The next chapter of my career will be at Louisiana State University. After I wrap up my work at Digital First Media July 1, I will become the Lamar Family Visiting Scholar at LSU’s Manship School of Communication.
I have enjoyed teaching as a part-time pursuit for several years now. I am excited about making it my full-time job. I’ll be teaching, working with students on a social media project and working with other faculty and staff to improve digital journalism education at the school.
Jerry Ceppos, dean of the Manship School, emailed me the morning of April 2, as I was on the train to New York to get the word about DFM’s plans to shut down Thunderdome and eliminate more than 50 jobs. He asked if I’d be affected. I told Jerry that my job would be one of those eliminated, and he told me later that day that he wanted me to come to LSU as the Lamar Visiting Scholar at the Reilly Center for Media and Public Affairs. After a May visit to Baton Rouge and more emails and phone calls than I will bother to count, we sealed the deal this month.
I enjoyed the dynamic of teaching the first time I stood before a classroom at Central College in Pella, Iowa, in 1980. I taught two courses at Central in the 1980s as an adjunct professor, and ever since thought that might be something I’d like to do someday.
In 1997, I started teaching professional journalists, first as a sidelight to my journalism work, then juggling reporting with writing-coach duties for the Des Moines Register and Omaha World-Herald. In 2005, I moved into professional training full-time for the American Press Institute.
Though I moved back to a newsroom in 2008 to become editor of the Cedar Rapids Gazette, I also returned to the classroom, while I was there, co-teaching a class at the University of Iowa. I also did considerable training in my newsroom there and other newsrooms to follow.
When I moved back to the Washington area in 2010, I continued juggling teaching with my journalism work for TBD and DFM, teaching classes for both American and Georgetown universities. In addition, I’ve been a guest speaker at dozens more universities, including my initial visit to LSU last December.
I relish the challenging questions students ask. I enjoy helping students learn, try to master new skills and concepts.
I explored a wide range of opportunities after learning my time at DFM was coming to an end, doing 10 in-person interviews, two video interviews and several phone interviews. I explored academic, news, nonprofit, public relations and other types of media jobs. I had one other offer and three strong active prospects when I decided on LSU.
This is what I want to do and where I want to be.
And here are some songs to help me get ready for my new home:
For the record, though, I do eat beignets.
Congratulations. One of the more rewarding things I’ve taken on since my own redundancy from a digital journalism development job two and a half years ago is a visiting lectureship at City University in London, teaching on the journalism masters there. While I wouldn’t fancy academia full time, it’s such a pleasant change to work with journalists at the beginning of their careers, rather than those already set in their ways.
I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.
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Reblogged this on Cold Case LSU and commented:
This is awesome news!
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Thank you!
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This is awesome news! I do hope you’ll be able to visit with LSU student media and the new student digital media staff on the week of August 18.
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I will actually be in Alaska that week, but will return to campus shortly after. Looking forward to working with you and the other students, Wilborn!
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Understood, we look forward to seeing you there!
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Congrats, Steve! Sounds like a good match. Also: Seafood!
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Thanks, Craig! I will be indulging in some seafood, you can be sure.
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Steve – congrats on the new assignment
From reading your posts, you’ll be great at this
Dane Huffman Executive web producer WNCN Raleigh
Sent from my iPhone
>
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Thanks for the kind words, Dane!
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Buttry academic goodness, the new home for digital journalism proponents?
Another digital journalism expert finds a new home in academia
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You know I wish Mimi and you the best. And I totally get what you’ve said about finding joy in teaching. I was honored to be a Kilgore Counselor at DePauw University in early April. I loved working with the students, helping them adopt a digital first workflow and teaching them new tools to help accomplish that goal. They had come so far in one week I could have cried! I’ve been asked to return in August for a journalism boot camp and I can’t wait to reconnect with the students and continue to lead them down the digital first path we started in April. When you help others “master new skills and concepts” you feel like you’ve made a difference, and I’m sure you will. Good luck on this next chapter of your life. And, have fun!
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Thanks, Buffy! I’m sure you’re a great teacher. Your students are very fortunate.
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After the smashing success of Thunderdome and all the other bullshit DFM people like Buttry spoon-fed their duped newspaper people, it’s time to pass on all that great wisdom to the poor kids of LSU. Hurrah.
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Why am I not surprised “Jimmy” doesn’t have a last name?
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His point is dead-on, though. I have to wonder about the morons at LSU who looked at that body of work and said: “Hey, this is what we need here!” But I already know the answer to that question. They are the same types of morons who brought Monty Cook to UNC and who brought numerous other failures and design dolts to numerous other j-schools to “educate” students on newspapers. And students are paying for that knowledge!
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Good news, Steve, for both you and LSU. Jerry Ceppos is a smart guy to have grabbed you.
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Thanks, Ted!
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Congratulations, Steve.
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Thanks, Harry!
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Another sign that college media instruction has collapsed into ruin. It’s interesting how bloviators like Steve Buttry can fail upward and then lurch into the haven of academia whenever it suits them.
Here’s hoping the students have enough sense to listen past the upcoming bloviation.
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I always enjoy hearing from you, Robert.
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I’d enjoy hearing something relevant from you, but it happens rarely. For example, your post about the daily news flow had some decent points, but those were obscured by the standard UNBOLT!!!11!!!/Digital First bloviation that seems to pollute anything you write.
(Also, sensible people know that news flow has long been clogged by newspapers’ burning need to hire moronic non-journalists as designers, but that’s a whole other issue.)
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Congrats to you and to LSU. I taught at the Manship School from 1997-2000, and I enjoyed my time there. Best wishes on your move to Baton Rouge. Let the good times roll!
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Thanks, Andy!
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Awesome news! This sounds like a really good fit for you. I really appreciated the role of educator/mentor you filled for DigitalFirst Media journalists, and even though I’ve chosen to pursue a library career, I continue to find relevance in your writings about ethics, fact-checking and the use of social media.
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Thanks, Cynthia! I hope your new career is going well.
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Congrats, though LSU has no chance of climbing to the top of SEC journo schools even with you there. #GoDawgs #GradyIsTheGreatest
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Thanks, Jeremy! (You sound nervous.)
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Now that it’s official, let me join so many others in wishing you and Mimi all the best. And why is it no surprise that you’ve already compiled a song list for this new adventure?
.
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Congratulations Steve. Hope it’s a rewarding experience and move.
Look forward to more shared inspiration from the front of the class.
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Thanks, Richard!
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[…] I move on to my next job at Louisiana State University, any regrets I might have pale next to all the experiences I’m thankful […]
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[…] my recent job hunt, a university (not LSU, where I’m now working) asked applicants for faculty jobs to submit a statement of teaching […]
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No “House of the Rising Sun” on your song list?
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Well, that’s New Orleans, not Baton Rouge. 🙂
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[…] I count 19 potential opportunities for jobs or consulting that came because people (either the people making the hire or third parties) heard that I was losing my job. Some probably heard from me. Some read news reports about Thunderdome closing. Two of those opportunities resulted in job offers (and others were still under undecided when I accepted my current job with Louisiana State University). […]
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[…] new job as Lamar Visiting Scholar at the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University stems from a string of good work I’ve done over the years. In 2009, when I was finishing some […]
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[…] that Digital First thing didn’t last as long as I thought, so I’m teaching now. And next semester, I will be teaching a class in interactive storytelling tools. Only I […]
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[…] Omaha World-Herald, American Press Institute, Cedar Rapids Gazette, TBD, Digital First Media and Louisiana State University. Each place I made cherished friendships, mastered new professional challenges and grew as a […]
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[…] 4,000 views, my third most-read 2014 post), noting the response on Twitter (more than 2K), taking a new job with LSU’s Manship School of Mass Communication (1,100+) and sharing job-hunting tips (1K+). My farewell to my DFM colleagues was meaningful to […]
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[…] […]
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[…] Promocionarte como periodista es una manera de decirle a tus posibles empleadores qué es lo que puedes aportar. Reconociendo la importancia de que los periodistas creen su propia marca, el Centro Internacional para Periodistas está llevando adelante un curso online titulado “Branding para profesionales de medios de comunicación”, desarrollado por Steve Buttry, un capacitador de medios digitales y profesor visitante de la Escuela Manship de Comunicación Social de la Universidad Estatal de Louisiana. […]
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[…] Social media. If you know who someone is and know that they prefer to use social media to communicate, direct messages on Twitter or Facebook might use. Because I am known for my Twitter use, a Baton Rouge reporter interviewed me publicly on Twitter shortly after I started at LSU. […]
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[…] away as Director of Student Media for LSU. When I came here almost a year ago, I was accepting a one-year job as Lamar Family Visiting Scholar. But Dean Jerry Ceppos and I were always interested in exploring long-term opportunities. This one […]
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[…] wasn’t all about Student Media) and our previous encounters that he eventually invited my to join the LSU faculty last year as the Lamar Family Visiting Scholar. That was a one-year position, but when Bob Ritter decided late last year to retire as Director of […]
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[…] When I was at API, we received a couple of grants from the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation to present ethics seminars to newsrooms, universities and press associations. Jerry Ceppos was dean at the University of Nevada-Reno and hosted me for a Nevada Press Association seminar. We stayed in touch and, and I emailed congratulations when he moved to LSU in 2011. He brought me to Baton Rouge for a consultation in December 2013. And the day Digital First Media cut my job and about 50 others, Jerry emailed me, and later that day we talked on the phone about the job opportunity that eventually brought me to LSU. […]
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[…] that brings us almost to 2016 and to that gift I promised to eventually tell you about. In 2014, I joined the faculty of the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University. Sometime in 2015, I became friends with Freda Yarbrough Dunne, a […]
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[…] that brings us almost to 2016 and to that gift I promised to eventually tell you about. In 2014, I joined the faculty of the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University. Sometime in 2015, I became friends with Freda Yarbrough Dunne, a […]
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