FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Feb. 14, 2008

Journalism workshop at MUW offers lessons from veterans

COLUMBUS, Miss. -- “Top Tips for the Cub Reporter” is the focus of
a journalism workshop tomorrow at Mississippi University for Women.

Four journalists, including one of this year’s winners of the Alfred I. duPont prize in broadcasting, will coach aspiring high school and college journalists during a panel discussion that will be broadcast live via the Web.

“With this annual workshop, we try to present a variety of programs of interest to budding journalists,” said Gibbons journalism professor and workshop director Margaret Mary Henry. “Recent workshops have focused on coverage of the Iraq war, coverage of Katrina and on feature writing. This year there’s something new besides the topic. Instead of three consecutive weeks featuring a single speaker, we’ve changed the format to include one extended panel discussion. All of our speakers were once beginners, and we are so grateful that they are willing to share lessons they’ve learned with those who are just starting out.”

Appearing in the 90-minute panel discussion will be Taylor Henry, news
director of KNOE-TV in Monroe, La., and MUW graduates Rachel Eide,
managing editor of The Commercial Dispatch in Columbus; Garthia Elena
Burnett, assistant news editor of the Dispatch; and Melanie Crownover,
Dispatch staff writer.

Eide received her bachelor’s in graphic design and English in 1973 from MUW, where she was the editor of the Dilettanti, the student literary magazine, and served on the staffs of The Spectator, the student newspaper, and the yearbook, the Meh Lady.

After graduation, she went on to serve as the news editor of The Commercial Dispatch and as the editor of the Aberdeen Examiner. In 2002,
after a stint in the Birmingham area as editor-in-chief and production manager for Industrial Training Consultants Inc., she rejoined the Dispatch, where, as managing editor, she heads a 20-person staff. Eide received the J. Oliver Emmerich Award for Editorial Excellence, the highest recognition for writing given by the Mississippi Press Association, in 2005. She also has been recognized with first place awards for editorial writing from MPA and the Associated Press.

Henry, a Columbus native, has worked as a broadcast journalist for almost 30 years. In January, in a ceremony at Columbia University, he received the duPont award, considered the Pulitzer prize of broadcasting, for an investigative series on corruption in the Louisiana National Guard following Hurricane Katrina. The series also won first places from the Louisiana Associated Press Broadcasters Association and the Louisiana-Mississippi Associated Press Managing Editors. A former reporter and anchor for WWL-TV in New Orleans, and a former correspondent in Los Angeles and in Tokyo for CNN, Henry has won two Edward R. Murrow Awards for Overall Excellence from the Radio and Television News Directors Association. He got his start in broadcasting in college summers as news director at WMBC-AM/WJWF-FM in Columbus. Henry holds a bachelor’s in English and philosophy from Spring Hill College and a master’s in communications from the University of Alabama.

Burnett, a 2006 MUW graduate in communication, has worked at the
Dispatch for more than three years. Following a period as a free-lancer,
she was hired to cover education and later branched out to the beats of
Columbus Air Force Base, tourism, economic development, crime, local
government and other areas. After a brief stint in Murfreesboro, Tenn.,
as neighborhoods reporter for the Gannett-owned Daily News Journal,
Burnett returned to the Dispatch as the assistant news editor.

Crownover, who graduated from MUW in 2005 in English, is a staff writer
at The Commercial Dispatch. She worked as a free-lance writer for three
years. During that time she contributed regularly to The Commercial
Dispatch, The Town Talk of Alexandria, La., The Daily Press in Newport
News, Va. and the electronic news site Bayoubuzz.com. Her work has also
been featured in Hampton Roads Magazine.

The Ray Furr Workshop, named to honor MUW’s 1960-70 chairman of
journalism, is an annual project of MUW’s Department of Communication.
The workshop also includes a high school newspaper competition. At an
awards luncheon for the winners on campus Friday, Taylor Henry will talk
about the attributes of a good journalist and offer guidance to students on overcoming their specific individual reporting and writing obstacles. While at MUW, he will also speak to the student chapter of the Society Professional Journalists and teach a class on broadcast writing.

The panel discussion Friday, which is free and open to the general public, begins at noon in the Second Stage Theatre, in room 238 of the Cromwell Communications Center.