Saturday, April 12, 2008

Turner Report makes appearance at College Media Association Conference

I had the pleasure this morning of addressing a roomful of college students during the annual Missouri College Media Association Conference, held this year at Webster Hall on the campus of Missouri Southern State University.

My talk hit on numerous areas concerning blogging, including:

-How to build readership for a blog
-Uses of public records, including campaign finance reports, lobbyists' reports, court records and SEC filings
-Dos and don'ts of blogging
-How to deal with comments, including bullies who want to put down anyone who disagrees with them.

Other speakers this morning included Neosho Daily News Publisher Rick Rogers, Carthage Press reporter John Hacker, former GateHouse Plus editor Nick Parker, Joplin Tri-State Business Editor Jeff Wells, freelance journalist Tammy Merrett-Murray, Associate Professor of English/Journalism at Missouri Western State University Dr. Bob Bergland, Dave Barr of ESPN Radio, Dr. Chad Stebbins, MSSU professor of journalism, and T. R. Hanrahan, MSSU publications manager.

Thanks to T. R. Hanrahan for the invitation.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Turner Do's and Don'ts of Blogging:

Do's - only tell the minimum of the truth and make up the rest.

Don'ts - don't give all the facts, they will only get in the way of what you want your readers to think.

Do's - read the Turner Report for the best examples of all of the above.

T.R. Hanrahan said...

I would like to thank Randy for attending and contributing.
The Turner Report, whatever your opinion of the author, is read by virtually all members of the four-state area media.
Why?
Because bloggers like Randy do some real reporting. They do some entertainment. And they get people reading and talking.
If we approach it from a content-neutral perspective, we would accept Randy and other bloggers as legitimate merchants in the marketplace of ideas.
Go ahead. Shop and evaluate. And take home what you like.

Anonymous said...

after reading hanrahan's comments, i now know why the journalism department at this prestigious "university" is in the pits.

How many women speakers in the event?

Anonymous said...

If this is what passes for content neutral, no wonder media is held in such low regard today. Content neutral????? Give me a break!

Every article on a blog, in a newspaper, on the radio, on TV, etc should be required to have a disclaimer "Reader Beware - Reporter bias is present"

Anonymous said...

Hold your friends close, and your enemies closer guys. Apparently, the oposition has made its stance, but is too scared to make its identity known.

Anonymous said...

There was one female speaker at the conference: Tammy Merrett-Murry from St. Louis.

Anonymous said...

What is meant by content-neutral, idiot, is not that the content has no bias. What it means is that we don't disregard it or disallow it based on its message. We allow and evaluate it in comparison to other views.
Blogging is a phenomenon.
Perhaps if there were another blogger of such reach in the immediate area (you read this thing), he or she would have also been invited to speak.
I would guess that Turner or Hanrahan would accept an invitation to your conference. Would you accept one to either of theirs?