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St. Cloud State University
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Forum educates journalists
By Cory Fechtelkotter
Published:
Tuesday, April 15, 2003
Media Credit: scott theisen
Dave Unze discusses working on his three-part series about Rick Hennek, who was beaten and left to die in a Waite Park apartment building. Becky Beyers discussed the �10 things I learned the hard way� about special projects during the First Amendment Forum. The First Amendment Forum took place Friday in Atwood.
The SCSU Department of Mass Communications and the Society of Professional Journalists presented the 31st annual First Amendment Forum last Friday in Atwood Memorial Center. The event, themed "Documentary Journalism: Then and Now," included presentations from award-winning documentary filmmakers and print-journalists from all over Minnesota.
The day began with a reception and welcome from Blair Schilchte, president of the Society of Professional Journalists and Michael Vadnie, an SCSU print journalism professor and co-coordinator of the event. Following the reception was the forum's first activity, a documentary about film making. Later in the day the forum switched focus to print journalism.
Guest speakers Kristian Berg and Darren Renville presented a documentary on the exile of Dakota Indians. The film, 'Dakota Exile', was set in Mankato in 1862. Berg directed the film and Renville helped write.
Berg is an award winning filmaker from St. Paul whose work has been featured on PBS and Court TV, and Renville is an American Indian writer who contributed to Berg's film, among others. The two speakers showed excerpts of "Dakota Exile," spoke of the struggles they encountered while making the film and followed their presentation with a brief question and answer session.
The afternoon portion of the event featured a panel of speakers addressing modern reporting methods to help reporters successfully complete their various projects. The panel was made up of journalists Dave Unze and Rene Kaluza from the St. Cloud Times, Becky Beyers from the St. Paul Pioneer Press, and SCSU Broadcast Professor Mark Mills, with the discussion being moderated by Vadnie. A question and answer session was included in this event as well.
Students' reactions to the event were generally positive.
"It was really interesting, I thought, just because I'm a mass communications major and I got a lot of insight from different areas with journalism, what not, print and broadcast," said Sara Weber, mass communications major. "I liked it. I found a lot of information of what I have to look forward to."
Putting together the event took much preparation and advance planning, according to Modrow. "I did the program, I created that and I helped with press releases, press kits," Modrow said. "We sent stuff to various news stations and publicized it in the classrooms and spammed the entire university system to get people to come here."
Despite being in its 31st year, the First Amendment Forum has not always gone by that name. It began in 1973 under the name "Media Day." It had been sponsored by the Atwood Board of Governors until the Mass Communications Department assumed sponsorship in 1975. The name change to First Amendment Forum came in 1992, and the Society of Professional Journalists became the chief sponsors in 2000 when department interest decreased.
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