Photos from FJSA Fall Reception: Manitzas '52

On Oct. 30 we added to our Hall of Honor a journalist who covered the moon landing, the Iran hostage crisis, the RFK assassination, Pinochet's coup in Chile and the world's first heart transplant as part of his work with ABC, CBS, NBC and the Associated Press and other news-gathering organizations: Frank Manitzas '52.

There was a real family feel to this year's Fall Reception, thanks largely to the fact that a good number of Mr. Manitzas's relatives made the trip to see him inducted.

Below are some photos -- courtesy of Jerry Cooper '63, to whom many thanks -- and more information about Mr. Manitzas' career and honors.

(Also, scroll down to the next post on this blog to read a full update on what's happening with Journalism Studies at A&M, provided for the reception by program head Dale Rice.)

Jay Socol '91, director of communications for the City of College Station, reads a proclamation honoring Mr. Manitzas for his many achievements in news.

Chuck Neighbors '54, who nominated Mr. Manitzas, made the journey also, and made the formal introduction. Well, more fun than formal, really! (Chuck is standing, right)

And I got to give Mr. Manitzas his plaque (I'm Sue Owen Whaley '94, features copy chief at the Austin American-Statesman and a past president of FJSA). One copy of the plaque went home with him, and one will hang with the others in the Battalion newsroom. Here's the text (scroll down for more readable version):

Frank N. Manitzas penned unpopular editorials calling for Texas A&M to allow women in the early 1950s, more than a decade before it happened. He interviewed presidents of 11 countries and coordinated television coverage for all three major networks. He reported on or produced coverage of many major events, including the world's first heart transplant, Robert Kennedy's campaign and assassination, the moon landing, all things Latin and South America and negotiations that led to the American hostages' release in Iran. And he's still working as an independent journalist, providing news of persons living in and interested in Cuba, as well as the Americas and the United States' relationship to the hemisphere.
After a year as co-editor of the Battalion with Joel Austin in 1952-53, Manitzas started his career at the San Angelo Standard-Times. Called to military duty, he served 22 months as public information officer in Wurzburg, Germany. He returned to Texas, working for the Associated Press in Austin from 1955-59 before a career-changing move to South America after a year on the Latin American Desk in New York. The AP took him to Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, Urugauy, Peru, Colombia and Venezuela (1960-64). He moved to McGraw-Hill in Argentina(1964-1967) and to CBS (1967-1974), NBC (1974-1979) and ABC (1979-1994). He won the Columbia University's Cabot Prize as the senior producer to the three-hour ABC News documentary "American Held Hostage: The Secret Negotiations," revealing the efforts to free the U.S. Embassy employees held by Iran. He won a Lowell Thomas Award from the Overseas Press Club of America for his work on the Falkland Islands conflict between Argentina and Great Britain. As Deputy Director of Special Events at CBS News in New York, he covered or produced Dr. Christiaan Barnard's first heart transplant operation, the moon landing and the Kennedy coverage. In 1974, he and his family were among the last foreign journalists who witnessed General Augusto Pinochet's coup d'etat to leave the country. Manitzas graduated from Texas A&M in 1953 with a bachelor's degree in journalism.

Update on Texas A&M's Journalism Studies program

Dale Rice, head of Journalism Studies at Texas A&M, is doing some great work to raise the profile of the program on campus and off. For the FJSA reception Oct. 30, he gave us this great summary/update.

(My favorite fact here is that next year's course catalog will have 16 journalism courses, up from eight a year ago. But there is lots of good news contained below. Enjoy!)

The 2010-2011 academic year is off to a great start for Journalism Studies. Here are
some examples of our progress:

• We’re continuing to raise the profile of Journalism Studies within the College of Liberal Arts and the university at large. We co-hosted, with American Studies, Pulitzer Prize winner Sonia Nazario in September. Her book, “Enrique’s Journey,” was selected by the college as this year’s Common Ground read for all incoming freshmen. Besides exposing a wide audience to an award-winning journalist, Sonia’s visit allowed time for her to spend several hours with journalism students, both in and out of classroom settings.
• Our newly reformed student chapter of SPJ has been officially recognized by both the national organization and the university. SPJ members are working hard to recruit new folks and build the organization. For example, they are meeting next week to build sandwich boards to place on campus, one of the perks that come with being an official student organization.
• We’re working to broaden the Journalism Studies program. We currently have six new course listings winding their way up the approval chain. They include five cross-listed courses (one of which is the blogging course I created with that purpose in mind) and a new course in political reporting. With two courses added to the books this year, we will have 16 journalism courses in the catalog next year, compared with eight a year ago.
• I am working now with Charlie Madigan, a former journalist at the Chicago Tribune and now professor at Roosevelt University in Chicago to jointly teach a course in political reporting via videoconference, with half the students in the class from Roosevelt and half from A&M. It was the suggestion of Charles Middleton, president of Roosevelt, who I met when he was here as the keynote speaker for a conference on campus. We will launch the course in the 2012 election cycle, which should offer lots of great reporting opportunities for the students.
• We are exploring with the university and Rick Dunham, the Washington Bureau chief for Hearst Newspapers, the possibility of placing a journalism student in Washington each semester as part of the Public Policy Internship Program. Working with Dunham, the students would report and write stories dealing with public policy issues for the Hearst wire.

Finally, on a personal note, I’m really excited to see interest growing in journalism on campus. I’m teaching a one-hour freshmen seminar on food writing, part of the university’s effort to provide a small-class setting for first-year students who are mostly in very large classes. On Wednesday, after class, two of the students stayed behind to discuss the program and said they were going to apply now. That’s what makes this job fulfilling: to see freshmen joining Journalism Studies because they’re interested in a career in the profession. In just a few years’ time, you are going to look at those students who came into the program early and made use of our expanded offerings to obtain a first-rate journalism education and you are going to be very proud of them. FJSA’s support of the program has been a critical factor in our rebuilding effort, and we can’t thank you enough for that.

FJSA Fall Reception - Saturday, 12:30. C'mon!

The time is set, the weather should be awesome and you should be there to meet with us Saturday at 12:30 p.m., 2 hours before kickoff, at the "POD" in Cain Hall (room B-111) to help us induct Frank Manitzas '52 to the FJSA Hall of Honor.

I would LOVE to meet you and we particularly want as many people as we can get to make Mr. Manitzas feel honored, so please swing by, hang out for a couple short speeches and meet Eagle editor Kelly Brown. You might see some of your old profs or former Battcavers. Shout at me at aggiejournalists@gmail.com if you need anything.

Wright '92 part of this year's Aggie 100

Sherman Wright '92 came to campus last weekend to be honored as part of the Aggie 100 -- his agency, Commonground marketing of Chicago, was No. 12 on this year's list of the "100 fastest growing Aggie-owned or Aggie-led businesses in the world," as chosen by the Mays Business School's Center for New Ventures and Entrepreneurship.

Wright says he got to meet with College of Liberal Arts folks and with Dale Rice, head of the journalism program, and that he had a great time. Whoop!

The list is pretty impressive -- pop over there and check it out!

Why the time of FJSA Fall Reception is TK

1ST LEDE WRITETHRU: EDS NOTE TIME REFERENCES THROUGHOUT

OK, so as soon as I say this, they announce the Tech game won't be televised. Kickoff will be at 2:30 and I anticipate we'll try to schedule the reception for, say, 12:30.

--------------------------------------------------

Kickoff time for the Tech game will be determined by TV plans, and they apparently don't have to make that plan final until six days before the Oct. 30 game. Rest assured that we'll adjust -- the Fall Reception will happen at a suitable time for Aggie football-goers. Usually if it's a morning game, we'll have the reception shortly afterward; if it starts midday or later, we'll have it beforehand. Either way, our site, Room B-111 (the "POD") in Cain Hall, is very close to Kyle Field. Nice and handy!

(TK, for those who haven't been taught the antiquated jargon, stands for To Come. I dunno why the K. Maybe baseball fans made it up. At least I finally found out what CQ means...)

(And oh yes - Go Rangers!!!)

Sign book for Hall of Honoree Frank Manitzas '52

If you can't be with us Oct. 30 to induct Mr. Manitzas -- and we really really want you to, because it's fun, it's convenient to the football game, and we want to meet you -- then definitely please drop a word to him here.

Leave a comment on this entry (no signup necessary) or e-mail me your words for Mr. Manitzas, and I will give him a nice printout!

Or you can do both -- leave a message here and then come hang out with us, anyway. Don't worry if you're in game-day attire -- half of us will be wearing our maroon T's and shorts with 12th-Man-towel accents, too.

Lovett '79 plays to benefit A&M Association

More reasons to love Lyle Lovett, an A&M journalism grad who has generously helped FJSA in the past: He's bringing his Large Band to campus Nov. 11 to benefit the Association of Former Students. And the whole thing was his own suggestion. Aww!

Tickets go on sale Oct. 15; read more at www.aggienetwork.com/lylelovett. And watch for an upcoming interview with him by FJSA'er Matthew Watkins.

Join us at A&M on Oct. 30 to honor Manitzas '52

The date -- and the honoree -- have been set for the 2010 FJSA Fall Reception! Come hang out with us in Cain Hall on Oct. 30 (Tech gameday) and help us induct Frank Manitzas '52 to the FJSA Hall of Honor.

More details will come, including the reception's start time, but the location will be the same as last year: the "POD" in Cain Hall (room B-111).

FJSA President Doug Pils says:

A former Battalion sports editor and co-editor in 1952-53, Frank Manitzas '52 retired from a stellar career in TV journalism as Chief Latin America Correspondent of ABC News. Among the many noteworthy events Manitzas covered, he was present in Bolivia as an Associated Press correspondent when Che Guevara's body was brought in, and he was in Chile for Augusto Pinochet's coup that overthrew the government run by Salvador Allende.

Rojas '10 graduates, moves from WaPost to LA Times

It really seems not that long ago to me that I was putting up a post about Rick Rojas '10, then a sophomore journalism student at A&M, getting selected for a New York Times training program. Well, Rojas followed that up with an internship at the Washington Post; graduation in May; a second summer at the Post; and now he's moving west to enter the Los Angeles Times' editorial training program.

TAMU News recently profiled him, writing about his start in journalism, his work at the Post (and meeting Bob Woodward) and his coverage of the November 2009 Fort Hood shooting:

“The Metro editor at The Post, the boss of the department I interned for last summer, called me to see if I could get out there. I got to Fort Hood by Thursday night, and stayed for three days. I covered press conferences and prayer vigils and camped out at the hospital where the victims were taken, and basically did whatever the editors on the national desk told me to do,” he said.

Here are a few of Rojas' favorite stories from his time at the Washington Post:

• Legally blind blogger working to improve pedestrian safety in Montgomery
• D.C. couple keeps son's memory alive through foundation to help kids with cancer
• Cynthia Newcott's weekly dinners stimulated appetites, conversation
• Event connects Gold Star Families, kin of those who died in military service
• Metro passengers taken for a ride by impostor bus driver
• For young Sikhs, turban-tying ceremony binds them to their faith

He adds: "I recently had a chance to meet up with another former student; I was in New York last weekend, and I met with Kathleen McElroy, an Aggie and the deputy editor for continuous news at The Times, where she took the time to give me a tour of the newsroom."

Rick, congratulations from the bottom of my heart on everything you've achieved and everything you're about to embark on. Whooooop!!!

Register by Sept. 12 to hear NASA's Byerly '99 in Bryan

The Voice of Mission Control, Josh Byerly '99, will speak Sept. 16 at the IABC Brazos Valley meeting, and if there's anybody who should know about business communication, it's him. I'd say communication's pretty critical when you're talking to folks flying a ship 300 miles above the earth going 17,500 mph.

Register here by Sept. 12 for the speech. You can get a glimpse of Byerly on the job here, and he also makes a quick cameo near the start of the latest "NASA: Behind the Scenes" video (on a somewhat yucky but highly necessary topic).

The KBTX alum will speak about his experience and his NASA role during the 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. meeting at Christopher's World Grille in Bryan (full details here).

"I'm excited about it because it's the first time I've returned to B/CS for about two years... we've been so busy with shuttle missions and I've been going to Russia and Kazakhstan a few times per year," he said.

"Russia and Kazakhstan?" I said.

"There are four Russian Soyuz launches and landings each year, and we send American and international partner crewmembers up on them," Byerly said. "My colleague and I rotate going over there throughout the year any time we have a crewmember on the flight. For launch, we are in Kazakhstan at the Baikonur Cosmodrome (same launch site that Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin launched from), and for landing we are a little more north in Kazakhstan.

"We climb aboard Russian military helicopters and fly out to the landing site, pick up the crew, head back to Moscow and then ultimately back to the U.S. It's always an interesting trip.

"Also, as you know, we have two shuttle missions left, one in November and one in February... The one in November will be space shuttle Discovery's final flight, and I'll be calling the launch and landing on TV from Mission Control. It's an honor for me to be able to do it, because Discovery is our oldest and most historic shuttle. "

Sell yourself in the elevator

Because this blog is also for mid-career Aggie journalists coping with the industry's current weirdness, I like to include items geared for those of us who graduated farther back in history. Like me. (These include the "What's Your OQ? Quiz" and a tutorial in building your own website fast and cheap, complete with vanity e-mail address, to display your resume and clips.)

So I'll add these "Questions to ask yourself" to the "Questions they might ask you" (a practice journalism job interview), the "Questions you might want to ask them" and the "Questions they can't ask you."

One piece of advice us mid-careeries get sometimes is to have our "elevator pitch" ready. This is a short sales pitch for your own self that will persuade someone to either hire you or keep you, in no more time than you might spend in an elevator together. You might think of it as, "What the hell would I ever say if the publisher came into the newsroom and stood at my desk," or how to sell yourself if you meet a prospective employer at a professional conference.

This can sound totally awkward, Business Insider observes, and they offer some practical thoughts on making yours better. Among them, it suggests asking yourself these questions (and answering literally out loud, perhaps phoning your own voicemail), then boiling down the answers.

• Say, why do you like your work?
• Why have you been doing this for 10, 15, 20 years?
• What is it that you find interesting about it?
• No, seriously, don’t talk to me like I’m your boss, what do you really find interesting about it?
• Why do you want to stay in this field?
• What do you like about this industry?
• When you’re in the shower in the morning, what types of challenges at work make you excited to get the heck to the office as soon as possible?
• When are you having the most fun?

Meet Maroon Weekly's editor, Chris Shepperd

Maroon Weekly is a tab-sized publication that comes out weekly, distributed free around the Texas A&M campus and in Bryan-College Station; it began in 2004 and focuses on entertainment, music and reviews. Several A&M students from Agricultural Communications and Journalism are among its writers, and AGCJ master's student Chris Shepperd recently took over as editor for the upcoming school year.

Shepperd has plans to strengthen the weekly's local coverage and its web site, www.maroonweekly.com, and Maroon Weekly offers students a chance to pick up some money and build up clips with feedback and coaching.

How many writers do you have, and how much will they be writing -- does everyone file a story for each issue, one per week, or is it more or less than that?

The current staff consists of three editors including myself (editor in chief, managing editor, sports) and 20 staff writers. Most of the writers will file one story per issue. Some are a little busier than others and only write once every few issues.

We are also working on creating a lot of web-exclusive content. We haven't really focused on that in the past. We normally simply put our stories online and leave it at that. But we want to drive traffic to the site. So we will have some blogs, stories, exclusives that will be only on the website.

Please tell me, because I'm out of town and don't see the Weekly itself much, what you normally cover. I'm told there's usually a good amount of content about music/entertainment around town? Also, what should students know if they'd like to work for you: What are you looking for in writers, and how much would they get paid?

Our main drive is definitely entertainment, music, and reviews. Books, CDs, bands, movies....etc. We also try to cover sports from more of a human interest standpoint.

This semester we are going to have some new columns I am excited about: "Cheap and Easy" will be a low-budget cooking column; "CheapSkate" will be a column about repurposing old stuff; "Sojourner" (perhaps my fave) will be a column on discovering B-CS. There are so many unique things in the valley that nobody knows about. Historical and otherwise.

As far as work is concerned ... I am always open to talking to people about writing for the paper. The pay is per word for printed stories. $.05 a word. And flat rate for online content. It is definitely geared towards those looking to build their resume and portfolio.

One thing I am actively looking for right now is one more sports writer. NOT someone that wants to write about football and basketball [exclusively -- that is, to cover games regularly]. But someone that wants to write feature stories on athletes. ... I need someone to write personality profiles and features on athletes from ALL the sports. Including football and basketball.

How long do you want stories to run -- what does that five cents per word usually work out to?
Basically the stories vary in length dependent on the topic. For the sports features it might run 800-1000 words ... maybe a little more. So we are talking $40-$50. For reviews we are looking more at the 400-500 word count. So $20-$25.

Do you work with people, edit them, help 'em learn a little?
Absolutely work with people. That is one of my favorite parts of the job. I want to teach journalism when I graduate.

The learning experience is the best part of working at MW. If someone wants to grow, then that is what I am here for. I was the editor in chief of my junior college paper, staff writer, sports editor, managing editor and now editor of MW. So I have seen lots of different sides. Have also been the editor for a magazine our department publishes. So it is always a bonus when someone is doing this to get better and wants to grow. I am not trying to say I am a know-it-all; I am NOT. But I love to help people discover.

How A&M can turn out Web-skilled journalists - NOW

I asked Chris Hokanson '08 -- Editor in Chief of the Battalion in summer 2007, who also served as news editor, multimedia editor and new media editor -- to write up his thoughts on what A&M could do to educate programmer-journalists. Hokanson, who is currently a Genius at the Houston Galleria's Apple Store, responded extremely graciously with this article.

Read on and you'll learn:

• Some of the Batt's new media efforts in recent years
  
• One way Batt staffers could learn web technologies for free
  
• Who to watch: Leaders of the digital news revolution

Here's Hokanson:

Why College Publisher is good, and why A&M needs to make it unnecessary

When I transitioned the Batt's radio desk - a daily, 3-minute news clip that did double duty as our podcast and a segment on the local public radio station - to the Multimedia / New Media desk, I learned something.

I learned that if you want to shoot video, develop for the web, and produce podcasts and radio shows, a little background in those areas goes a long way. Unfortunately, I had none of those things. My experience with "new media" consisted of some old home videos and a LiveJournal account. My introduction to social media was at least encouraged by the fact that Texas A&M was one of the first schools to get access to Facebook (with all the farming that happens on Facebook these days, you would have guessed A&M started the site).

The tasks given me were daunting for someone with so little experience: produce a daily radio show, weekly podcasts, video stories (both independent and complementary to print stories), and maintain and improve The Batt's website. Pretty big task for a guy who had no idea what a <div> tag was.

But thankfully, College Publisher was there to help. If you're not familiar with CP, it's a web-based content management system that the Batt and 600 other college papers utilize. Think of it as Blogger for college papers - a fairly strict template focused on content over design. CP makes money by providing its service free of charge in exchange for a large portion of ad revenue on the paper's site. In return, guys like me could record a podcast and post it into CP's system without knowing anything about creating RSS feeds or XML documents.

Today's web design world requires an alphabet soup of languages and systems to be present on one's resume. PHP, CSS, xHTML, Java, Flash - Comp Sci majors have tough times meeting the requirements of some newspaper job postings I've seen recently. CP's system is a tremendous resources at schools that simply don't have the resources to teach their students more than simple HTML. With CP, advisors and professors can spend time teaching their students about writing and reporting - not wasting away teaching them to be code monkeys.

But A&M has the resources to do both. I'm amazed at the strides the Batt's new media desk has taken since I graduated. The production quality of the videos make mine look downright childish. But sticking a YouTube embed into CP's standard article template is no longer compelling. It's a bad experience for the user and it makes for a huge headache for archiving (I started out using BrightCove because of YouTube's resolution and length restrictions, but BrightCove's non-Enterprise divisions folded - and so did all my videos). The tools are out there to make online news presentation compelling and engaging, but CP's system severely limits that.

So what can Aggie students and the student media department do?

First, make some friends in the Computer Science department. Those kids need jobs, too. Hiring from a pool of students learning those web technologies not only brings help in the form of direct experience, but their knowledge spreads like wildfire. I didn't learn Photoshop in a class. I learned it watching Stacy Reeves and Spencer Selvidge work magic with the lasso tool.

Second, learn from those leading the digital news revolution. Don't be content to simply look at chron.com and say, "Hey, let's do that!" Call up folks outside traditional newspaperdom that do work for sites like Wired or Engadget, Talking Points Memo or Popular Science. Heck, chat with the designers at The Onion - they've got one of the most engaging experiences when it comes to multimedia news (even if it is all fake). Subscribe to Smashing Magazine - probably the best continual resource in web design today.

Third and most importantly, be entrepreneurial. Don't be afraid to try new technologies and push the limits of College Publisher's system. Most of my time leading those first few years of the New Media desk was spent trying, implementing, and many times failing with systems and technologies that have become digital dodo birds. But the knowledge I gained was valuable. Innovate for innovation's sake - that's what a college paper is for! When you start pushing against College Publisher's walls, discuss whether or not it's right to break free. Talk to the staff at - heaven forbid - the Daily Texan. They're on their own now. And while their site has seen an obvious decline in usability (even just readability), their students are gaining valuable insight and knowledge by building and maintaining their own web presence. Those are skills that will allow students to succeed in the 21st century journalism - whether that means a job at the Washington Post or a career as a freelancer.

Tales from the Battcave '05-'06 and Battapus captured!

I think most of us who spent waaay too much time in the Battcave will find some memories that resonate with our own in these blog posts (scroll down to the "My Life as a Journalist" entries) by Rob Saucedo '07, a 2005-06 Batt staffer and section editor, who writes very descriptively of his time working at the Battalion, both good times with his coworkers and harder times as the choices of editors came into conflict.

Also, Saucedo has been kind enough to give me a photo of the "Battypus" (or "Battapus"), a creature that was featured on Battalion staff T-shirts of this era. Love it!


In his series of nine posts, Saucedo includes some reasons why he didn't get invited back to interview then-University President Robert Gates a second time, and how his fear of the gruff Battalion adviser Ron George grew into great respect and admiration.

He also gives his view of the blackface YouTube video scandal, which made national news, and the Battalion's handling of it. "From talking to the students in question, it became obvious that the purpose of their video was to lampoon the perceived second-class status of minorities at Texas A&M. This message, unfortunately, was not obvious in the video," he writes.

(In his discussion of the controversy and coverage, he gives an opinion or two that, were this more than a blog post, I might contact other parties for comment about. But he keeps it nice and it's so clearly his own opinion that I'm sure I'd do more harm than good by raking up old differences. Just so you know.)

Having been, during my own time at the Batt, privy to the truth inside another "racist" scandal that blew up into the national news, I can tell you for absolute certain that even though there likely are race problems at A&M as elsewhere, people can be WAY too quick to tag Aggies with the racist label. In my case I'm speaking of an editorial cartoon that was latched onto by a black lawmaker as racist. I am as confident as anyone can be that the person who drew that cartoon had NO intention of including race as a factor (in fact, I think I recall that the cartoonist did not actually know the race of the lawmaker).

One factor that's the same in both cases: young people not realizing how their actions will look to outside viewers. But I digress! Share your own stories of too much time spent in the newsroom, or other Battalion tales... the comments section is open, and you can e-mail me at aggiejournalists@gmail.com.

Batt keeps No. 5 spot in Top 10 College Newspapers

The Princeton Review has again placed the Battalion, Texas A&M's student newspaper, at No. 5 on its list of popular American college newspapers. Whoop!

The Batt was No. 8 in 2008, No. 5 in 2009, No. 5 this year, "and No. 1 in 2011," said the incoming fall 2010 editor, Matthew Woolbright '12, when I contacted him for reaction.
I've got a Q&A with Woolbright in the works, but for now here are his responses to this honor:

I was thrilled to see that we have maintained our spot in the top 5 college newspapers in the country. I think it says a great deal about the skill, passion and determination of everyone involved with The Battalion. The people I have met working on staff are some of the most incredible people I know, and I am extremely proud to be a part of this team. I will say that my charge all along has been to be the best college newspaper in the country. This is no secret to the staff, and they are ready to show the everyone what we can accomplish together. It truely is an honor to lead such an exceptional group of Aggies, and we are excited about going into the year as the top newspaper in the Big 12.

The Princeton Review ranks newspapers according to student responses to the question, "How popular is your campus newspaper?," so I asked why he thought so many Aggies gave the Batt a thumbs-up:

I believe the students gave such a strong response because we have strived to always be their voice, and center our focus on what matters to them. Our first duty is to our classmates, so I am very happy to see that they think we are doing a good job with our top priority. We want to keep getting better and are looking into ways to incorporate even more students' opinions in how we operate and what we cover. The students of Texas A&M are our top priority and always will be.