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Jim Ascendio, WAMU News Director

Jim Ascendio, News Director at WAMU, talked to our group this morning about his role as the leader of Washington’s public radio.  WAMU is owned by American University and is one of the only public radio stations in the country making money.

I hope that I will one day be lucky enough to have someone like Ascendio as my boss.  Even though WAMU is doing well financially, Ascendio is not happy to sit back and relax.  Ascendio says that he and WAMU are constantly working to stay ahead of the curve. 

Bootcamper Keyana Farkondepay

While many other public radio stations are cutting staff positions, WAMU actually added four full-time positions to its news staff.  Ascendio said that his listeners expect the best and WAMU strives to meet its listener’s standards.

Keosha Johnson talking to AU Bootcampers about her experiences at NBC

Later in the day our group was treated to a candid conversation with AU Alum Keosha Johnson.  Johnson just graduated from AU and spent a year in New York interning for NBC.  Johnson was picked from over 1000 applications to get one of six positions with NBC.  While at NBC, Johnson was able to produce segments for the Today Show and Dateline.

Bootcampers were earger to ask Johnson about her experiences at AU and what she is doing with her life now.Johnson was lucky enough to get one of the positions that WAMU created in its news department. 

Johnson told Bootcampers that the days of being just a print journalist, or radio journalist or television journalist are over.  Now journalists must be prepared to do multiple forms of journalism at the same time.

After hearing from Johnson, our group worked on our slideshow presentations.  It was not easy, but in the end I was proud of the work that I did and proud to learn a new valuable skill.

After two weeks it is obvious why this session is called Bootcamp.  We have all pushed ourselves and we will continue to push ourselves for the next 50 weeks.

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