assignment and we'll be repeating this collaboration.
Student media are really good about working together. This weekend I received an email from the executive producer of USFtv. He was writing to tell me that Wyclef Jean has asked a student to direct a video he'll be shooting during a concert on campus this Friday. He wanted to know how to coordinate coverage with the campus newspaper. The Foghorn will be running a news story about the video in this Thursday's paper and a concert review next week. I told them to get good audio for a podcast of the interview with Wyclef Jean -- they're still passing around the audio cassette of last year's interview with Common. We plan to post the podcast on the Foghorn website and a link to USFtv's coverage as well.
Many of us work with local journalists, bringing them into the classroom or sending our students into their newsrooms. I also send my students all over the city in pursuit of stories -- I don't use "what if" workbook exercises.
