• New grad scores prestigious politics & reporting class
• J-School employs UM's top student worker
• Students win SPJ awards
• Broadcast students eyeing regional Emmy Awards
• Prof chosen for ASNE fellowship
• UM grad wins Peabody

New grad scores prestigious politics & reporting class

Kristen Inbody, a UM print student from Choteau who graduates this month, was one of 13 students in the nation selected to participate next fall in the Washington Center for Politics and Journalism’s fall program. The semester-long program teaches the next generation of government reporters about issues like campaigning, interest group politics and foreign policy.

The session includes twice-weekly seminars, featuring political consultants and operatives, elected and party officials, and national political journalists. Past speakers have been Ari Fleischer, George McGovern, Rob Shapiro, Diane Sawyer, Charlie Cook, Lisa Myers, Richard Reeves, Cokie Roberts and Helen Thomas. The students, both broadcast and print, work in Washington, D.C. news bureaus and organizations, among them CNN, CNBC, the Chicago Tribune, Congress Daily, the Wall Street Journal, NPR and Newsday.

Inbody, a Kaimin reporter, submitted about 20 clips in her application, not including, she said, copies of her well-known column “13 Questions.” In addition to submitting clips, Inbody was also quizzed on current events and who’s who.

J-School employs UM's top student worker

photo by Adam Bystrom

Margie Patton is the ultimate multi-tasker, as she demonstrates on a typical day in the J-School office.

The J-School’s beloved office assistant, Margie Patton, was honored as UM’s student employee of the year on April 15 for her four years of dedicated service. Patton was told of her nomination during the Dean Stone Night banquet as professor Michael Downs read aloud Dean Jerry Brown’s letter to Career Services in support of her nomination. The Kaimin wrote a story about Patton’s selection on April 8.

Patton, a senior in broadcast production, received a plaque from the Journalism School marking her achievement and a framed certificate from Career Services.“It looks really nice,” she said.

She will be vacating her job at the J-School after this semester and will begin a new job as a peer supervisor for Peer Advising, which advises students about course scheduling and other University requirements. She has been a peer adviser for two years. “It was a program I wanted to be more involved in and I do enjoy already,” she said.

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Students win SPJ awards
Five print and photo students received regional Mark of Excellence Awards last month from the Society of Professional Journalists.

Print senior Kristen Inbody received first place in feature writing for her story “Class, Kin and Culture,” written for her Native News class. Because she won a regional first-place award, her entry will be entered into the national competition for feature writing.

Tiffany Aldinger, also a senior in print, won second place in spot news for her story “Sniper search yields two arrests.” Her story about the arrest of two suspects in the Washington D.C.-area sniper shootings was featured in the Kaimin after a late night of reporting on Oct. 24, 2002, and Aldinger scooped many newspapers on one of the biggest national stories of the year.

Nathaniel Cerf, a second-year graduate student in print, received second place in editorial writing. He was not sure which of his editorials was selected, as he had he entered both humor and opinion columns. Bryan Haines, a print senior, and Josh Parker, a senior in photo, also won SPJ awards.

Broadcast students eyeing regional Emmy Awards
J-School broadcast students have been nominated for two Northwest Regional Emmy Awards by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, and the academy also awarded scholarships to three UM students.

Of the four total nominations in the student category of the Seattle-Northwest Chapter Emmy Awards, UM snagged two nominations with “Business: Made in Montana” and “Montana Journal: First on the Scene,” which were produced by groups of students in the Broadcast Department.The Northwest chapter also includes Washington, Idaho, Oregon and Alaska, professor Denise Dowling said. Dowling said she hopes to attend the awards ceremony in Seattle on June 21.

The three $1,000 scholarships went to Aaron Flint, who received the Art Pattison Scholarship; Jessica Hamner, the Don McCune Scholarship; and Marci Krivonen, the Elizabeth Wright Evans Scholarship.

The academy also recognized first-year graduate student Gwen Lankford for a national ATAS internship. She is a finalist for a summer internship with documentary filmmakers in Los Angeles.

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Prof chosen for ASNE fellowship
Assistant professor Sheri Venema was selected as a fellow in the Institute for Journalism Excellence, a program of the American Society of Newspaper Editors that places journalism educators in newsrooms throughout the country for six weeks each summer. Twenty journalism professors were named for the 2003 program. Fellows will meet for a week-long seminar at the American Press Institute in Virginia before traveling to their newspaper assignments.

Venema will spend her residency at the Oregonian in Portland, where she’ll work for three weeks as a features reporter and three weeks with the urban affairs team on the city desk. At the Oregonian, she’ll join former photo professor Patty Reksten, now the Oregonian’s photo editor, and recent J-School graduates Paige Parker and Jason Begay.

UM grad wins Peabody
Hidetoshi Osaka, a 1994 Radio-Television graduate, was involved in the first Japanese television program to ever win a Peabody Award. He was one of two directors of an investigative news series “The Hepatitis C Epidemic: A 15-Year Government Cover-Up.”

Osaka is a director for the Fuji Television Network, and he also received the Japanese Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association Award for investigative journalism.

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