Joint Grady College-Greenville News Project

As some of you know, we did a Maymester multimedia journalism course that was a joint project with the Greenville (S.C.) News. The News reached out to us a year ago and has been offering a lot of informational support, particularly to our multimedia classes.

The managing editor there, Chris Weston, came to me in the fall and asked about doing a project looking at water issues across the Georgia-South Carolina border. In early May, ten students started learning how to shoot video, what to shoot and were then sent out with story ideas generated by the News‘ staff. After a week in the field, they came back in and learned how to edit.

Weston and I planned on having the students produce five stories. This morning, the paper posted nine that the students put together.

The News loaned us three staffers for parts of the project – business reporter David Dykes, who headed up the series; chief photographer Owen Riley, who spent a day shooting with the class in South Carolina; and Adam Wickliffe, the multimedia editor, who joined Riley in Athens for the final class to help polish the stories.

I need to thank Kent for letting me put the class on the books, Conrad for his invaluable assistance and the journalism department as a whole for their support. And, of course, all the folks up in Greenville who helped put this together.

The stories and videos are online now.

Nine of them, reported, shot and edited in three weeks.

Nothing like exceeding expectations.