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#ONA17 Equips Educators with New Perspectives, Tools

This piece originally was published on the MediaShift.org website.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Journalism educators, striving to be nimble as news organizations evolve, learned about immersive storytelling, social media tools, augmented reality, artificial intelligence, news bots and more at the Online News Association conference last week.

Because tech has become an integral part of reporting, many journalism instructors are now pondering how programs and faculty can innovate — quickly.

“We define news based on models that do not exist anymore,” said CUNY Graduate School of Journalism Associate Dean and Professor Andrew Mendelson. “That has defined us, it still defines us and that’s a really important thing to overturn.”

A study released during the conference by the International Center for Journalists found reporters generally aren’t keeping up with tech trends. This and other studies have led to a renewed effort by journalism educators to embrace and teach new tech.

To be sure graduating students are qualified for emerging jobs such as social media director or community engagement editor, Mendelson and others at a meetup and brainstorming session said educators must continue to learn new things.

“My answer would be to find ways to encourage everyone, all the faculty, to learn something outside their own tent,” said Sue Newhook, an assistant journalism professor at the University of King’s College in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

“That can mean new skills, ideas and approaches,” she said.

Getting familiar with new tech – and being comfortable enough to teach it – can seem daunting, several instructors said.

ONA 17 took place in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 5-7 this year. (Photo: Kate Nash Cunningham)

But the job can be made easier if journalism educators band together, said Eric Newton, innovation chief of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.

“Probably the best thing a professor can do is let go of the idea that one must master something before teaching it to someone else,” he said in an interview with MediaShift.

“There are times when all the students need to know is the existence of new tools, and they can learn them themselves. And then once they’ve learned them, you have a wonderful class discussion about the best ways to use them for journalism, which is the value added that any good journalism educator can bring, even if they are not masters of those tools,” he said.

Newton, a long-time champion of journalism at the Knight Foundation, said educators can get started by connecting to resources such as the ONA Educator’s Facebook page.

As more resources become available, the community of educators using them, and ultimately teaching each other, grows.

“If the entire weight of media innovation falls upon your shoulders, it seems impossible,” he said. “But if a group of 1,500 educators on the ONA Educator’s (Facebook) group organizes itself, or if a class organizes itself or a school organizes itself to find ways to keep current…it’s not really hard.”

Professors also need to give themselves permission and time to experiment, he said.

“When the number of new concepts is so great, it’s a false choice to think that you have to start with any one of those new things,” he said. “The best thing to do is clear the space for a steady stream of new things.”

The conference, where journalists comprise a growing number of attendees, served as a spot for educators and other presenters to share resources and classroom success stories.

Here’s a look at a few of the highlights:

Getting Immersive in the Classroom with 360 Video

For a while, immersive reporting (think 360-degree video or augmented reality) was not a part of the mainstream journalism landscape.

That has changed.

Two of the people who spoke on a panel about 360 reporting are employees of two of the largest news outlets, the Associated Press and The New York Times. Both do extensive work with 360 video, which means it should be a part of j-school curricula soon.

Panelist Robert Hernandez, associate professor of professional practice at the USC Annenberg School of Journalism, said journalism educators can get started with small and inexpensive spherical cameras to introduce students to this type of reporting.

See more about his 360 journalism projects here. Read this for reviews of equipment.

Coincidentally, Hernandez and his students won an Online Journalism Association Pro-AM student award at the conference for their story on the Salton Sea, which makes heavy use of 360 video.

Knowing How to Search Social

Much of the public conversation about news happens on social media. That means journalists need to know how to search posts across many platforms in breaking news situations, and several parts of the conference focused on tools that make this job easy.

Crowdtangle, owned by and integrated with Facebook, has emerged as a powerhouse.

Those with a Crowdtangle dashboard in Facebook can join the “Crowdtangler” closed group. (Others with pending requests for access to Crowdtangle need to wait.) There’s also a Facebook Instagram Workshop for News and Publishers group for tips.

Crowdtangle allows users to show others the top social posts related to an event in real time. This can be handy for live TV broadcasts.

Integrating Web and Design Tools

Knowing some web and design skills are a must for graduating journalism students, even at print organizations. Three panelists (all educators) shared the tools and tech they use in classes aimed at getting students coding, creating news games and designing.

Here’s a link to resources shared by Mindy McAdams, digital journalism professor at the University of Florida; Juli James, a lecturer at the University of North Texas who teaches gaming; and Katherine Hepworth, an assistant professor of visual communication at the University of Reno-Nevada. The resources ranged from easy ways to teach font pairing to methods of showing students how to use JavaScript and think about game design.

Artificial intelligence: Taking News to a New Level

Amy Webb, left, speaks with ONA17 attendees during the conference in Washington, D.C. Webb’s Tech Trends report for 2017 was released to the public in conjunction with her session. (Photo: Kate Nash Cunningham)

Futurist Amy Webb, who gives an annual “Tech Trends in Journalism” talk at ONA, said as everybody is talking about the tech of the future, few news organizations are taking action.

“What’s about to happen is going to fundamentally alter journalism,” she said. “We’re going to wind up on the other side of this with a media landscape we don’t recognize.”

One example: We’ll be getting our news from post-smartphone services like Amazon’s Alexa and other technologies without any physical user interface. This could make it complicated for readers to understand where news is coming from.

Media companies that focus on technologies like artificial intelligence, however, will pull ahead. Her “trend clusters” this year relate to visual computing, voice interface and access to news.

Regarding journalism education, Webb suggested grounding students in news literacy. Professors could use recent examples of sloppy and inaccurate reporting as examples to talk about “the appropriate time to send out information given that we have a proliferation of news sources…we are now news organizations that publish on the wire that is Twitter,” she told MediaShift.

In terms of artificial intelligence, Webb said “it would be very wise for professors not to teach AI, but to talk through what is it, what is it not, what can it do, want can’t it do and a brief history of it.”

Read the 2018 tech trends for journalism and media and see her folders of related information including recommendations and readings for professors here.

Watch the video of her talk here.

Build a Bot in Your Classroom

During one session, journalism educators heard from Quartz’s John Keefe, who led a hands-on session in bot building.

One example of news bots is the Quartz app, where users interact with an interface that resembles a text-messaging service, delivering summaries of the day’s top stories in SMS-like chat bubbles.

To demonstrate how bot newcomers could create something similar, Keefe, a bot developer and project manager at the company, guided attendees through the basics in chatbot script writing during the RSVP-only “Build-a-Bot Workshop.”

Participants created a basic Facebook Messenger chatbot using Dexter — a free-to-use tool for simple experimentation.

The step-by-step walk-through outlined in the session can be found on Keefe’s Github page. After users complete Step 1 — registering for Dexter by clicking “Make Your First Bot” on the site’s homepage — they can learn bot syntax and see publishing options.

Keefe said using bots as a means of information delivery is in its early stages, but it makes sense to go where the users are.

“If people are using Facebook and Messenger to communicate with each other and access other forms of information, it’d be wise for us to figure out how to best be there, too,” he said. “We’re trying to figure out what that means for journalism and storytelling and to see how it will work.”

With so much new tech to teach, educators at the conference spoke of new classes to add to their programs – although many said they struggle with a glacial pace for adapting new courses.

As journalism continues to dramatically change, Newton, who is updating his landmark journalism education book “Searchlights and Sunglasses,” said evolving will just become part of what educators do.

“It’s not that the future is any one technology or one particular genre of technologies; the future is ever-changing technologies and the capacity to be comfortable with that,” Newton said.

Kate Nash Cunningham is the social media editor for MediaShift. She teaches digital journalism at the University of New Mexico. Additional reporting by Matt Veto, professor of practice at Lehigh University.

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How to assign a 360 video in a multimedia reporting class

Screen Shot 2017-06-04 at 10.16.12 AM
UNM IFDM instructor Elan Colello, center, helps UNM students Kyra Begay, left and Ben Yazza with the settings on a 360 video camera during an exercise on immersive storytelling April 6, 2017.

As more news outlets wade into immersive reporting and prices drop for 360 cameras and storytelling equipment, it makes sense that journalism educators begin to experiment with such technologies in the classroom.

That’s one reason I decided to assign a short 360 video to students in a 300-level intermediate multimedia reporting class this spring at the University of New Mexico.

The idea was to spend one day introducing students to the history and the technology of 360 reporting and to spend another day having students try out beginner level equipment and produce a short video in a journalism context.

For the background on immersive storytelling, I called on Elan Colello, a colleague in the Interdisciplinary Film and Digital Media program who teaches a Virtual Reality Cinema class. Colello, who also is the CEO of ARVRUS, a 360º video distribution management platform, brought students up to speed in an hour and 15 minutes. His talk focused on the history and the current trends in virtual reality, using examples that showed various ways the technology can be used to present different types of stories.

To make the assignment’s production day go as quickly as possible, I preloaded the students with some homework and gave each student group a specific assignment that fit with a larger student reporting project on criminal justice being done by the New Mexico News Port, an online student publication. Each group of students had to produce a short video about a recent crime. Students had to use police reports to first write a broadcast script based on what the report said as well as add other additional information they could find. The reporting topics included a car burglary, criminal damage to property and an alleged sexual assault.

Here’s the wording of the assignment:

You’ll create a short (minute or so) 360 video that shows the viewer a place on campus where a crime occurred. You’ll shoot and edit the video this week, upload to YouTube and then upload the link to Learn. When you upload, write a few paragraphs about your role, what you learned and how you think you could use this technology for your journalism in the future.

The idea is to allow the viewer to look around the area where a crime has happened and to learn more about the incident. Team members will play various roles, including using video equipment as well as appearing on camera to narrate important parts of the story. Other students will research a story and use broadcast writing skills to produce a script.

The goals and objectives were:

Through a lecture on the history and trends in immersive journalism, students will use research, broadcast script writing and video recording and editing skills to practice 360 video technology to produce their piece.

I divided the class into teams of four or five and assigned various roles:

One member of your group will research your incident and write a short script BEFORE class time.

One of you will be the on-air reporter.

One or two of you will run the equipment (camera and audio).

At the start of the second day, students were given an overview of the cameras we had available, borrowed from the IFDM program. These included the Insta 360 4K and the Ricoh Theta S and M15 models. The overview was brief, but the models are pretty straightforward. Students also checked out lavalier mics and Zooms or Tascams to record the audio and used $40 monopods to hold their cameras.

Overall, the students in the class, who at this point in the program have experience in broadcast reporting and video editing but no previous experience with immersive storytelling, were able to quickly pull in their videos and edit and produce something short. This took some editing guidance in the lab and Colello helped install the right plugins for the spherical video formats. In the end, two of the five groups were able to produce stories that day while others did so shortly after. We used Premiere Pro CC to edit and YouTube for hosting.

I would do this assignment again for sure, but with more time and additional cameras so that each group member could experiment with the equipment. Student feedback overall was positive, but included some comments that more time for the work would have been beneficial.

Here’s a wrap up of tweets that students produced during the assignment, and a little more information on how the exercise went overall.

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How to assign a Snapchat story in a journalism class

University of New Mexico students Savana Carollo, Arianna Sena and John Acosta created a Snapchat My Story on Feb. 11, 2016 as part of an assignment aimed at learning how to use the app as a storytelling platform.
University of New Mexico students Savana Carollo, Arianna Sena and John Acosta created a Snapchat My Story on Feb. 11, 2016 as part of an assignment aimed at learning how to use the app as a storytelling platform.

As journalism educators, we can’t ignore the emergence of Snapchat as a storytelling platform. With news outlets and Snapchat itself hiring reporters to cover major news like the presidential elections using the app, I feel compelled to talk with students about Snapchat’s potential to tell stories and connect with the audience. During a 300-level multimedia journalism class this semester, I tried an assignment where students worked on deadline to create a short story on campus.

When I mentioned the assignment at the start of the semester, students immediately were interested in how it might work in a news context. About half of them said they use the app on a regular basis.

I wouldn’t describe myself as a frequent user, although I do spend more and more time looking at how news organizations use the platform. So to prepare, I focused on the My Story function, where journalists can create stories of an event that can be shared for 24 hours (unlike Snap photos or video, which are shared with friends for up to 10 seconds and then disappear.)

I didn’t focus as much on the other features of Snapchat, including filters that are added to people’s faces. When I showed filters that put your city name on a photo based on your geolocation, a few students excitedly piped in and said I should try the “face filters.” Sure enough, you can take a photo and then add a filter that looks as if you are breathing fire. Or swimming underwater. Or have purple eyes. I wouldn’t use those in a news context of course, but that’s the interesting intersection we’re at with social platforms that can be used as journalism tools but that largely are used for more lighthearted topics. I made everyone laugh as I projected my fire-breathing selfie onto the large screen in the front of the room — a moment captured in a video Snap by a student. I am a little bummed that the student sent the video to her friends instead of saving it to her My Story, as that moment is gone forever. Of course, that’s part of what Snapchat is.

Screen Shot 2016-02-12 at 11.36.03 AM

To start the lecture, I talked about the history of Snapchat. I showed the first Snapchat resume and then went through the basics of using the app.

Students seemed well versed in the how tos of using the app to communicate with friends, so we also talked about the Discover section of Snapchat, where news organizations like CNN and the Wall Street Journal are presenting news. A quick survey in the room showed that students were equally interested in news topics as much as content from outlets like Cosmo and people like DJ Khaled.

My goal was for students to think about using a tool they already understand and enjoy as a platform for journalism. I wanted them to practice their interviewing skills using the video Snap option, and I wanted them to practice producing something on deadline. So I gave them about 30 minutes to do five interviews and five photos with at least two titles.

I tied their interviews into a project we have on campus where journalism students ask the public what they are curious about and then report on those questions. For this assignment, students were to ask people what they want to know about Albuquerque or New Mexico.

The results were pretty good. In their work, I saw my more shy students open up on camera. I saw my more visual students show their talents. And I saw the students who were newer to the app take an interest in how they could use it for reporting. Along the way, they produced a story that could be used to complement other reporting. They also seemed excited, and many of you know that getting students excited in the classroom can be a challenge.

One student tweeted:

I would try this assignment again for sure, maybe as a component to larger story that students are producing using more traditional multi-media approaches.

Here are my takeaways for other journalism educators considering a Snapchat assignment:

Assign groups and team captains.

Chances are, one-fourth of your students are experts in Snapchat and can show others. They also can help you during your demonstration if you aren’t a Snapchat pro.

Explain the limitations of the app.

For video, there’s a 10-second limit in Snapchat, so students had to prep their sources that their answers had to be succinct.

Have a specific content focus for the assignment.

Newer students will be focused on learning how to use the app, so directing them on the content side lets them focus on learning the tool.

Explain that there might be a disconnect between the tone of Snapchat and the subject of the story.

For example, students don’t want to be lighthearted and using all kinds of emoji if they are covering something serious.

Remind students that accuracy and good cutlines still matter.

I asked students to get the same kind of cutline information they would get if they were publishing a photo online or in a news outlet.

Journalism students at the University of New Mexico recently completed a Snapchat story as part of a class assignment aimed at having students explore the popular app's journalism potential.
Journalism students at the University of New Mexico recently completed a Snapchat story as part of a class assignment aimed at having students explore the popular app’s journalism potential.

Remember to have students save their My Stories so you can see them later on for grading and class critique.

If they don’t, you have nothing to see.

Have fun.

Many of my students this semester are in the middle of learning the technical aspects of professional video cameras and audio recorders, which are unfamiliar and can be complicated. Allowing them to try storytelling with something a little more familiar allowed them to relax a bit — which is what Snapchat is all about.

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How to incorporate Periscope into your newsroom or classroom

Students at the New Mexico News Port used an iPad mini to live broadcast a television show in Albuquerque on Feb. 10, 2016.
Students at the New Mexico News Port used an iPad mini to live broadcast a television show in Albuquerque on Feb. 10, 2016.
The recent explosion of popularity for live streaming video means more newsrooms and journalism classrooms are looking for better ways to integrate real-time broadcasting into their online reporting.

With a little planning and practice, getting set up to go live can be a rewarding experience for journalists and journalism students who want to tell video stories on the go.

Apps like Meerkat and Periscope largely have been used to broadcast events like rallies, speeches or concerts. But there are ways to bring the immediacy of live streaming to other non-breaking news events such as interviews.

At the student journalism lab New Mexico News Port, we recently decided to try to live stream a tv-talk-show-style interview from campus. We spent about a month planning for the show.

First, we considered a show that would feature our guests being interviewed as they walked through campus while live on air. That idea didn’t last very long, given our windy weather, boisterous middle-of-the-city location and bright Southwestern sun. (Think bad, noisy audio and squinting guests — not to mention trying to figure out how not to trip over each other as one of us walked backwards with the camera). So we settled on a studio in our Communication and Journalism building, although the set up we came up with could be used in a variety of locations.

Early on, we considered using the Blab app as our platform. But it seemed more suitable for people in various locations and too much like a Google Hangout for the style of show we were hoping to achieve.

In the end, we chose Periscope, in part because we would have our audience all in one place, and getting followers on Blab seemed like a lot of work.

Our goal was to use mobile equipment — in our case the oldish iPad mini we already had — and to try to get the quality of the broadcast to be as high as possible.

We produced our show in mid-February and plan to produce three more this semester. The students were excited to experiment with a new way to reach our audience through Twitter followers and Periscope users, and to see themselves in a broadcast that they now have the expertise to set up and run.

Here’s a look at what we learned along with the pros and cons of the equipment we used.

Pros of using Periscope on an iPad mini

Live streaming

Going live is the selling point when it comes to using a mobile setup. The fact that Periscope and an iPad can stream live to Twitter (no satellite truck or website required) make up for the fact that the image and audio quality aren’t yet on par with more traditional broadcast equipment.

Affordability

The beauty of the mobile setup is its price. For this project, we spent about $115 on a microphone and its cable. We used lights that are built into our studio, but you could do a cheap lighting setup or use natural light and reflectors, depending on the situation. We had an iPad mini 2 ($270 or so when they were new) and a $13 case that mounts the iPad on a tripod. The Periscope app — which is tightly connected to Twitter — is free.

Learning curve

The student who ran the camera for the show had been introduced to the iPad and Periscope just days before. With simple explanations of iOS and Periscope, he did fine.

Portability

Many students and journalists have smartphones and tablets in their purses and backpacks. Adding a tripod and a case increases a journalist’s load slightly, but is not as cumbersome as large video cameras or even DSLRs.

Conversation starter

Students hanging around our news lab were curious what we were doing with the iPad on the tripod. We also found that the small and familiar nature of an iPhone or iPad wasn’t overly intimidating to show guests because the equipment is so commonplace.

The set up needed to broadcast live is relatively simple and affordable. Pictured are a Mikey microphone, an iPad mini and power cords.
The set up needed to broadcast live is relatively simple and affordable. Pictured are a Mikey microphone, an iPad mini and power cords.

Cons

On-board audio quality is low

Many of us have watched Periscope broadcasts where it’s hard to hear/understand what’s happening. But for less than $100, you can get an external mic for your iPhone or iPad. I recommend getting one like the Mikey.

I have played with low-end external mics for the iPad mini and haven’t been impressed. The Mikey did well during our tests and our show. It has three settings, a simple interface and can be set on or taped to a table. We also experimented with taping it to a boom hooked on to a light stand, which was O.K. except that in order to get it close enough to all our guests, it showed up in the frame. For this particular setup with four people on camera, it just didn’t work. If you had the ability to hold the boom just out of the frame, it could work.

If you go with an external mic, be sure to get a six-foot cord that’s going to allow you to put your mic close to the person speaking.

The Mikey Blue microphone increased the audio quality of a recent television broadcast by the New Mexico News Port.
The Mikey Blue microphone increased the audio quality of a recent television broadcast by the New Mexico News Port.

Video quality not super

We tested our studio lighting setup extensively with the stock iPad photo/video app. Because of the ability to control for focus and exposure, we had our video looking sharp and well lit. That wasn’t the case when we went into Periscope to test the live stream. The auto-focusing and exposure were thrown off by the studio lighting against a black backdrop and the quality was terrible.

This quality issue was the only thing that caused me to panic ahead of the show. In the end, we used studio lights (dialed down a bit from our tests to provide less contrast) together with the overhead lights. This boosted the image quality and helped the camera with its focusing and exposure, so avoid low-light situations.

Battery life is a concern during live broadcasts

Knowing that live streaming video eats batteries, I made sure to leave home the day of the show with the wall charger for the iPad, and I had already set aside an extension cord in the studio so that the iPad could run on AC power. I even had a backup portable battery charger, just in case.

My plan was foiled when I remembered that the Mikey uses the same (and only) lightning connection on the iPad. I was forced to chose between good audio and a shorter show. I chose the good audio. And because our live show turned out to be less than 20 minutes, our battery life was fine. But streaming anything longer could prove problematic.

Inability to add graphics

Periscope lacks the ability to add graphics or titles as is done in a more traditional broadcast setup. We thought about name tags or signs for our guests, but in the end we decided if the show went long, that we would pause and just reintroduce them. The ability to add names to the screen was one thing we liked about the Blab app.

One-camera limit

Periscope is really set up for a hand-held, one camera situation. In our case, we crammed our two guests and two interviewers into one frame and made it work. For this type of broadcast, it would have been more ideal to run a switcher between two or more cameras, but I’m not aware of a setup for that using an iPad. I would love to know if anyone has found a workaround for this. (Hint, hint, Periscope.)

An iPad set up in a studio with one mic and minimal lighting was all it took a group of students with the New Mexico News Port to start a live broadcast from the campus of the University of New Mexico.
An iPad set up in a studio with one mic and minimal lighting was all it took a group of students with the New Mexico News Port to start a live broadcast from the campus of the University of New Mexico.

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The most interesting 12 months of my career

Ever have the sense that you are so busy teaching students how to blog that you don’t have time to blog yourself?

I’m guilty. For about the past year, I have neglected my own writing about journalism and journalism education. But the things that have kept me busy are good ones. In short, this has been the best and most dynamic year of my teaching career. I’ve learned more in the past 12 months than during any other point in my time on this planet.

In July 2014, I was named as the editor of the New Mexico News Port, a student journalism lab at the University of New Mexico, where I teach journalism. The lab, first funded by the Online News Association and now by the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation, serves as a hub for journalism students to collaborate with local media partners including the public television and radio stations on campus as well as the independent student newspaper.

To date, we’ve done three theme-based projects, including covering the mid-term election; producing audience-based reporting based on the WBEZ Curious City model and crafting an in-depth look at New Mexico’s innovation economy. Our work has won several local and national awards.

My work at the News Port includes story planning and editing with students in various classes in the department, overseeing a crew of student employees, and designing and developing our website.

Here’s a look at a student-produced video about our first year. The project continues to expand and grow as we reach out to new partners and help more students publish their work as they prepare for careers in journalism.

In the spring of 2015, I taught the first Mobile Reporting course at UNM. I created and pitched this class, which is cross listed as an elective in the Interdisciplinary Film and Digital Media program and the Communication and Journalism Department here. To fund the iPad kits for students, I wrote my first grant.

In the class, students use an iPad mini to report and produce audio and video pieces that they publish to a group WordPress site. I will teach the class again in spring 2016, and the class has been chosen to be part of a new Innovation Academy at UNM.

Here’s some of the best work from the inaugural class.

Meanwhile, this summer, I started helping guide students at the New Mexico Daily Lobo from a daily print schedule into a twice-weekly, online-first approach. Part of my work with students as their writing coach involves helping them incorporate digital and social media into a new newsroom workflow and mentality. Next month, I will give a training on using Periscope to cover breaking news.

For the fall 2015 semester, I’m teaching a 200-level writing and editing for multimedia class. I was given the latitude and encouragement to shake up the syllabus a bit and run the course more as a newsroom than a classroom. I consider this my tiny corner of the teaching hospital model of journalism education. I believe students can only learn journalism from doing journalism and the sooner this starts in their college careers, the better.

As part of their work in my class, students write directly for the Daily Lobo as well as the News Port. So far, students have been excited to see their work in print and online. To ease students into the idea, I have a student editor in the classroom with me every other week to go over edits and workshop ideas. I think this helps the students feel more connected to the newsroom process.

As this semester progresses, I look forward to reporting back (more often) on this initiative and a few of the other projects I have underway. Stay here or follow my blog for updates.

Kate

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Most interesting 12 months of my career

Ever have the sense that you are so busy teaching students how to blog that you don’t have time to blog yourself?

I’m guilty. For about the past year, I have neglected my own writing about journalism and journalism education. But the things that have kept me busy are good ones. In short, this has been the best and most dynamic year of my teaching career. I’ve learned more in the past 12 months than during any other point in my time on this planet.

In July 2014, I was named as the editor of the New Mexico News Port, a student journalism lab at the University of New Mexico, where I teach journalism. The lab, first funded by the Online News Association and now by the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation, serves as a hub for journalism students to collaborate with local media partners including the public television and radio stations on campus as well as the independent student newspaper.

To date, we’ve done three theme-based projects, including covering the mid-term election; producing audience-based reporting based on the WBEZ Curious City model and crafting an in-depth look at New Mexico’s innovation economy. Our work has won several local and national awards.

My work at the News Port includes story planning and editing with students in various classes in the department, overseeing a crew of student employees, and designing and developing our website.

Here’s a look at a student-produced video about our first year. The project continues to expand and grow as we reach out to new partners and help more students publish their work as they prepare for careers in journalism.

In the spring of 2015, I taught the first Mobile Reporting course at UNM. I created and pitched this class, which is cross listed as an elective in the Interdisciplinary Film and Digital Media program and the Communication and Journalism Department here. To fund the iPad kits for students, I wrote my first grant.

In the class, students use an iPad mini to report and produce audio and video pieces that they publish to a group WordPress site. I will teach the class again in spring 2016, and the class has been chosen to be part of a new Innovation Academy at UNM.

Here’s some of the best work from the inaugural class.

Meanwhile, this summer, I started helping guide students at the New Mexico Daily Lobo from a daily print schedule into a twice-weekly, online-first approach. Part of my work with students as their writing coach involves helping them incorporate digital and social media into a new newsroom workflow and mentality. Next month, I will give a training on using Periscope to cover breaking news.

For the fall 2015 semester, I’m teaching a 200-level writing and editing for multimedia class. I was given the latitude and encouragement to shake up the syllabus a bit and run the course more as a newsroom than a classroom. I consider this my tiny corner of the teaching hospital model of journalism education. I believe students can only learn journalism from doing journalism and the sooner this starts in their college careers, the better.

As part of their work in my class, students write directly for the Daily Lobo as well as the News Port. So far, students have been excited to see their work in print and online. To ease students into the idea, I have a student editor in the classroom with me every other week to go over edits and workshop ideas. I think this helps the students feel more connected to the newsroom process.

As this semester progresses, I look forward to reporting back (more often) on this initiative and a few of the other projects I have underway. Stay here or follow my blog for updates.

Kate

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What grad school taught me about teaching journalism students

When students come to see me just before they graduate, they are often a bit afraid of what their job prospects look like. Each year, I tell them I can relate to their fears, especially about the journalism job market. Never has that been more true than this year. In May, I completed my master’s degree in digital journalism and design, and I know intimately what the market looks like, both for journalists and journalism professors. Right now, it’s bleak for students who don’t have advanced digital skills to go along with their solid journalism acumen. Jobs in traditional news outlets are tough to come by. But the news is mixed: while those legacy jobs may be shrinking, digital journalism and journalism-related jobs exist like never before. A 2014 Pew Research study found that 500 digital news outlets employ almost 5,000 full time employees. That tally suggests that opportunities abound for those who combine their news savvy with their computer skills.

‘Journalism-related jobs’
So what are journalism-related jobs? And what can journalism programs do to prepare students for them?

Having taught college journalism for almost four years and having worked as a reporter for almost 15 years, I have thought about those questions a great deal. I spend time pondering how journalism programs prepare journalism students. I teach undergraduates, but I also just finished a nearly brand new graduate program. In one role, at the University of New Mexico, I help students write cover letters and resumes for the entry level jobs they are seeking, among other things. In some cases, I look at job ads to see if my students are a match for open positions. In my other role as a graduate student at the University of South Florida, I took classes that taught me skills that the directors of the program considered pertinent to students wanting to work (or teach) in digital journalism, including web publishing, data journalism and entrepreneurial know-how. The two universities are pretty different, but the experiences have helped me come up with this list of skills I think are most important for future reporters to know.

First, think about the web editor, or the person building/designing/maintaining and promoting the website of your local newspaper. In many cases, that person is not a journalist in the way we traditionally describe the person who does original reporting and produces content. But, you bet that he or she is using journalism skills to make phone calls, investigate tips and write copy as part of his or her work. And journalism programs by and large do a great job of teaching those kinds of basics. But it’s the other part of the web designer/editor’s work that many programs are missing. Students interested in journalism but perhaps not being the city hall reporter need coding, design and multimedia skills to work in jobs such as web producer or manager.

Or, think about those cool interactive graphics you see on websites like the New York Times or the Guardian or a favorite of mine, La Nacion of Argentina. The folks on the teams at each paper that produce infographics, interactive graphics and more have solid journalism credentials. But they also have related skills that took them to where they are. Those skills include (again) coding and design, but they also involve critical thinking and analysis and firm understanding of data, something that isn’t commonly taught as part of journalism curricula. That is changing, as more schools realize the value of data journalism (and facility with data in general), a recent special series of articles on the PBS EducationShift blog showed.

At the same time, there’s been a lot made of the importance of teaching journalism students journalism-related entrepreneurial skills. I’m mostly on board with that, although I think the number of journalists starting their own companies (vs. freelancing or working for a company) tends to be overestimated. Nonetheless, I believe it’s key for students to know what the economics are behind the news business. They should know what a new tablet or a nice DSLR camera costs, if only so they can be cognizant of how lucky they are when someone hands them new equipment — or of how many lattes they will have to skip to buy their own. Students also should understand the digital marketplace that can be key in determining who sees and buys their content.

Another theme I’ve seen at recent journalism education conferences is that students need to learn how to keep learning. That means many different things, but to me it means students must become comfortable enrolling and participating in online classes, whether the smaller for credit classes nearly all universities now offer, or the much larger Massive Open Online Courses offered by larger universities, often for a certificate instead of credit. Why? The technical savvy needed to operate (and troubleshoot) a learning management system is important, but so is the ability to communicate remotely, through live web cam video, virtual presentations and discussion boards. Doing that with ease is key for students who might work for a company that’s based in another city — or time zone. Along with the conversation of how students should learn what they need to learn (in person, online or a bit of both) comes the discussion of how we should teach. That’s an important part of what I’m outlining here, but I don’t think it’s the only discussion. If a student can learn basic coding for a news app at a school that doesn’t subscribe to the teaching hospital model for example, I think that’s great, even though I support the newer models of innovative teaching.

A separate set of skills that comes to mind as key for about-to-be graduates are those of the mobile journalist. I don’t consider those journalism related, however, I consider them the manifestation of journalism in its modern form. The dated definition of print journalists — those who simply wrote a story for the printed edition and went home — has been updated to mean reporters who write a story for the web, do some tweeting and then write a story for print. In the past five years, however, reporters’ workloads have increased again, with the expectation by top news outlets (print and broadcast) that students will report, produce, edit and publish from the field, and not with the help of a satellite truck or a even a laptop. Instead, many professionals use nothing bigger than an iPad (and often times smaller) to post complete video packages or live text updates to the web. That means students need to work independently to use, maintain and troubleshoot mobile equipment, apps, file storage and publication. And journalism students should learn about those in the setting of a journalism class, where context, privacy and accuracy are discussed in detail. This helps set trained reporters apart from everyone else in the world who can upload a photo, video or tweet to the web with a mobile phone or tablet. Along with mobile reporting, mobile design is a huge consideration for the world’s next journalists and those who work with them.

To wrap up, we must teach students more design and data. Along with that should come coding, and not just for web sites. Students who can design or build news apps are a step ahead of those with knowledge of HTML, CSS, Javascript and server-side languages. This strong need for technical know-how and computer science prowess as part of journalism education has become clear to me in recent years as not only increasingly important, but necessary for both students looking for work and for journalism departments looking for more students. Countless others, too, have advocated for adjustments to journalism programs, while others have conducted studies of what skills educators think are most important. Implementing such changes, of course, isn’t easy, but we need to continue the discussion about how we can best prepare journalism students not just for the jobs of the future, but for work that many of our students could do now.

P.S. Many of you have asked about my own plans now that I am done with grad school. Along with teaching news writing at UNM, I’ve got one big project lined up for this fall and next spring that I can’t wait to reveal. Check out my next blog post for details as soon as I can announce it.

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Chávez agrees to help with hostages

Governor says negotiations with Colombian rebels will move forward after his meeting with Venezuelan president

Kate Nash | The New Mexican

CARACAS, VENEZUELA — He traveled 2,943 miles, slept little and had to wait hours after Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez bumped his appointment.

Still, Gov. Bill Richardson heads back to New Mexico today with the eight words he wanted to hear.

“President Chávez has agreed to try and help,” the governor told a mob of reporters outside the Venezuelan presidential palace.

The words came after an hour-and-20 minute meeting with Chávez late Saturday about his effort to free three U.S. citizens being held hostage in Colombia.

They also give Richardson the go-ahead to keep working to get the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, to give up the men, held since 2003.

“He’s accepted my role as somebody that’s an intermediary,” Richardson said about Chávez in an interview after the meeting.

The globe-trotting governor said last month that he had made inroads with another key player in the situation, Colombian President Álvaro Uribe. Chávez, however, is seen as a central figure, someone to whom FARC in recent months has released hostages.

Now, Richardson said he’s ready to move forward with the negotiation process. “I’m going to try and engage the best I can to secure the release of these hostages to promote the humanitarian accord,” he said.

The governor’s next efforts are undefined, but Richardson indicated he would be in contact with the parties by telephone in the days ahead.

“The next step is going to be to engage in some shuttle diplomacy in the days ahead and the weeks ahead,” he said. He has no immediate travel plans and neither does Chávez, Richardson said.

Chávez didn’t address members of the media after the meeting.

The meeting, the highlight of Richardson’s trip, was seven hours behind schedule, forcing a throng of media to wait in a swanky media room inside the lush complex of the Venezuelan presidential palace, known as Miraflores. Some watched pre-recorded speeches by Chávez.

Others smoked and waited outside in the 70-degree weather while attentive waiters served small sandwiches, fresh squeezed juices and handmade pastries.

That meeting, inside an ornate mansion so big it has its own chapel, was the main objective of Richardson’s trip. He also met with the country’s foreign minister, Nicolás Maduro, and the Venezuelan ambassador to the United States, Bernardo Álvarez.

Since January, Richardson has been working for the release of the hostages, Keith Stansell, Marc Gonsalves and Tom Howes, all military contractors.

The rebels want to exchange the U.S. hostages for members of their group who are jailed by the Colombian government. FARC also holds other hostages, including a French-Colombian woman who was once a presidential candidate, Ingrid Betancourt.

Chávez’s blessing is a big deal for the governor, who some speculate wants to be secretary of state in a future Democratic administration.

Chávez is an inescapable figure here. Some reporters at the press conference were quick to gush about the Sunday program on which Chávez addresses the nation, sometimes with speeches lasting for hours.

He’s also a force in other places: Venezuela is the fourth-largest oil exporter and one of South America’s richest countries. The state-owned petroleum company, Petróleos de Venezuela, is one of the world’s largest.

Images of Chávez adorn the city, including one blue garbage truck spotted by a reporter that said ‘Con Chávez, sí,’ (With Chávez, yes.) Even the repair men at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs display their feelings. A renovation worker walked by one of the meetings with Richardson in a red pro-Chávez shirt, worn by time and speckled with paint.

But the residents of this city of more than 6 million aren’t insulated from the rest of the world: The plight of the hostages in next-door Colombia is a well-read story here, and many reporters seemed interested in Richardson’s role in the negotiations.

As for the governor, he had some cards lined up for him before he left. The bilingual 60-year old already had met Chávez and is familiar with South America and its politics.

To be sure his fortune would hold, Richardson said he brought a piece of his long-time lucky blue blazer to help. He wore the blazer on many an international foray during his time in Congress and while he worked for the Clinton administration.

He also took a gift for Chávez, but declined to say what it was.

If nothing else, Richardson’s meeting here has reignited hope among the family members of the hostages. Jo Rosano of Bristol, Conn., whose 36-year-old son, Marc Gonsalves, is among the three U.S. hostages, said she sees Richardson as among the first people to really work on the situation.

“Bush doesn’t care, Bush backs Uribe and could care less about the hostages,” she said. “It’s really a shame that this government is treating these American citizens like they don’t exist.”

The Bush administration has said it doesn’t deal with terrorist groups such as FARC. Bush and Chávez have an antagonistic relationship, with Chávez once calling him “the devil.”

The patience of the families, who have waited five years for some movement in the situation, has worn thin. But, Rosano said, she hasn’t given up hope. “It’s a matter of time. It’s a matter of testing faith,” she said.

“It will come. There is a reason God is using him (Richardson) for this purpose.”

Published April 27, 2008.

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Gov. Bill Richardson makes a last hurrah in Iowa before caucuses

Gov. Bill Richardson makes a last hurrah in Iowa before caucuses

By Kate Nash
Tribune Reporter

MUSCATINE, Iowa — Wedged into a breakfast crowd at the River View Restaurant, Gov. Bill Richardson stood and made what might be one of his last pitches to Iowa voters, asking for the help of caucus-goers already in his camp and hoping to be heard by those who weren’t.

“I need to know who here is undecided, because I will go straight to your table,” he told the crowd of about 35 people whose body heat fogged up the windows of the cafe two blocks from the Mississippi River.

With the Iowa caucuses just hours away – they start today at 6:30 p.m. – Richardson needed every possible vote to maintain a viable bid going into the New Hampshire primary Tuesday.

He has said he would be happy with a fourth-place finish, but he has said he will continue campaigning in New Hampshire and beyond, regardless of tonight’s results.

While Richardson for days and weeks has headed straight to those in need of convincing in Iowa’s coffee shops and living rooms, it was U.S. Rep. Tom Udall who sashayed to the table of undecided women in the back of the cafe.

Richardson, clearly running on little more than adrenaline, took a seat to talk with other voters who had hurried in from the 2-degree weather Wednesday.

As caucus night loomed, Udall was helping buttress the governor’s campaign, playing lead in a back-up band for Richardson.

Department of Public Safety Secretary John Denko was there, campaigning for hours on end, as was the first lady, Barbara Richardson. So was former Ambassador Ed Romero.

Count in Children, Youth and Families Department Secretary Dorian Dodson and Department of Transportation Secretary Rhonda Faught. Chief of Staff James Jimenez? Check.

Ditto for John Early, a Red Cross pilot who, in 1996, Richardson rescued in Sudan. Harold Bailey, executive director of the New Mexico Office of African American Affairs, is also doing literature drops, speeches in churches, whatever it takes.

While Richardson said he feels good, is upbeat and that he will surpass expectations, the toll of a year of campaigning was evident.

The governor, known for his stamina, on Tuesday and Wednesday looked run down and depleted. Hoarseness crept into his voice. He complained at one event about a sore knee and apologized for sitting down.

Still, he was focused on his last opportunities to reach Iowa voters, to reach his longtime dream, really, and spent Wednesday hopscotching the state in a small airplane, hitting seven far-flung cities.

Richardson, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said he planned to end the day at a 10 p.m. rally in Iowa City. That day came after hitting six cities Tuesday, including several “football watching parties” in small towns like West Burlington, a place with the population of Eunice, N.M., just under 4,000.

In West Burlington he appealed to about 30 people gathered in a basement recreation room to turn out for him today.

“Please caucus for me,” he said, wearing snowproof shoes instead of his trademark cowboy boots. “Give me a chance. I’d be honored to get your support. I’m going vote by vote.”

The appeal no doubt was echoed by the other Democratic candidates who slamdanced across the state. But unlike the top-tier candidates, Richardson needs to do better than expected – finishing in the top three, many pundits say – to keep his presidential bid viable heading into the New Hampshire primary.

The most recent Des Moines Register poll, however, shows he’s a distant fourth, ahead of Sens. Joe Biden and Christopher Dodd.

While polls this week show many Iowa Democrats undecided – even at house parties sponsored by Richardson supporters – the 60-year-old governor has some more-than-enthusiastic supporters in a state that’s more than wild about politics.

Muscatine resident and elementary school teacher Pam Lee let her husband, also a teacher, oversee her first class Wednesday so she could hear Richardson at the cafe for the fifth time since the campaign started.

“That’s how important this is,” she said.

But don’t think Lee has watched only Richardson this campaign season. She also turned out for other candidates, including Republican Mitt Romney, before deciding on Richardson for his stance on the Iraq war and his ideas to improve education in the United States.

“This man has restored my faith in politics,” said Lee, 58, whose son is an Army captain in Iraq.

While Richardson’s events this week attracted both supporters and undecided voters, there is another type of caucus-goer – voters who are firmly for one candidate, but who show up in the morning’s stinging cold to hear what their No. 2 choice has to say.

Retha Monroe, who also turned out at the River View, was one of them – something you might guess from her red felt hat.

Her headwear bore political pins dating back to Jimmy Carter’s presidential run in 1976, Jesse Jackson’s 1988 bid, a “Yo quiero Gore 2000″ button, and a “Richardson for President” sticker.

Still, Richardson is behind Sen. Hillary Clinton in Monroe’s mind.

“I’d like to see him as vice president,” she said.

The governor, for the record, didn’t change Monroe’s vote for Hillary Clinton with his coffee shop talk.

He hasn’t swayed many Iowans, in fact. The Register poll showed Richardson at 6 percent – with about 6 percent also undecided – while Sen. Barack Obama led the Democratic field with 32 percent. Clinton and former Sen. John Edwards had 25 percent and 24 percent, respectively.

Other polls by Reuters and CNN in recent weeks have put Richardson at 7 percent in Iowa.

While Richardson’s support might be small in the surveys, it didn’t seem that way in Des Moines on Wednesday as James Jimenez walked door to door looking for undecided voters in the northeast part of town.

The governor’s chief of staff, who has been stumping for his boss in Iowa for a week, started his rental car with a remote control and headed out Wednesday for the umpteenth time.

He had to rap on several doors along York Street before he found Vietnam veteran Michael Reed at home and answering.

Jimenez, in a wool golfer’s hat and hiking boots, asked Reed, whom the campaign had flagged as undecided, to consider Richardson when he votes.

Ignoring the John Edwards sign on Reed’s porch, Jimenez listened to Reed’s concerns about illegal immigration and veterans’ health care for five minutes, then handed him a brochure.

Reed seemed a hard sell for Jimenez, who didn’t leave with a sure vote.

“We’ll just see how the cards fall,” Reed told him.

Back inside the car and steeled again against the cold, Jimenez told co-campaigner Matt Ruybal he was optimistic.

“I think we got a shot at it,” he said, driving on.

The governor’s door-to-door campaigners will go to any house – with any sign out front – that staffers label as having an undecided voter inside.

“What we’ve found is a lot of people aren’t locked in,” Jimenez said. “Even though they have a sign for one person, the spouse may have a different opinion,” he said, getting back in the car after finding no one home at a house with a Clinton sign.

“What we are hearing and seeing is quite different from what they (the polls) are saying,” he said.

It won’t be long now until Jimenez – and Richardson – will know.

Published Jan. 3, 2008.

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Richardson stumps in Nevada

Richardson stumps in Nevada

By Kate Nash
Tribune Reporter

MINDEN, Nev. — This is where it starts for presidential candidate Bill Richardson: a dim, red velour ballroom in the basement of the Carson Valley Inn Casino, with a plywood gray donkey and a pile of yellow “Nevada for Richardson” buttons.

Minden, with a population of about 3,000, isn’t Washington, D.C. It’s not even Des Moines, Iowa.

But this small town and others like it across this small state are critical if Richardson’s bid for president is to get beyond the starting gate.

Richardson concedes that he must exceed expectations here in Nevada’s Jan. 19, 2008, caucus if he wants a shot at winning the rest of the country. It’s the second stop on the Democratic Party’s roll call of primaries, sandwiched between Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucus and the New Hampshire primary.

“I have to do extremely well. I have to do more than respectably. I’m not sure I can carry Nevada, but I’m going to try,” he told a bevy of reporters, mostly from local newspapers, on Saturday.

His effort will center on small towns like Minden, built up against the Sierra Nevadas near Lake Tahoe.

While Sen. Hillary Clinton was in Iowa over the weekend, Richardson was here – less than a week after announcing his bid for the White House – talking to a crowd smaller than he could easily draw on any day back home at the Capitol in Santa Fe.

The sometimes impatient, crowd-loving governor with the world’s handshaking record didn’t seem to mind.

“I wanted to emphasize northern Nevada,” he said when asked why he came to this Republican stronghold.

“Like in New Mexico, Albuquerque and Santa Fe and Las Cruces are not the only centers of gravity. Rural areas, rural parts of Nevada, Reno, Carson City, Minden, Washoe – did I say it right? – is important.”

Richardson has conceded he won’t have as much money as rivals such as Clinton, Sen. Barack Obama or former Sen. John Edwards, so his strategy will be to try to connect with people in places big and small, wherever, whenever.

As sure as he’ll journey to other early-primary states, he’ll be back in Nevada – in Carson City for a debate in February and in Las Vegas for a debate in March. Richardson said he can’t afford to write any area off.

“Only 15 percent of America lives in rural areas,” he said before speaking to about 250 Democrats at the annual Douglas County Democrats Turn Nevada Blue dinner Saturday night. “And as a candidate, I’m going to pay attention to rural areas. I know this is Republican territory, but in a primary, I’m going to campaign everywhere.”

Before he and retired Gen. Wesley Clark – another potential candidate – spoke at the dinner, they held mini news conferences in the Chapel at the Inn, a wedding room right across from the ballroom.

“My main message in running for president is that I’m a governor who has managed the state successfully, a Westerner,” Richardson said. “I’m the candidate with, I believe, the most foreign policy experience, as ambassador to the United Nations, as secretary of energy, with energy being one of the most critical areas,” he said.

“I know how to reduce energy dependence. I’ve done it. I’ve done it as governor. New Mexico is the clean energy state, ahead of California.”

“Please print that,” he told a reporter from Las Vegas Review-Journal, and laughed.

As much as he’s looking for news coverage, he’s looking for voters. He connected with several by way of his 50-minute speech, which touched on everything from the war in Iraq to foreign policy, water and renewable energy.

Shirley Fraser had heard of Richardson before, and started checking him out on the Internet after he announced for president a week ago.

She found herself at the Carson Inn on Saturday night, wanting to hear him in person.

“I loved it. I really loved it,” she said. More than anything, Richardson’s diplomatic and negotiating skills appeal to her.

Place Fraser, a restaurant bookkeeper, in Richardson’s column.

“Hillary is very famous, but Richardson has more experience,” she said.

Jeff Elpern, a high-tech business owner in Reno, said he’s looking for a presidential candidate with courage.

“I’m looking for someone with a spine,” he said. “Someone who’s not too timid.”

Richardson might be that man.

But he’s got to let the world know.

“I think he’s an interesting candidate,” Elpern said, noting how early it is in the race. “But he doesn’t have the high-powered candidacy like Obama and Hillary.”

He doesn’t. And in fact, some in Minden hadn’t ever heard of Richardson.

“Is he a Republican?” said Jennine Cunningham, a stylist at Hair Cottage, about 10 blocks from where Richardson spoke.

He’s not. But he can sometimes sound a little like one, emphasizing private property and gun-ownership rights and the tax cuts he’s signed as governor.

While he’s popular with some members of the GOP, Richardson, 59, also seemed hip to members of a youth group who signed up to attend a community conversation Sunday with the governor at the Washoe County Democratic Party headquarters in Reno, a stone’s throw from the Reno airport and the last of Richardson’s stops here. About 20 people attended.

“He’s real,” said Greg Bailor, community outreach director for Youth Voice, a nonpartisan group focused on opening dialogues with politicians about issues that affect young people. “He’s a presidential candidate who has gone out of his way to reach out to young voters.”

While those accolades sound good, Richardson will need more.

Nevada for now is about is about turning up the volume on his candidacy and checking how it sounds, said John Garcia, a political science professor at the University of Arizona.

“It’s a way to check what your neighbors think of you before you test yourself out there further afield,” Garcia said.

It’s also about the West, where Democrats now claim five of the seven governors’ seats.

But the Silver State is also about laying the foundation for his campaign in the rest of the country.

“What he does in Nevada, he’s got to do better in the states after that,” Garcia said.

Published Jan. 29, 2007.