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My journalism teachers in the news

Published Tuesday, February 27, 2007 by seanlmccarthy | E-mail this post

Well, two of my journalism teachers have gotten some ink and coverage of their own recently.

Gayle Wald taught my first journalism class, a high-school elective in my junior year, and served as faculty advisor for our school paper when I became its editor-in-chief. But she left the school my senior year so she could pursue grad school at Princeton, where I ended up the next year, providing the odd sight every now and then of both of us going to class. Anyhow. Her latest book, Shout Sister Shout!, got a B grade in Entertainment Weekly.

My senior year at Princeton, I took a nonfiction journalism seminar by this new visiting professor, Samuel Freedman. Freedman must've liked his experience teaching us, because he has continued his seminars at Columbia, and the success of his students got the attention of NPR today. I liked the experience, too, by the way. Very challenging class. Especially when you're trying to assign yourself and complete a longform nonfiction narrative, which means you're scheduling time off-campus to find and interview subjects. And at the same time, you've got a senior thesis to research, write and publish. And it's senior spring. So yes, very challenging class. But I'm glad I did it. Scared to look at some of the papers I turned in. But I'm glad I did it.

Labels: journalism, media