Journalism is a broad industry, and with many Ole Miss students graduating the past year, it’s interesting to see where they are finding employment in a shrinking field.

For the last few years, it has been challenging to find a job in journalism; rather, it is to be a reporter, editor, or photojournalist. In 2018, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said that there were only 49,700 journalism jobs available at the time. Since then, they have gone on to say that there will be a 10% decrease in positions extending all the way to 2028.

“I think the biggest obstacle for me was patience while finding a job that was the right fit,” said ‘graduate Hannah Whitten. “Job openings can be very competitive, and it can become disheartening when you’re applying for multiple jobs, but hearing nothing back.”

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics went onto say that the United States will have 5,000 fewer Journalism jobs between now and 2028. The main reason for the decrease is that news outlets are making less revenue due to declining sales of printed newspapers. News outlets are also starting to move more towards news on social media, where they don’t need the number of reporters and editors that they’ve had required in the past.

The most important thing that graduates say that students need to do in order to get a job in journalism is to have experience in reporting, writing, or taking photos. Also, they should go out and try to find a suitable internship that will give one more exposure and look good on a resume when applying for jobs. Even if the internship doesn’t pay, it’s still experience that could help a student get a job in the future.

“I had always dreamed of being in entertainment news, in New York or LA, and definitely where I planned to end up,” said graduate Sarah Kate Caliguire. “I applied to an internship at Good Morning America’s third hour with Michael Strahan and Kiki Palmer, after a summer of job searching and applications. I ended up getting an internship in New York and never looked back! From there, they offered me a full-time job as a production assistant.”

Most media outlets also believe that when hiring someone, they want them to have a lot of experience in doing multimedia packages. With journalism moving more to an online presence and further away from print, outlets believe they need to reach to a broader audience to make money.

A big part of it today is being able not just to write stories, but also to be able to find them and report on them quickly on social media sites like Twitter; as a lot of articles and news that people hear and listen about today, pop up on the platform. The reporters can update their posts in minutes and get info much faster than it could on TV or in an article on a news site.

The average median salary for an entry-level journalist right now is $36,986, and for a graduate that has more experience, it’s $39,229. The larger is if the graduate has prior experience in an internship or had done some work for an outlet in the past.

“I landed in Panama City at WNBB Channel13, the obstacles were just moving way out of the way and starting at a low market with a low income,” said graduate Maddy Bierster. “Take a chance even if you end up moving far away, it is a lot of work at a small market. They require a lot of different stories each day. But it does help you become a better reporter and journalist in the end.”

With only a few more months of school, till a new class of Journalism students graduate in May and have to start looking for new jobs, it can be stressful going out there trying to make contacts and apply to news outlets around the country. Some former students from last year have some advice for those students getting ready to graduate.

“You’re not always going to find a full-time job right out of college, and that’s okay,” said Whitten. “I spent the first eight months after graduation interning and felt like I’d never find a job. Work hard always (even if you don’t love the position), network like crazy, and be patient. Eventually, you’ll figure out exactly where you’re supposed to be.”

 

Sources

Hannah Whitten –  email: hanmacwhitten@gmail.com

Sarah Kate Caliguire –  phone: 973-461-6148

Maddy Bierster – Phone 770-689-6034     Email: maddybierster@yahoo.com

OXFORD, Miss. – Malinda Maynor Lowery, professor, producer, and author of “The Lumbee Indians: An American Struggle” will be speaking about her book, The Lumbee Indian Tribe; for The School of Southern Studies at the South Talks event.

Lowery will begin speaking at noon on Wednesdays in the Tupelo Room, in the Barnard Observatory. Lowery is a professor at The University of North Carolina and Director of the Center for Study of the American South at the University. She is a member of the Lumbee Tribe, which is the largest Native American tribe east of the Mississippi. 

She was raised in Durham, North Carolina most of her life, and she did her undergraduate work at Harvard University. She went on to get a graduate degree from Stanford University and then another from the University Of North Carolina, where she also ended up getting her Ph.D. in history. 

Lowery will speak about the Lumbee Indian Tribe and about her book that was written to help people who are not historians, understand the Lumbee Tribe and its community. She will talk about the tribe in the antebellum south from the time that they first encountered European settlers all the way to the present day. 

“I’m going to talk about the physical migration of indigenous people from the South Eastern U.S. to Indian territory,” said Malinda Maynor Lowery. ” I’m gonna talk about a form of removal, that was more legal or a form of eraser while people stayed in place. Also, I will talk about how, when the U.S. government came into place, they erased the Lumbees from history, talk about how that happened, and the consequences of it.”

The tribe, which is found in North Carolina, was recognized as an Indian tribe by the state in 1885. The tribe has been looking for full recognition from the United States Government since 1888. The United States Congress passed an act called the Lumbee Act, which recognized the tribe as Indian in 1965. However, the government still hasn’t given the full benefits of a recognized Indian tribe, something which it’s people think the tribe deserves and are still fighting for today. 

“Biggest challenges that the Lumbee’s face today is climate change, with the last two big East Coast hurricanes Matthew and Florence,” she said. “They were both basically 100-year flood events, which in two years is not something that any kind of infrastructure can tolerate really well.  In being that there’s not a lot of wealth in the community as in some places, even though there’s growing sympathy for Native Americans are struggling, they don’t see we share the same problems, and it’s hard for us to tackle challenges like fixing infrastructure.”

Lowery has talked about how the Lumbee’s ancestors have initially been tribes that were located between the James River in Virginia and the Pee Dee River in South Carolina. Once the Europeans started colonizing the U.S., they ended up having to migrate to get away from disease, war, and slavery.  The survivors ended up all moving to Robeson county, most of them being from different tribes and speaking many different languages.

The tribes that gathered spoke many different languages, the only way they could communicate was through English. This started to put them together as one large tribe and got them to start adopting European society. The Lumbees were the principal originators of that process of conforming to European and American society before many of the other tribes in the United States. 

Lowery grew interested in studying and telling about Lumbee Indians, from spending her whole life growing up with and learning about the tribe’s culture. She believes that not enough people know the Lumbee Tribe’s story and how they kept their land throughout rough periods in American history like the Civil War, Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights movement. 

One of the significant movements that peaked her interest in learning more about her ancestor’s history was hearing stories about how some of her ancestors were killed by Confederate soldiers around the end of the civil war. A movement was started by some men in the Lumbee community, which began the Lowery movement that lasted for seven years from 1865 to 1872. Its intention was to fight back and get rights for the Lumbee community in North Carolina and to be treated fairly and not be persecuted. 

She has also written other publications, one being “Lumbee Indians in the Jim Crow South” which strictly just about The Lumbee tribe in the 1880s to 1950s. She also helped produce a few different movies, mostly focusing on Native American culture in the United States.

The tribe, which has members that are found in the counties of  Robeson, Hoke, and Scotland in North Carolina, have 55,000 members today. They’re the ninth-largest tribe in the nation and the largest tribe in North Carolina.  

Many historians think it is crucial these days to learn about all Native American tribes in the United States and about the impact they had on our society back then in the south and now in the present.

[UPDATE: “It’s important to remember that America would not exist without the generosity, trade, and comradery offered by Native Americans,”  Walker Sturgeon “We owe our existence to their generosity. and that’s important to remember.” ]

We have some students from North Carolina here at UM that are interested to hear what Lowery has to talk about the state they are from, and the early periods of America and their relationship to the largest Native American tribe there.

“I think it’s interesting she’s talking about a place where I’m from,” said student Renee Mulligan. ” Be born and raised in North Carolina my whole life, it’s interesting to hear about its history.” 

Sources

Malinda Maynor Lowery – Email: mmaynor@email.unc.edu, Phone: 919-599-3969

Walker Sturgeon – Phone: 901-568-2083

Renee Mulligan – Phone: 919-830-1442

 

 

More than 45 soccer teams have formed since the South Campus Recreation Center launched its first Intramural Indoor Soccer season in February. That includes 24 teams for the men’s league, 15 for the coed league and six for the women’s league.

“Me and my friends wanted to play because we like to compete,” said student Thomas Traynham. ” We had all played soccer before and thought it would be a good time.”

For  {Insert info from} years,  intramural soccer has been played in the fall on the intramural fields just right off-campus.

With the season beginning at the start of February and been going for a while, the players have been excited they’re playing on this new soccer court. The court is about the size of a basketball court with a rubber floor, closed with two goals on both sides. It’s hard for some players to get used to playing on it, from playing on soft grass to playing on rubber.

“I think the floors been pretty good so far, you can tell it’s still quite new.” said student Brady Womack. “I’m used to playing on more of AstroTurf style, so it’s been different playing on a rubber floor.”

A lot of the players saying that they have never played indoor soccer before; were saying that it can be more complicated than regular soccer. Because they were not used to how much faster the ball moves on the indoor court on the rubber. Because there is more friction on the rubber, then there would be on turf, or grass field outside that people usually play soccer on.

With the court also enclosed, it can make the game become harder in new ways, like using the wall to bounce the ball off around defenders. When taking a shot at the goal and missing it can bounce back right of the wall back into play.

Another big thing about the court, being smaller and enclosed, is different rules, then regular soccer played on a field, which has teams, having six players that can be on the court at once and a minimum of four to start. Where in regular soccer, there are usually about 11 players on the field unless there is a penalty that takes them off the court.

Teams can have a max number of 13 players on their side. Can have unlimited number substitutions during a game, but only when it’s a dead ball and have to tell the ref, they’re going to do it. Also, on free kicks, the defense can only substitute if the offense substitutes first.

“You have two 15 minute halves and half time, very similar to outdoor soccer,” said Program Assistant of IMSC Phoenix Villalobos. “But it’s gonna be indoor, so there tweaks without a bounce, no throw-ins, those types of things.”

In the regular season for teams, if their games end in a tie, it just stays as a tie. However, in the playoffs, if time runs out and the game still tied up. Then they will go into penalty kicks, receiving one kick till the tie is over, and there is a winning team. The playoffs for the leagues are usually two to three games; teams can make it with playing a minimum of three games.

One of the significant parts, this year though for indoor soccer, is that there not just women and men’s league but also coeds. The rules are a little bit different for the coed league than the others. They can have four to six players on the court just like the other leagues. However, the difference is, they have an even amount of boys and girls on the court at once.

The students are loving coed, saying that makes it way more fun to play. That it brings a bunch of different energies, people would not get, in just playing in a men’s or women’s league and give them something active to do with their friends. The coed league is doing great with having 15 teams playing in league right now.

“I really like playing coed; it gets really intense sometimes, said student Georgia Huddleston. “But the guys are really encouraging, and it’s been super fun to play both on and against other coeds teams. If I had another year at the university, I would definitely join again.”

One of the most significant positions being in indoor soccer right now, just like in regular soccer, is the goalkeeper. They are not only having to block goals but also can not kick the ball past half court. Making hard since the court is so much smaller, but some players are ready for that challenge.

“I’ve played goalkeeper competitively since I was eight years old on my travel team,” said Brady Womack. “So typically, I’ll play in a goal, but if we get down, I’ll go play up and try to get to some extra attack.”

For people when they signed up to play this year on a team, they traditionally buy a one-time play pass. Which is five dollars to compete, which most teams are willing to pay because they get to be active and compete with their friends.

Sources

Brady Womack –

Phoenix Villalobos –

Georgia Huddleston –

Thomas Traynham –

Oxford, Miss. – The Board of Aldermen had its usual first Tuesday of the month meeting, but no one thought this one would have something come up, as controversial as it did today.

The meeting started, as usual, everyone getting a call to order the board adopting the agenda. Mayor Robyn Tannehill, giving her a report of what’s been going on in Oxford over the last few weeks. The most significant part of her report that the Double Decker Festival had its press conference today and announced the lineup and change to the schedule.

“On Friday of Double Decker weekend, they will have three bands play this year,” Mayor Robyn Tannehill said. “Instead of years before, where they had two bands play on Friday night. They also have announced what bands will be playing for the 25th annual Double Decker Festival.”

However, this was not even close to the most significant part of the meeting. When Oxford Police Officer Rusty Rasberry came to talk about the 1st reading about amending proposed ordinance Chapter 50 Article four restrictions on electronic smoking devices.

On December 20th, President Trump signed a bill that passed moving the age of being able to buy electronic cigarettes such as Juuls and other vaping products from 18 to 21. Which the U.S. Food and drug administration put into effect, that very day the bill was signed.

“The Federal government passed a law you have to be 21 or older to buy electronic cigarettes,” OPD Officer Rusty Rasberry said. “The amendment would make retail stores accountable for selling electronic vapes to minors. Due to some issues we’re seeing, especially among our younger ages, we felt like being more proactive.”

In the article, it first talks about how no one under 21 can be able to own an electronic smoking device. Says that anyone in high school, middle school, or elementary school can’t own one or have one on them in the Oxford city limits. No business or person shall be able to sell or distribute to a minor, and anyone 21 or older that get caught doing so, will receive enhanced penalties.

The penalties being, the first time a business owner has this happen being a $100 fine and the second time being another hundred. After that, it goes to $500 each time, but if someone gets enhanced penalties like being 21 selling to a minor, it is $1000 fine.

That a local business that gets in trouble more than three times could get their license revoked for 12 months by the board. It also goes to say that anyone that is 18 years or under, that gets caught with an electronic cigarette could get up to three days of community service.

“We’re not trying to give anyone under 18 a fine,” he said. “We’re not looking at this a way to fine them but a way to discourage the behavior.”

McCutchen wants the city to step upfront with the national government to mirror its laws. The state does not yet have the law on fines for businesses and people selling to minors, but he could see it changing soon. However, not all board of Alderman members agreed with what was proposed during the meeting on this.

“I’m for it, don’t get me wrong, but if we were a city that just had a high school, it’s a no-brainer,” Alderman John Morgan said. “But we got a university, and I would just hate to see it where all of a sudden we’re just constantly fining these students for possessing this stuff.”

The board had decided that it needed to let the public hear about this, which will be held on Feb.18 meeting at 5 p.m. at the City Hall building. At the end of the meeting, Mayor Tannehill said they could vote on the proposed amendment.

With some college students already hearing about this, it does not make them happy that they could be receiving tickets for possessing electronic cigarettes or for having them on campus.

“I don’t agree with them giving tickets out for that,” student Gianna Dameo said. “I understand why they would do that, but I just don’t agree with it.”

Sources

Mayor Robyn Tannehill –  phone: 662-232-2340  email: robyn@oxfordms.net

Alderman John Morgan – email: john.morgan@freedomdesigns.com

OPD Officer Rusty Rasberry – email: rrasberry@oxfordpolice.net

Gianna Dameo – phone: 908-500-5217