John Diamond Reaction

Executive director of the University of Maine System was in class today to talk to us about public relations. Mr. Diamond had a lot of good advice for us as well as some good stories and insight into the public relations department.

John Diamond has been affiliated with the UMaine system for 35 years. He originally started out in journalism and eventually moved to Public Relations. He said it is a good idea to have some form of media backround before moving into a career in public relations. Diamond previously worked for the Lewiston Sun and MPBN.

I really thought it was interesting seeing the pull Diamond has on campus. He also showed us how much pull we have too. Diamond’s office lobbied for more money a couple years ago to prevent a very steep tuition hike, as well as worked with students to give them what they want. The three things Diamond’s office is in charge of is to establish good public relations with the public, opinion leaders and policy majors.

As far as the being involved with the media, Diamond stressed to always be truthful and accurate. A couple years ago the Umaine Hockey team got in trouble with some violations. The University of Maine Public Relations office was truthful and din’t try and hide anything which resulted in Umaine coming out looking as good as possible.

When I asked what the favorite part Diamond’s job was he said it was working in higher education  and being able to help out students. He really regrets not being able to work directly with students anymore, but he still teaches a CMJ 400 class.

Overall I enjoyed the guest speaker, and it really helps to have people that are working in the real world offer valuable advice that will benefit us in our careers.

Tony Consiglio and Cindy Michaels Reaction

This week we had Tony Consiglio and Cindy Michaels in our classroom to discuss broadcast journalism. I found these two as the most beneficial to my career decision. They talked about how print journalism was dying, which I was aware of, but also radio is in decline. I really took an interest to broadcast journalism after taking this class and listening to Cindy and Tony talk about a day in their life in the studio.

I really enjoyed Tony and Cindy a lot because of their honesty. They didn’t beat around the bush on any question and they answered it as truthfully as possible. One of the disheartning things they mentioned was that the starting pay for journalists and broadcast journalists wasn’t very high. This is too bad because journalism is such a competitive field and you have to be on top of your game and work really hard to get where you are, and the result of that is little pay.

These guest speakers were especially beneficial because after they were done talking I went up to Tony and introduced myself and inquired about internships at channel 7 news. I have been e-mailing Tony and the internship is looking very feasible. I also discussed it over with Claire Sullivan, who is in charge of internships for my major.

Tony then forwarded my e-mail to someone who was responsible for handling internships in the studio. She asked me what I was interested about learning inside the studio, whether it be filming, editing, writing or maybe even being on camera. I told her that I was interested in all the above and that I wanted to do anything and everything that will give me experience to hopefully a future career.

Nate Stormer Reaction

Nate Stormer, a specialist in rhetoric visited our classroom Monday and lectured us and answered questions about text in print. It wn.as very interesting to see some of the topics Nate discussed.

One of the most interesting conversations the classroom had with Nate was about my article on the low lobster prices. The question was what word would one use in place of lobstermen. I couldn’t use the term lobsterperson or even lobsterpeople (thanks to Dr. Hughes for bringing up a B-52s reference) because those terms just sounded bad. There was no politically correct way to state lobsterman. The best solution I received was to initially refer to them as lobstermen and then for the rest of the article I could refer to them as trappers.

Nate also discussed how we use metaphors in our writings. He emphasized the use of analogies in our writings to better connect with the reader. He said to try and appeal to a universal audience, and try to think how they think before constructing our writings. One example Nate gave us on the universal audience was the difference between debt and deficit spending. Most people wouldn’t know the difference between the two so it then becomes the writers job to realize that and then write accordingly.

Another topic about my paper was the connotations between referring to the economy of either slumping or sluggish. Sluggish portrays some form of movement, while slumping refers to something on a downward slope. It was very interesting analyzing how one word can almost show the writers opinion. I said that when I hear the word slumping, I feel like it means whatever is in a slump will come out of it eventually and that it would be inevitable to come out of the slump. 

Overall, the visit from Nate Stormer was very helpful for me, especially when he talked about certain parts of my article and how they caqn affect the reader.