|
A group of
36 School of Communications students, including freshman Communications
Fellows and students who live in the Elon University's Communications
Living/Learning Communities, traveled to Atlanta Sept. 25 through
27 to visit with communications professionals about their work in
the field.
 The
first stop was the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. 1993 communications
grad Rogers Harrison met the group and led a tour of AJC facilities.
Harrison introduced
Elon students to an AJC marketing executive and several journalists.
The newspaper
is one of the largest in the southeastern United States, with a
circulation of nearly 500,000. The presses were rolling when Elon
students walked through on their tour.
The AJC is
owned by Cox Enterprises, which includes Cox Communications (the
nation's fourth-largest cable company), Cox Television (15 stations
in 11 markets), Cox Radio (the nation's third-largest radio company),
and Cox Newspapers, which is one of the top 10 newspaper groups
in the U.S.
This media
company had its beginnings in 1898, when a 28-year-old former schoolteacher,
James Cox, bought the Dayton Evening News Co. for $28,000. Cox Enterprises
revenues for 2001 were $8.6 billion, and company headquarters are
in Atlanta.
Harrison works
for Cox Newspapers in its CoxNet office - the wire service and Internet
arm of Cox. He began at the AJC as a newsroom copy carrier and followed
that with stints as an advertising sales assistant and ad account
executive before beginning his work as a "utility player"
for CoxNet, when he sometimes writes and often works to coordinate
many facets of news production.
Students toured
Olympic Park, site of the 100th-anniversary Olympic Games in 1996,
on their way to CNN Center. They split into two groups and went
on the tour of CNN and its broadcast facilities. In the late 1970s,
cable television mogul Ted Turner hired 200 new employees and founded
the Cable News Network, which first began to broadcast in June of
1980 to an audience of about 1.7 million households. In 1995, Turner
introduced CNN International, sending CNN around the world, and
began CNN.com. Today, CNN's news group is owned by Time Warner,
and it includes a number of television and radio networks and Internet
sites. The group as a whole reaches an audience of about 1 billion
people worldwide.
 Students
had the opportunity to visit with 1998 Elon graduate Alex Medieros
in the lobby after their studio tour. Medieros works with CNN News
Source, which has a live-news division and also offers archived
materials of previously broadcast CNN content. Medieros works primarily
with archived materials in his job with News Source. He explained
that he traveled to Atlanta with no job prospects after leaving
Elon. "I had some money from graduation," he said, "and
I wanted to be in the media capital of the South. I gave myself
three months to find something. I networked. I made blind calls
to Elon alumni, and they helped me land this position."
Advertising,
marketing and promotions were the main topics of study for the Elon
group at the next stop, the World of Coca Cola, a museum built in
tribute to a product and its public image. Students viewed films,
saw historic advertising displays, viewed television ad campaigns
and also had the opportunity to sample various products bottled
by Coca Cola for people in other nations.
The student
group met with other Elon alumni and Advisory Board member Ellen
Hartman, president of Weber Shandwick Atlanta, for a dinner at the
Hard Rock Cafe, followed by an outing to see an improv troupe's
production in downtown Atlanta.
They spent
a day at Six Flags over Georgia, where they visited with public
relations chief Jim Taylor (a graduate of the University of Alabama-Birmingham,
not Elon). He talked about careers in public relations and shared
examples, including the type of planning involved in handling crisis
communications.
Leah Kessler,
director of internships and special programs, coordinated the Atlanta
trip. Accompanying her on the journey were School of Communications
professors Gerald Gibson, Ray Johnson and Janna Anderson.
|
