JAMS Goes to the Journal Sentinel

The Journalism and Media Living Learning Community at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee toured the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newsroom, where editorial board members advised future journalists to obtain well-rounded skills.

The LLC is part of a department that houses the majors of Journalism, Advertising, and Media Studies, hence the name J.A.M.S. The Living Learning Community (LLC) is a housing program in which students who are interested in the media all live together on the same floor in their dorm and attend a journalism class that is required by the university in order to live in the LLC

After visiting the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel building, LLC members Zach Maynard and Hunter Vannieuwenhoven, had very different perspectives.

“What I found to be interesting was how much the staff wanted to get the community involved from reading their news,” said Vannieuwenhoven.

Maynard was taken by the vibe of the newsroom.

“For me, what I found to be the most interesting was the newsroom because of the energetic atmosphere and how busy everything was. The activity in there was really interesting,” said Maynard.

While at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, editorial writers gave an abundance of advice. Those speaking to the LLC students were Editorial Board Editor David Haynes; Associate Editorial Board Editor Ernest Ulrich-Franzen; Editorial Board member and Columnist James Causey; and Perspective Editor Mabel Wong.

“They told us how important it is to be well rounded in the world of journalism,” said Vannieuwenhoven.

Maynard also took the same overriding message from the professional journalists.

“I loved how they told us to appreciate people who can do multiple things, because it’s very important to multitask in the world of news and journalism,” said Maynard.

Both of the students said they are mostly interested in opinion media.

“Honestly, I don’t want to do journalism. I want to go into Advertising and Public Relations, so none of this really affected me or applied to me,” said Vannieuwenhoven.

Maynard hopes to be an opinion journalist.

“To be honest, I’m more interested in opinion writing, but also found it to be very interesting how they said you almost always have to start out in objective writing and how they said it’s very rare to start out in opinion writing,” said Maynard.