Northeast Region partners with Marist College

 

APSE’s Northeast Region and the Marist College Center for Sports Communication have formalized a partnership that began several years ago with an intern in the sports department at the Middletown Herald-Record.

 

The sports editor at the time was Matt Pepin, now with Boston.com. Because of the intern in his department from Marist, Pepin met Keith Strudler, the center’s director. Pepin invited Strudler to bring some students to a region meeting. A year later, Marist hosted the Northeast region meeting and then the following year, Marist was again the host.

 

“I think that's when I realized having this kind of regular interaction between Marist and the Northeast APSE would really benefit us and the editors/writers, who could learn more about what's happening with emerging sports journalists,” Strudler said.

 

At the most recent region meeting, the Northeast approved a formal arrangement. It includes Marist providing meeting space and a web page for the Northeast Region, and the Northeast assisting in providing content for the web site such as best practices guides, award-winning work and other resources.

 

“Marist had already been an excellent resource for the APSE Northeast, hosting a pair of meetings and supplying several of our members with interns, so it made sense to formalize our partnership and play to the strengths of each organization since we share very similar goals – the pursuit of the highest quality sports journalism,” Pepin said.

 

Strudler said he paid attention to the partnership between the national organization and the National Sports Journalism Center at IUPUI and “realized that having universities and sports editors join together could positively shape both the profession and the education leading up to it.”

 

He said the primary goal is to “create a dialogue between our students and current working sports editors and writers … and it maintains that link between academia and instruction and the professional world of sports journalism.”

 

The Marist’s concentration in sports journalism began in 2002, making it among the oldest such program. There are about 130 majors and 25 minors who take courses in sports reporting, sports broadcasting, and sports public relations along with in sport sociology and the business and operations of sports media. Strudler said the newly created Center “will bring in speakers, run research projects and guide the curriculum.”

 

 

 

The Des Moines Register launched a three-page season preview of all levels of wrestling in the singlet-zany state. The paper, which also hired a wrestling writer  (Andy Hamilton from the Iowa City Press-Citizen) is also starting a weekly wrestling notebook for the first  time. Iowa City is hosting the 2012 Olympic Trials, and the University of Iowa has made a bid to host a future NCAA Tournament.

 

The paper also launched a digital project on Christmas Day: "99 Counties Project."  It has built a searchable online site that shows every sanctioned high school team championship in the history of the state, county by county, for all of Iowa’s 99 counties.

You will be able to search by sport, by year, by school and it all will pop up with a new statewide, county display. The paper also will be adding about 20-30 pieces of multimedia like video interviews, photos and some audio to highlight some of the championships. Example: We have a video in wrestling legend Dan Gable's living room, with him talking about winning the state wrestling title as a teenager at Waterloo West.

 

To submit items, contact your region chair of Josh Barnett at barnetj@phillynews.com or 215-854-5212.