From singing to using metaphors of broccoli as news, keynote speaker Jim Streisel employed many techniques to engage the crowd of student journalists on their first night at the Michigan Interscholastic Press Association (MIPA) summer camp.
“You are all on your school’s varsity journalism team. You are a band and that band makes beautiful music,” Streisel said during his opening remarks on July 30, creating the tone of his speech after chanting a medley of songs with the crowd.
Using personal anecdotes of his life in Indiana to talking about his experiences at MIPA as well with his students in Carmel, Ind., Streisel taught the crowd that “we are all made of stories.”
Jim Woehrle, the adviser of the advanced inDesign course and Streisel’s colleague, said he knew that to kick off the MIPA week, a speaker must come and entertain. Streisel’s speech did that, according to Woehrle.
“I think (Jim’s speech) did a successful job; his engaging speaking style, his sense of humor and the actual content of the message itself was a great way to kick off the camp,” he said. “It was a great way to inspire great work to come.”
Streisel spoke about the differences between the past and the preset of journalism, and that distinction was important to the students of the audience. While the news is the same for everyone, readers today read differently than readers from a generation or two ago, he said.
Tyler Bonawitz from Lakota East High School in Ohio said, “I liked how (Streisel) talked about the shift of media and how it was kind of inevitable and that you needed to change the presented stuff. He was talking about the more visual aspects of (journalism) and he didn’t, like, give you a clear cut answer, but he told the (audience) ‘you need to find a way to differently present your information.’”
Streisel ended his presentation with a message for campers. “It’s the same news, you just need to present it differently,” he said. “Meet the needs of your readers, and meet the reads of your needers.”
For more information on Jim Streisel and the Upstart, his class at MIPA MSU Summer 2017, visit www.theupstart.mipamsu.com. By Caitlin Finerty
Although I wasn’t entirely engaged throughout the entirety of Streisel’s presentation, I do agree that he was on the mark when speaking about how the needs of the audience need to be put first. He spoke about how knowing your audience and understanding what they’re going to relate to is of the utmost importance, and I believe that he was correct in this statement. Despite his presentation carrying on for a lengthy period, his main ideas did contain solid advice about the journalism world.
I like the way you started writing the article it gave me a summary on what Streisel was talking about, I replayed it in my head as if it was a timeline. I think you could’ve elaborated more on the “we are all made of stories” you could’ve used a personal connection so it would be a personalized piece (make it your own)
*4th paragraph use AP style*
but overall its a decent article it’s basically a summary. I just say make it your own *jazz it up*