Professor Julie Beard (Guest Speaker)

Professor Julie Beard was our guest speaker this week and it was very interesting and inspiring for me as a Mass Communication student. She introduced us to the importance and impact that Media has in our society. We talked about some controversies and situations in the media today,like the diversity in technology and the importance of being prepared for this career.
One of the main topics that we had the chance to listen to and practice was the news values and how important it is to have in mind all the aspects that make good stories or good news; the impact that it makes in peoples lives, the importance of informative and fresh news, the proximity with the community, being able to get to the human emotion by presenting touching stories; being prepared for the conflicts that could come from the different opinions that people have about certain topics in our society and even include bizarre or unusual situations which can make more entertaining news. All of those are known as the events that we have to be noticing and have in mind in our communication careers.
As a class we also had the chance to decide three top stories as a gatekeeper, which is something interesting. It also showed me the importance of being prepared and taking into account the situations and evens that are going to interest, mpact and inform the public.
I think for me was very interesting the information and the advices that Profesor Julie gave to us, because it make me have a more clear idea bout how the media works.