The Department of Journalism hosted its first virtual summer high school journalism camp this year, due to the coronavirus pandemic. The pivot to digital was an important lesson for students to learn, as it taught them how to adapt to changing situations and pivot at a moment’s notice — good skills for any journalist to know. Seven students from three states (five from Texas, one from Utah and one from California) participated in the virtual journalism workshop via Zoom to learn the fundamentals of digital journalism from TCU faculty and staff and from media professionals across the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Participants generated story ideas, reported on them and developed them into stories for the web.
Journalism faculty and staff who led the workshop were Jean Marie Brown, Holly Rusak, Jim Seeley and Patty Zamarripa. Guest speakers included Eva Marie Ayala, education report with the Dallas Morning News; Ryan Rusak, editorial page director for the Star-Telegram; and recent TCU graduates Corinne Hildebrandt ’19, a morning show producer at KTVX in Salt Lake City, and Carolina Olivares ’19, a digital producer at ABC13 in Houston.