Passion for Journalism

If I can figure out how to download two videos to this blog, I'd like to use them to illustrate passion.


file://localhost/Users/lwayman/Pictures/iPhoto%20Library/Masters/2012/06/27/20120627-220308/IMG_0174.MOV

file://localhost/Users/lwayman/Pictures/iPhoto%20Library/Masters/2012/06/27/20120627-220308/IMG_0176.MOV

OK. The videos are loaded, but I don't think this is what I want. I'll leave them here, and hopefully (AP says this is OK, now), someone will help me out.

What I really enjoyed about Kristy Roschke and Christopher Callahan was their animated presentation. Roschke swept the air with her hands. What a show it would have been if laser lights were attached to her fingers in the dark. Callahan did not stop moving while he talked. I had to move my iPhone from side to side to keep up with him, breaking the rules we learned last week.

I think this is the way to present material in a journalism class. Show the students your love and joy with the material. I understood about 5% of what Roschke said, but her movements and animated facial expressions conveyed sheer joy in her material and evoked a similar response in me. Callahan must have covered a couple of miles during his presentation. He loves his work. He made me want to be a Dean of a Journalism school one day, even though I could not cover more that an inch of the ground that he covered.

Both showed passion. Both evoked joy. And both expressed profound commitment to their craft and the mission of their profession. Although I could never be like them in technical skill and experience, I can say to my students, "You can be like this! This is what you can be!"