Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Announcement: New Blogging Class @ Community College


ENG 298 - Writing For New Media
January 2008
Thursdays, 6:30 - 9:30 p.m.




For more information, contact:

Grantley S. Adams
Director of Marketing and Public Relations
Northwestern Connecticut Community College
Park Place East
Winsted, CT 06098
Phone: (860) 738-6333
Fax: (860) 738-6488
Email: gadams@nwcc.commnet.edu



PRESS RELEASE



Investigative reporter will teach "Writing for New Media"
in spring at Northwestern Connecticut Community College




Blogs increasingly serve as a major source of news information about world happenings ranging across the globe as well as next door. That is the opinion of Andy Thibault, a well-known investigative reporter who will teach a course in Writing for New Media at Northwestern Connecticut Community College at its Winsted campus in January.

The course will explore the background, research tools, writing styles and approaches used by bloggers active in this rapidly evolving news phenomenon that often breaks stories that are later picked up by conventional news outlets, like television and daily newspapers. Writing for this new media, students will learn how they can produce a blog and with friends and colleagues share news feeds, audio, video and photos via personal online journals.

Thibault is an award-winning journalist who currently publishes a blog he describes as covering "cops, courts, general news and the arts." In a recent interview he said that Writing for New Media will not only appeal to prospective investigative reporters, but also to people who like "music, sports, politics, video games, or any of the various arts." The interview with Thibault in which he discusses many other topics in addition to his approach to teaching Writing for New Media, can be found on the NCCC website, at www.nwcc.commnet.edu.

  • Interview Link


  • Northwestern Connecticut Community College


  • A visit to Thibault's blog-www.cooljustice.blogspot.com-discloses the intricate details of a number of gritty news stories that range from last year's Smolinski missing person/love triangle case in Waterbury, to shady land deals in Enfield aimed at closing down a Montessori school, to a civil rights case involving a high school student whose write-in election victory for class secretary was suppressed by administrators of the school.

    The noted attorney, F. Lee Bailey has described Thibault as "a gunslinger from the Old West, ready to fire at anything that moves-especially if he doesn't take kindly to the movement…He is in a way a corollary of Robin Hood: he takes from the powerful and gives to the weak."

    Thibault is the author of three books, Law and Justice in Everyday Life, the most recent one, was published in 2002. Between 2000 and 2006, he published the "Cool Justice" column in The Connecticut Law Tribune. He is a regular guest on radio and TV interview shows in Hartford. He served as chief investigator for the Washington, D.C. public interest law firm, Judicial Watch, at the time of its investigation of corruption activities in the U. S. Commerce Department. In 2004, Thibault delivered the Pew Memorial Lecture in Journalism at Widener University in Chester, Pennsylvania.

    Currently, Andy Thibault is an adjunct lecturer in English and a mentor in the MFA writing program at Western Connecticut State University. He is author of The History of the Connecticut State Police and The 12-Minute MBA for Lawyers, a consulting editor of the literary journal, Connecticut Review, and-as an indication of his many outside interests-a licensed professional boxing judge.

    ENG 298 - Writing for New Media, one of two cutting edge special courses offered by the English Department at Northwestern Connecticut Community College, will meet on Thursdays from 6:30-9:30 p.m. during spring 2008 semester. Instructor April Dolata will teach the other innovative English course, ENG 271 - Film and Literature, which will meet on Fridays from 9:00 a.m.-12:05 p.m.

    For further information about registering for these courses or for other courses offered by the college, contact the Registrar's Office at 860-738-6314, the Admissions Office at 860-738-6330, if you are not already an NCCC student or go online to the college's website at www.nwcc.commnet.edu.

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    NCCC - The small college that does great things

  • Interview Link


  • Northwestern Connecticut Community College


  • 1 comment:

    spazeboy said...

    Man, I wish I could get in on this class.

    Community Colleges are on the leading edge of New Media education, because I've found nothing like it at Wesleyan.

    I hope there will be a class blog, open to the greater WWW a la the New Media blog at Tunxis CC.