University lands prestigious National Press Photographers workshop

By Alec Jennings
University News Service
April 2, 2009

The Texas State University-San Marcos School of Journalism and Mass Communication will host the National Press Photographers Association Advanced StoryTelling Workshop April 5-10 at the LBJ Student Center.

Held for the past several years at the University of Kentucky, the week-long program traditionally brings 30 to 40 of the top professionals in the television and newspaper industries from throughout the world for this professional development program. Among the reasons for relocating the workshop to Texas State, organizers for the event considered its location between the two major media markets of Austin and San Antonio as well as being in close proximity to 50 television markets. The easy access to airports, hotels, restaurants, shopping and recreation that San Marcos offers was also a major contributing factor.

“We’re very excited about moving the Advanced StoryTelling Workshop to Texas State,” said Steve Sweitzer, workshop organizer, News Operations Manager for WISH-TV in Indianapolis and a past president of the NPPA.

Student time at the workshop will be divided between classroom sessions and producing stories. Students will develop story ideas, research, report, shoot, edit and produce complete packages. Critiques and one-on-one sessions are also a major part of the workshop. Shooting, writing and editing will be conducted under real world deadlines.

“We want our students to attend the workshop sessions and would like to involve them as full time helpers--assisting during the classroom sessions and accompanying teams as they shoot in the field,” said David Nolan, senior lecturer in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. “Working side by side with some of America’s best journalists is a unique opportunity that few institutions can offer their students.”

Furthermore, a new course, Video Storytelling, MC4356I, is being taught this spring semester that teaches advanced video storytelling. The workshop is the course capstone for those students.

The National Press Photographers Association is a 10,000-plus member organization dedicated to the advancement of photojournalism, its creation, editing and distribution in all news media. Their members include still and television photographers, editors, students and representatives of businesses that serve the photojournalism industry.

The workshop is being supported in part by Time Warner’s News 8 Austin through a donation of $5,000 to the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

For more information about this workshop, please contact David Nolan at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at (512) 245-9653 or email dn15@txstate.edu.