On taking a break...again

By Katy Mersmann

From Flickr user Jason Howie

We have talked about it before: the need to take a break and a breather from the newsroom to maintain some semblance of sanity. At Mizzou, we've taken to calling it #MyPersonal45, encouraging student journalists to take a 45 minute break, everyday, from work and stress and do something they really care about. (And then tweet and tell us what they do!)

So, it was kind of fitting when I was perusing the national ONA Twitter account and saw a link to a Poynter story about the mental exhaustion social media managers and reporters face when following graphic, disturbing stories. The problem is especially pervasive right now, with images of horrific executions of journalists coming out of Syria. Poynter quotes Bruce Shapiro, executive director of The Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, who mentions that the images and stories can be especially challenging because so many of the social media managers following them are young and inexperienced, and not used to viewing extreme suffering.

Live Blog: FOIA How-To Session

By Kara Tabor

Welcome to the live blog of our FOIA How-To Session

Our featured presenter today is Mark Horvit, executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors and associate professor at the University of Missouri. 

"None of you should graduate from this university without having made one or two open records requests," Horvit says.

Horvit teaches the Investigative Reporting class and says that students should make records requests while still in school so that they can learn by going through the process before they go out into the workplace.

He says working with data and journalism begins with the right attitude. This attitude consists of having a document state of mind, assuming that the information you need is public, assuming it's free and searching for the databases behind the documents.

Three reasons to attend Journalism Interactive

By Sarah Darby

Photo by Sarah Darby

It isn't every day that students get to have a conversation about the future of journalism, but this year Mizzou students have the opportunity to do just that. The University of Missouri is hosting Journalism Interactive, the conference on journalism education & digital media, and you have an opportunity to volunteer for or attend the conference.

Last April, I had the opportunity to travel to Journalism Interactive at the University of Maryland. The very first session of the conference started with a drone zooming out on stage. That's when I realized the unique perspective of the conference. J/i started four years ago with a mission to improve journalism education. It has since created a space  for journalism students and journalism professors to come together to learn about new techniques and innovations in digital media.

Expanding your podcast library

By Madison Feller

photo by zoomar, Flickr Creative Commons

When January 1st rolled around, I decided to make a New Year's resolution I would actually stick to: Be more informed. This meant I wouldn't just keep reading all of my go-to sites (TIME, The New Yorker), and I would start actively seeking out news I would previously ignore. (For me, this meant reading publications like The Wall Street Journal and Politico). But my favorite discovery in my quest to become more informed didn't come in an article or even a video. Instead, it came as a podcast.

Robot journalists are taking over the news industry (sort of)

Photo by Flickr user Windell Oskay

By Emerald O'Brien

This post was not generated by a computer (unfortunately). But, if you are getting your news from the AP, you just might be reading a robot’s handiwork.

After employing these metal-handed journalists for more than six months, the AP is cranking out around 1,000 stories a month with non-human bylines (well, no bylines at all).

But what does this mean for journalism? Is this where journalists get phased out like some factory workers? Or does this just provide the relief that journalism school students everywhere long for?