Mary Specht
Product Design Specialist, Gannett
Thursday, March 20
12:30 - 1:30 p.m.
Carroll 340

Mary Specht is a product design specialist for Gannett. She will take part in a videoconference at the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication on Thursday, March 20, from 12:30 – 1:30 p.m. in Carroll Hall room 340.

The videoconference, free and open to the public, is part of the Inside the Future of News series at the journalism school.

Each week, members of the UNC community take a quick telecommute to the floor of each of America's leading online newsrooms and talk to the people there who are spending today creating the future of news.

Starting with a visit from the senior political producer for CNN.com and stopping at each of the country's most popular new Web sites, students and faculty will have the chance to hear what it's really like to work in an online newsroom today -- and what kind of skills and experience they're looking for in people they are hiring to work in the newsrooms of tomorrow.

Each hour-long videoconference connecting the School of Journalism and Mass Communication with these online newsrooms will start with an interview between the working journalist and assistant professor Ryan Thornburg, who himself spent a decade leading online newsrooms in the nation's capital. The second half of the program opens up the floor to the audience -- creating an interactive conversation between students, faculty and the news industry.

Every day, the news industry changes and opens new opportunities for students who want to shape the future of news. This program will introduce UNC students to these exciting changes, sort myth from reality and give students a leg up in their job hunt. For faculty, this series cuts through the hype and will demonstrate which traditional values are still important in online newsrooms and which long-held traditions are being held up for constant debate and change.

Because the series is open to anyone, this is a great opportunity for news junkies, bloggers and anyone interested in how the greatest shift in mass media is affecting American discourse and democracy every day.

The conversations will be held on Thursdays from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. in Room 340 of Carroll Hall.