GSS gets a jumpstart at Stanford production day

Approximately 20 students from Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Redwood City, Stockton, and as far away as Washington, D.C., attended Global Student Square’s 1st production day at Stanford University on Saturday, Jan. 10.

The agenda for the day included introductions, a story brainstorming sessions, a quick tour of the GSS virtual newsroom,

Angilee Shah, social media manager for Public Radio International, and Izabela Moi, a John S. Knight Fellow from Brazil who is studying at Stanford this year, also did presentations on global and community journalism. Shah’s new projects include #safemode, an effort to involve young people in the conversation about global security. Moi’s project, Mural, gathers news from a corps of 100-plus correspondents in Sao Paulo, many of whom report on stories and issues affecting lower-income Brazilians, who would otherwise not be represented in mainstream news publications.

Students also Skyped into the GSS newsroom from New York and South Korea.

Beatrice Motamedi, who is also a John S. Knight Fellow at Stanford this year and who is developing Global Student Square as her fellowship project, said production day was a huge step forward. She also expressed gratitude to journalism teachers and advisers at Palo Alto High School, Menlo-Atherton High School and Sequoia High School, who put out the word to students and gave advice on the day’s agenda. JSK Fellows Najia Ashar and Anh Hoa Truong, plus Stanford Storytelling Project producer Josh Hoyt also came to work with students on their projects.

“I think the best part of the day for me was listening to the range of stories that students want to do,” Motamedi said. They include a piece on the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris to a package on how students deal with mental illness around the word. Students are already at work pitching stories about food, music, and even a “hijab fashion show” that portrays the many ways that young Muslim women wear traditional headscarves.

“It was an awesome day and I look forward to doing it again in February,” Motamedi said.

GSS will be holding monthly production days from February through May at McClatchy Hall at Stanford. For more information, sign up for the GSS Mailing List here.