Three Missouri School of Journalism professors' blogs you should be reading

By Andrew Gibson

There's a good chance you've blogged about something during your time at the Missouri School of Journalism. It might've been for Journalism 2150 -- a required course, for those not familiar -- or maybe you're like us and write for a school organization.

What you might not have known, though, is that some of the professors grading your blogs might have ones of their own. Here's a look at three MU faculty members who, as they advise you to do, are building their online brand.

Joy Mayer

Twitter: (@mayerjoy)

The Columbia Missourian's director of community outreach writes about, you guessed it, the intersection of journalism and community. You'll find posts about being transparent with your audience and about "what Missouri community newspapers are doing on Facebook."

But here's the bonus: Mayer, also an associate professor in Print and Digital News, teaches participatory journalism (Journalism 4700), which is all about "social media, analytics, identifying audience, being ambassadors for the newsroom, crowdsourcing and comment moderation." That means her blog is full of useful snippets from the course. If you're curious how to market yourself, find a job or avoid becoming the annoying one in the newsroom, start reading.

Karen Mitchell

Twitter: (@uberscholar)

Journalism students are all learning as they go, and as the name of her blog indicates, so is Mitchell, an assistant professor in Convergence. Many of her posts are reflections on daily life, sometimes about milestone events, sometimes about simple experiences. She documented very thoroughly (see the top several posts on the front page) her September trip with students to cover the China Open tennis tournament and earlier this year shared the disheartening tale of a park bench.

Her photos are what will keep you coming back to this blog. Mitchell taps into her deep photojournalism background -- she's especially well-versed in sports photography -- to deliver images that enhance her words. You'll find photos ranging from a portrait of her dog to a gallery illustrating a soldier's funeral to images of the Missouri club lacrosse team.

(Disclosure: Mitchell is one of my professors.)

David Herzog

Twitter: (@davidherzog)

If you're interested in data journalism, bookmark this page. Why? Herzog is the academic adviser to the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting and teaches the journalism school's computer-assisted reporting course (Journalism 4430). Reading his blog gives a peek at what happens in the class. For example, he links to published student work and has written about the class's experiment with open-source software.

Herzog has also written about Project Open Vault, an effort on behalf of the journalism school's newsrooms to gather information about political-ad spending in the local TV market.

Does your journalism professor blog? Tell us, and we'll add that person to this post.

Photos courtesy Missouri School of Journalism