News

12 Feb Students and journalists connect at SPJ’s speed networking event

Starting the KOMO tour ...

Eight mentors. Eleven students. A whole lot of questions.

On Monday night our chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists welcomed journalism students from the University of Washington and Seattle University to Fisher Plaza in downtown Seattle for pizza, a tour of the KOMO studios and an intense speed networking event with current and former journalists from the worlds of broadcast, digital, print, PR and photo.

The goal: To let the students connect with professionals and get their advice.

Thanks to all the students who came and to my fellow mentors — Bettina Hansen and Brian Rosenthal of The Seattle Times, Taylor Soper of GeekWire, Athima Chansanchai of Microsoft, Paul Balcerak of Curator PR, Ethan Chung of 425 and South Sound Magazines, Melissa Dahl of NBC News and Travis Mayfield of Fisher Interactive, who doubled as our very excellent KOMO tour guide.

Thanks, too, to fellow SPJ board member and University of Washington journalism professor Randal Beam for helping plan and lead the session, to the journalism department at Seattle University, and to the revamped University of Washington student chapter of SPJ, who sparked the idea just a few weeks ago. Let’s do this again, guys!

Students: See more photos on our Facebook page. And don’t forget to tag yourselves!

P.S. – Have you heard about the brand new SPJ of Western Washington internship? Cover media issues in our region and rub elbows with the pros. Email ethan@premiermedia.net for more info.