A Pulitzer-Prize winner and OSU alum visited The Lantern newsroom today to speak to members of SPJ about his time at OSU and what today's journalism students can expect once we hit the real world.
Jim Schaefer, The Lantern's editor-in-chief in 1986, talked about his experiences at the Detroit Free Press (where he won his Pultizer in 2009 for local reporting) and things student journalists should learn before leaving school, such as turning off our emotions while reporting (but still realizing when to act human), experience and internships are key, and you will piss people off...although he said that's not necessarily a bad thing.
If journalists get equal negative feedback on both sides of an issue, then they've "walked the line" and done a good job on the story, Jim said.
Between bites of free Adriatico's pizza (courtesy of the university!), Jim gave the students words of encouragement, joking that there's more opportunities in the job market for "young" journalists like us than "old" journalists like him. Jim also added that students can apply to be a number of things, such as graphic designers, multimedia editors, web designers, and more, positions that weren't as popular or didn't even exist when he graduated college in 1988.
Jim has covered a variety of topics in the news, most notably his year-long investigation into the illegal drug trafficking of Fentaynl, and his award-winning work uncovering scandals of then Mayor of Detroit, Kwame Kilpatrick.
SPJ plans to have more visitors like Jim in the future, so stay tuned to the blog and our Twitter, @spjohiostate, to see who will be visiting us next!
