• J-School students win prestigious internships with New York Times and Dow Jones

• Students place in Hearst awards

• Emptying the Notebook: R-TV students air Montana Journal episodes; Dates set for 2002 Grizzly High School Journalism Camp; Keith Graham, photography professor, wins research grant.


Students selected
by NY Times and Dow Jones
for summer internships

Jason Begay, a School of Journalism senior, has accepted a summer 2002 internship with the New York Times, while two other journalism school students were selected by the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund for summer internships.

Begay will work on the Times' Metro desk for 10 weeks with the possibility of the internship extending beyond that. He is one of four reporting interns selected by the Times for next summer, he said.

Begay, a native of New Mexico, has worked previously in internships at the Oregonian, the Oakland Tribune, the Wichita Eagle and others. Over the winter break, he plans to again report for the Navajo Times where he got his start in journalism.

Tiffany Aldinger and Nathaniel Cerf, both on the copy desk of the Kaimin, were selected for Dow Jones internships. Aldinger, a native of Glendive and a designer for the Kaimin, will work as a copy editor next summer at the Kansas City Star. Aldinger is a junior. Cerf, a Chicago native and first-year graduate student, will work for the Argus Leader of Sioux Falls, S.D.

Aldinger and Cerf will each begin their internships with week-long intensive copy-editing camps. Their paid internships will last 10 weeks, and they will each receive a $1,000 scholarship upon completing their internships.

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J-School students rank nationally in Hearst awards

Photography by Peet McKinney and a feature story by Courtney Lowery, both seniors, were recognized nationally by the Hearst Journalism Awards Program.

McKinney took 14th place in the competition, known colloquially as the college Pulitzers. Lowery tied for 12th place for a feature story that appeared in last year's Native News Honors Project newspaper. Lowery's story reported on efforts by the Northern Cheyenne Tribe to gain economic prosperity without surrendering too much of its culture. She wrote in particular about C. Robert Yellow Fox and Evone Spang who work in arts and crafts to get by and who sleep by a wood stove. Lowery wrote:

The two smile at each other. They don't mind not having electricity or heat. "The fire is peaceful; it's actually pretty cozy," Spang says.

Their situation is not one they regret, or necessarily blame anyone for. For Spang, it is a choice, and the tough times are the price the couple is willing to pay for something much more important.

"Why leave it, when somebody beforehand gave their blood to have this land?" he asks. "Those battles my ancestors fought here, they fought to keep this way of life, even if it is in poverty."

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Emptying the Notebook: R-TV students produce Montana Journal broadcasts; Date set for Grizzly High School journalism camp; Keith Graham, photography professor, wins research grant ...

Students in the School of Journalism's Radio-Television department produced and broadcast a segment of Montana Journal at the end of November, and another focusing on Montana's education system is scheduled to air in January. The November broadcast featured Montana's reaction to the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Montana PBS will broadcast the next edition of Montana Journal on Jan. 30. Check your local listings for times.

The third annual Grizzly Journalism Camp for high school journalists will run from July 1-3, 2002. As in past years, campers will choose from classes in reporting, writing, editing, design and photography. Last year's classes included subjects such as interviewing, writing leads, sports writing and photojournalism. Students published their work on a special page of the Missoulian newspaper dedicated to the camp. Students stay in dorms on campus with mentors who are University of Montana journalism students. All classes are taught by journalism professors and other practicing journalists, and high school journalism advisers. For more details, stay tuned to this Web site or contact Sheri Venema, camp director, at svenema@selway.umt.edu or at (406) 243-2577.

Nine out of ten farms and ranches in Montana are run by families. But the pressures on families make farming and ranching difficult. Keith Graham, an assistant professor who teaches photojournalism, recently received a $4,000 grant from the University of Montana to document Montana's family farms in words and pictures. Graham – who was a staff photographer at the Miami Herald, the San Jose Mercury-News and the Roanoke (Va.) Times – intends to begin by photographing life at family farms in Harlowton and others near Big Timber and Billings.

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