Sacramento Bee's Bob Shallit to speak in column-writing class

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - Sacramento Bee columnist and business writer Bob Shallit will be speaking in the column-writing class at CSU, Sacramento Monday.

Shallit's appearance comes two weeks after Bee colleague Claudia Buck spoke to the class, detailing out her work as a personal finance columnist.

Shallit

Shallit's columns usually include several different business-related items, reminiscent of the three-dot journalism of the San Francisco Chronicle's late columnist, Herb Caen.

At times, Shallit also writes longer pieces on business and business trends.

Here is a link to his columns: Bob Shallit's columns in The Sacramento Bee

First columnist presentations set a high bar for balance of class

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - The first three presentations in the column-writing class at CSU, Sacramento today set a high standard for the balance of the students to reach.

Laural Kolar, Leia Osterman and Ronnie Nurss profiled Dave Barry, Heather Armstrong and Rolf Potts, respectively, all offering interesting insights into the writers and the way they go about their very different styles of using media. The students also fielded questions quite handily that came from classmates.

Dave Barry

In the presentation on Dave Barry, one video showed Barry's response to Marquette University censoring a quote of his that was hanging on the doorway of Marquette PhD student: "As Americans we must always remember that we all have a common enemy, an enemy that is dangerous, powerful, and relentless. I refer, of course, to the federal government."

That bit of humor, in 2006, sparked a firestorm of criticism against the university for its actions. Barry's responses in the video were as funny as his column.

In the presentation on columnist/blogger Heather Armstrong, the students learned that this stay-at-home mom, through her very successful blog, gets many thousands of hits per day and continually updates her work.

Heather B. Armstrong

She also has video featurettes and advertising which pay for most of her costs. Part of her particular schtick has to do with being really outrageous - something her readers have come to want from her work.

Rolf Potts, a world traveler, provided a third columnist model, not just for writing, but for a vagabond lifestyle that most people can only dream of. There were more than a few sighs in class as he described his life, one that has always been non-traditional.

Rolf Potts

Perhaps the most amusing part of that presentation was a video - and discussion of Potts' 'No Baggage Challenge' in which he travels internationally sans luggage.

His cargo pants were filled to overflowing though.

The class presentations continue on Monday with presentations on columnists  Jayson Stark, Dan Walters, Laura Snyder and Seth Kugel.

Next Wednesday, Sacramento Bee columnist Bob Shallit will speak in class. This past Monday, former Bee writer Dan Weintraub spoke about his new venture, HealthyCal. Weintraub was preceded by Bee finance columnist Claudia Buck.

Here are links to the work of Barry, Armstrong and Potts.
Dave Barry
Heather B. Armstrong
Rolf Potts

Sacramento Bee columnist Jon Ortiz to speak at CSU, Sacramento

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - Sacramento Bee columnist Jon Ortiz is slated to speak to the CSU, Sacramento Column Writing class Wednesday at noon.

Ortiz

Ortiz will be focusing on two columns he wrote in the past six months, with the column-writing students expected to compare  content and style - as well as analyze how successful the articles were at making their respective points.

Both columns are part of the popular State Worker series written by Ortiz.

His visit to class comes one week after the class talked with Marcos Breton, Metro columnist for The Bee.

Breton talked about politics, his years as a student journalist at San Jose State and how he landed his current position with The Bee.

News writing class puts together an advance for on-campus event

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - Journalism 30 students today wrote advance stories about an event on the CSU, Sacramento set to happen Thursday.

And in the process of writing the story, several students discovered that the information provided for their story was at odds with information published in the State Hornet newspaper.

The university-provided information says that British rower Roz Savage will speak at 6 p.m. in the University Union. The Hornet said she will start at 7 p.m.

Roz Savage

It provided an object lesson for the students for when sources disagree.

They decided to stick with the 6 p.m. time listed in the official University Calendar - and in two other 'official' university sources.

Of course, it's possible the State Hornet has some inside information and the start time has been changed. If so, the people who read the newspaper will get there right on time. On the other hand, if the 6 p.m. start time is right, well, the 7 p.m. crowd will be quite tardy.

Savage is the first woman to have rowed solo across the Pacific Ocean. In 2005, she rowed solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

She has also published a book, Rowing The Atlantic: Lessons Learned on the Open Ocean.

Magazine writers file How-To stories, Breton on tap for column class

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - The writers in the magazine writing class at CSU, Sacramento have posted the first drafts of their How-To stories in the last 24-hours. (The drafts are posted to the right of this blog, just below the columns of the column-writing class.)

The pieces vary from How To Lose Weight Without Really Trying (are you ready, Oprah?) to How To Create a Digital Scrapbook. The students will be getting their first drafts returned within a week, with about another week to do a rewrite. In the meantime, what they have written is available to peruse here.

Next up for the magazine writers is to select a person to profile, someone who might figure prominently in their major feature, due at the end of the semester.

And in column writing this week, Sacramento Bee Metro columnist Marcos Breton will be visiting class Wednesday.

Breton has visited the column-writing class for several semesters running, giving the class insight into what it is like being a newspaper columnist - and the challenges of print journalism with so much competing electronic media.

Breton is a dedicated Twitter person, too. He has 1,840 followers as of today.

Marcos Breton