J-School grad wins second national Emmy

Shane Bishop, a 1987 J-School graduate and a producer for NBC “Dateline,” has won his second national Emmy in less than a year — this one for helping produce NBC’s coverage of the Olympics in Athens last summer. Bishop’s team of more than 50 producers won in the category of Outstanding Live Event Turnaround.

A native of Conrad, Mont., Bishop won his first national Emmy last fall for Dateline’s coverage of the Elizabeth Smart abduction story.

“I sound like a broken record, talking about owing so much to the UM, but honestly, between my wife and my career, it's given me the things I'm most thankful for,” Bishop told J-School Dean Jerry Brown in an e-mail. “Somewhere I know, Joe Durso is smiling.”

The National Television Academy presented the 26th annual Sports Emmy Awards in New York City on May 2.

Sports reports take R-TV prizes in Vegas

Four J-School students from the R-TV Department won awards for sports reporting at the annual Broadcast Education Association convention in Las Vegas on April 21.

Sarah Lenoch and Dustin Blanchet won third place in the Sports Reporting-Television category for their piece on UM’s nationally ranked distance runner, Scott McGowan.

Lenoch, a senior from Columbia Falls, is a pole vaulter on the UM track team. Blanchet, who is currently interning at a video production company in Tulsa, Okla., is a senior from Dutton. The story was produced for UM News, a weekly television program that airs on the NBC Montana stations during the fall semester.

In the Sports Reporting-Radio category, Courtney Hanson and Derek Buerkle won second and third, respectively. Hanson’s piece covered UM’s equestrian team; Buerkle’s was about the University’s golf team.

“ We were really surprised that sports news won all the awards this year,” said Denise Dowling, assistant professor in the R-TV Department. “We’re mostly ‘hard-core news’ focused, and we didn’t expect sports to take all the awards. They did well.”

The BEA is a professional association for professors, industry professionals and students interested in teaching and research. Each year, the association recognizes students and professors from around the country with awards in six categories: audio, interactive media, news, script writing, radio and small colleges. 2005 marks the BEA’s 50th anniversary.

“Last year we were shut out,” said R-TV Chair Ray Ekness, who attended the BEA convention and the News Division’s awards ceremony in Las Vegas. “This year, it’s good to have representation.”

-Kelley McLandress

J-School hosts high school students

Amid the tough work of learning journalism and producing their own newspaper, a group of Missoula high school students got to take the trade to the next level last month.

On April 12, 19 students from Sentinel High School and one from Hellgate High School visited the J-school. There, they saw what the school has to offer and received some critique of their own work.

The students sat in on classes ranging from beginning reporting and photojournalism to media law and broadcast classes.

The visit was the idea of Whitney Bermes, a Sentinel senior, editor of the Sentinel Konah and gung-ho future UM J-school student, who contacted professor Sheri Venema. Through a grant from University Vice President for Student Affairs Teresa Branch, the J-school brings in high school journalism classes for a day of visiting classes and meeting professors. The program replaces the summer Grizzly Journalism Camp for high school students.

A high point of the Sentinel trip was meeting with staff of the Kaimin. The high school students got a taste of life at UM’s student newspaper as well as a critique of their school newspaper from Kaimin editors.

“That was great,” said Jenn Keintz, Sentinel’s journalism teacher. “Now we can go back and try to make it better.”

-Bennett Jacobs

Writer visits Investigations class

Mauk wins 10th Murrow Award

The Radio-Television News Directors Association has bestowed a 10th Edward R. Murrow Regional Award on Sally Mauk, news director for KUFM.

Mauk won in the small market sports category with a story about women’s ice hockey in Western Montana. The Women’s Hockey Association, Missoula (WHAM), was founded in 2002 and offers league play, clinics, coaches and officials at Missoula’s new Glacier skating rink. More than 70 women are members. Mauk said the women play hockey the same way men do, but with “no checking and more finesse.”

Mauk interviewed the founders of the league, women who had played pick-up games for three years prior to its formation.

“They are so passionate about ice hockey,” Mauk said of the women’s enthusiasm. “Good stories are made by good interviews.”

KUFM garnered its first regional Murrow award in 2001 and won four more for in the small market radio station category in 2004. But this was KUFM’s first award in the sports category.

KUFM, the University of Montana’s public radio station, recently celebrated its 40th birthday. Mauk has worked at the station for the last 25 of those years. After graduating from the University of Kansas, she came to Montana to work as a wilderness ranger in the Cabinet Wilderness of the Kootenai National Forest.

“I wanted to live somewhere that was pretty,” she said. Mauk soon found it easier to work in a tiny newsroom than to live in a tent in the woods. She joined the School of Journalism R-TV program as an adjunct instructor in 1998.

RTNDA has been giving Edward R. Murrow Awards for “outstanding achievements in electronic journalism” since 1971. The award is named after the famous CBS correspondent who worked in radio and television from the 1940s until the 1960s. The awards are presented to radio or television stations in 13 domestic and one foreign region each March. The regions compete against each other to win the national awards, which are announced in June. Montana is in Region 1, which also includes Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington.

-Jim Beyer

Photo students show their work

Jennifer Erickson, a senior photo student, will display photographs and poems at Chocolat, 119 S. Higgins Ave. in Missoula until May 30. The photographs, taken over the past five years, include work from the Philippines, Russia, Bolivia, Austria and Germany.

Kathryn Stevens, who will graduate this month with a master's degree in photojournalism, spent much of the last year documenting the lives of the Martinez family from Mexico, who spend nine months of the year as migrant farm workers in the United States. Stevens traveled to Mexico, to Lodi Calif., and to Wenatchee, Wash., to finish the project. The result is “Toward Home: One Migrant Family’s Journey,” which Stevens premiered for family and friends on May 5 —Cinco de Mayo — at the Stensrud Building in Missoula.

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