On Wednesday 6 September from 11:00am to 12:00pm, join our live videoconference
WordSpace: Journalism
Join Sándor Lau and Lane Nichols in a discussion about journalism. WordSpace is a series of videoconference discussions between secondary school students and leading New Zealand writers, brought to you by the New Zealand Book Council and CWA New Media. To participate, your school will need to be a member of the Book Council.
The session will look at the different forms of journalism, and how to get into a career in journalism. Sándor and Lane will talk about their own career paths, what changes the Internet has brought to traditional news media and where they see journalism heading in the future.
Sándor Lau
Sándor Lau is a journalist, documentary filmmaker, poet and short fiction writer. His fiction and poetry has appeared in many New Zealand publications including Sport, Poetry NZ, JAAM and the NZ Listener. His short story, ‘Why Smoking is Bad for You’ won first place in the Australasian Short Story Awards 2002. ‘It’s Not Downhill if You Have to Pedal’, was published in the anthology Creative Juices: New Writing in 2002.
As a journalist, Sándor has written for several newspapers in the States, for the New Zealand Herald, Staple and Lumière magazines. In 2003 he was involved extensively with the television programme, Asia Down Under. A ten minute documentary, Another Man’s Treasure (2001) received the Rangatahi Premier Award at the Media Peace Awards. The film also won Best Film at the 15 Minutes of Fame Festival in Auckland; and second place at the Otago Screen Fest 2002. But Sándor is perhaps best known for his documentary Behaviours of the Backpacker (2003). Armed with a backpack and a camera Lau walked from Auckland to Cape Reinga, capturing the stories of the characters he encountered along the way.
Sándor Lau took part in WordSpace last year and is back by request!
Lane Nichols
Lane Nichols trained as a journalist at Wellington’s Massey University in 2002, before working as a reporter at the Nelson Mail for two years. Since 2005, he has been working at the Dominion Post, covering news in the Hutt Valley. He has recently been assigned to the newspaper’s education round, covering pre-school, primary and secondary school stories. His work includes building contacts within the education sector, finding, researching, and writing articles, all to tight daily deadlines. Lane also contributes to general news stories.
This is your chance to find out what it’s like to be a reporter working for a major daily newspaper.
TO REGISTER FOR THIS VIDEOCONFERENCE, CONTACT: digitalconversations@cwa.co.nz or telephone: (04) 382 6515 BY Monday 4 September 2006
The Book Council will be creating a DVD of this session, which will be available for schools to purchase. If your school takes part in the session, please be aware that we will need signed permission forms from all participating students.
