Today is national News Engagement Day (NED), which offers opportunities to get involved with the news media and to learn more about them.
It is a day when people nationwide are encouraged to use or react to the news media and to learn more about news reporting principles and processes. Locally, NED is the first day to submit entries in the essay and visual works contests that are part of Eau Claire’s “Beyond the Headlines” (BTH) October programming.
NED was created to encourage engagement with news and to promote better understanding of journalism’s role in a democratic society.
Those goals overlap with one of the major goals of this month’s BTH project, which is reported elsewhere in the CVPost. The essay and visual art competitions were established as part of BTH in an effort to promote community involvement. The deadline for submissions is Oct. 11.
These competitions each have two divisions for entries, one for 7th to 12th graders and the second for all others in the community. Full information on the contests is available here.
NED Background and a Guide for First-Time Voters
News Engagement Day was started in 2014 by Prof. Paula Poindexter, a journalism faculty member at the University of Texas. She was then the president of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, the professional organization of journalism and mass communication faculty members.
A guide for people who will be voting for the first time in the November elections has also been released in connection with the NED activities. It was prepared by Poindexter with the collaboration of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and National Public Radio and is available both for online reading and for download at http://www.newsengagement.org/first-time-voters-guide/.
Community Read and Discussion of “The Elements of Journalism”
A BTH activity, closely related to News Engagement Day and beginning a day later, is a community read and discussion of “The Elements of Journalism,” a book that outlines what journalists should know and what the public should expect. This is a two-part series scheduled for 6 p.m. on Wednesday (Oct. 3) and Oct. 8 at the L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library in downtown Eau Claire.
Wednesday’s discussion will be led by Jan Larson, chairperson of the Communication and Journalism Department at UW-Eau Claire. The second session on Oct. 8 will include a Skype conversation with Tom Rosenstiel, the book’s co-author and executive director of the American Press Institute.
Both discussions are free, but those planning to attend are asked to register online in advance at https://beyondtheheadlineswisconsin.org/eau-claire.
More information about NED can be found at http://www.newsengagement.org/.