Web posted
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Local students learn media in Paris
By MEG SMITH
Cowley College
In a whirlwind five days filled with the sights and sounds of Paris and loaded with accomplished speakers from the United States and Europe, two Cowley College students and me, their adviser, tried to soak it all in.
Early in the morning on March 22 the three of us loaded our bags and headed to the Wichita airport for the flight out of Kansas; first stop Dallas/Fort Worth. It was a quick flight as the plane was barely in the air before the landing gear was dropping and the flight crew was preparing to land. This would not be the case for the next leg of the journey.
Communications majors Alex Skov and Courtney Crain, both sophomores and members of the journalism club and Tyger Tawk, the communications club, at Cowley were heading to Paris for the first time. In August 2007 when I took over as director of journalism at Cowley, I got together with fellow adviser, Tom Mason, director of communications and we invited students in the our clubs to start raising money to attend the International Media Seminar in Paris, France.
Through fundraisers, one sponsored by local business owners Troy and Kim Ebert; local donations, including a generous amount from Cowley College Trustee Mark Paton of Paton Wholesale and Vending, and some on campus events such as the annual children's theater presentation, the students were able to raise enough money to attend the five-day seminar.
The flight from Dallas/Fort Worth to Charles de Gaulles took nearly nine hours, but there was little time to rest once the wheels hit the tarmac. We caught the train from the airport to the metro to central Paris and then traipsed through the city hauling our luggage. We paused to take a break as the first Parisian landmark came into view: the Eiffel Tower (I'll leave out the part about heading down the wrong street in the mishmash of Paris topography and head straight to the tiny Hotel Malar within easy walking distance of three metro stops, the Eiffel Tower and Napoleon's tomb not to mention the Seine, the seven bridges of Paris and the Champs Elysees to name a few).
When we arrived at the Hotel Malar it was 2:30 p.m. in Paris, 7 a.m. in the United States. Our little trio had left Arkansas City at 8:30 a.m. the previous day. There was little time for napping as we were to attend a welcoming event at the home of Dr. Lee and Mrs. Huebner , the organizers and hosts of the seminar. Geraldine Baum, Paris bureau chief of the LA Times Paris was the guest speaker. Baum was a national correspondent covering everything from the Clinton impeachment to 911 in New York before moving to Paris three years ago.
We had a chance to mingle with students from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. and from Westfield State College in Westfield, Mass. as well as world-renown photojournalist John Morris and other accomplished guests. The event broke up around 10 p.m. and we headed off for the Metro. Paris at night is a beautiful sight and we spent the next few hours exploring the region around the hotel and the Eiffel Tower.
Bright and early the next morning we jumped back on the Metro for a look at the Champs Elysees, one of the most famous streets in the world which ends in a 12 lane traffic circle around the Arc de Triomphe. Our journey took us past the Egyptian Obelisque (Obelisque de Luxor) given by the ruler of Egypt, Mohamed Ali, to Louis Philliipe in 1836 and the American Embassy. We walked, took pictures and window shopped on the street known as La Plus Belle avenue du monde ("The most beautiful avenue in the world").
Then it was off to our first session of the seminar, a tour of France TV 24, the new all-news cable channel. Executive Producer Jean Lesieur, met us in the staff dining room at 10 a.m. to discuss how this new entity came to be. Although 24-hour news channels are common place in the United States this was a new venture in France with the added element of providing not only French-speaking news coverage, but 24-hours of English-speaking news and 4 hours of Arabic news each day.
We toured the facility from the main floor where technicians pieced together components, seamlessly sliding news footage into the commentators spiel about events of the day. There were three sections in one room, each divided by a glass wall acting as a sound barrier between French, English, and Arabic broadcasts. Next came the newsroom where we watched those same commentators preparing for their next airing; researching facts, preparing copy and getting ready for their close up.
The final stop on the tour was the news set. After watching us, watching them the technicians decided to have a little fun. They followed us with the camera operated from second floor, they brought up the lights, zoomed in on students and projected our images onto the wall of monitors in front of us. Some students sat down at the large news desk and projected themselves into their future as news broadcasters, others looked at the technical wonders around them, no doubt dreaming of their future in production and the writers among us, I assume, began to write the news pieces that would one day be read in a room like this on the other side of the ocean.
That afternoon we had lunch at a brand new restaurant, Frais (Fresh), where students were asked to help with marketing ideas for a radical new concept: take-out meals. The day ended with a panel discussion by seven American University in Paris international journalism scholarship students from six developing countries (Cambodia, Kenya, Macedonia, Palestine, Bulgaria, Nigeria) discussing their views about their countries, cultures and careers in international media.
All of that on our first day. The rest of the week included trips to Notre Dame, Sacred Heart, The Eiffel Tower, the Louvre Museum, and the Seine River; speakers from The Wall Street Journal Europe and the European Business Scene, France 2 TV, US Embassy in Paris, CNN International, Milestone Media and BBDO Advertising Agency; and tours of Liberation, the leading French newspaper, International Herald Tribune and the Marketing Communication, Publicis Groupe, one of the world's largest advertising agencies.
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