‘Listen, learn, connect’ with journalists and zombies

Image courtesy of South Florida News Service

Written by Nadine Rodriguez/Staff Writer

Unlike any other conference at FIU, this one has undead journalists.

The Society of Professional Journalists at FIU is taking over Friday of Communication’s Week with their day-long event, “Listen, Learn and Connect: SPJ-FIU Media Conference.” The event runs from 9 a.m until 5 p.m. on March 27, at FIU Biscayne Bay Campus, in WUC 244AB.

“This is our second time doing this conference, we are making it an annual event. There are many reasons why we do it,” said SPJ President, Kathleen Devaney. “We want to offer something within the School of Journalism that the actual school doesn’t provide. As a student chapter we want to excel providing resources for the students.”

SPJ will be bringing some local journalism professionals, such as Steve Rothaus, a reporter for The Miami Herald specializing in LGBTQ news.

Students attending this event will have a chance to meet professionals in the field and gain knowledge and advice from their experience.

“A lot of cards were exchanged between students and professionals last year,” Devaney said. it’s an intimate setting,” Devaney says.

The conference is split into six sections. The first section is an introduction which includes complimentary breakfast.

Then the conference begins a series of panels about covering communities and a panel about ethics when covering places in turmoil.

Devaney, along with her SPJ FIU team, came up with the topics.

“We tried to mostly have people who cover communities that are not their own,” Devaney said. “For example, we have a religion reporter who is not religious, but there are people who cover communities they can relate to, such as Steve Rothaus.”

Following the Covering Communities panel is an ethics panel about covering countries that are under political turmoil.

Among journalists speaking at this panel are Jacqueline Charles, and brother and sister Alejandro Aguirre and Helen Aguierre Ferre.

“Alejandro was president of the Inter American Press Association for one year, and Jacqueline is from The Herald,” Devaney said. “She mainly covers Haiti. She covered the earthquake, presidential issues and the government. The panel will talk about what to do in these situations, what procedures to take in order to cover people in these countries…it’s a different environment from the press in the United States.”

Attendees will be provided lunch and then move into what could be the most exciting part of the conference, the “Break-Out Session,” which will have zombies.

“The event gets different people to dress up like zombies. The journalism students interview the zombies and wear white shirts…the zombies squirt the white shirts with blood if they ask a ‘bad’ question,”  Devaney said.

Last year, one of the winning questions included “What does a human brain taste like?”

The shirts will be provided at the event and registration to play “Zombie Stories” will be available at the sign-in desk.

Professional journalists, interesting topics and zombies. “Listen. Learn. Connect”is an annual conference students should mark down on their calendars.

Michael Koretzky: Zombies Stories teaches journalism students what they’re not learning in school