Who is Press?
Photo by Mark Bergin
For starters, yes, my last name is Press, and I’ve heard every joke there is about my profession and my last name. Well, almost everything. So if you have a good joke about my last name, and it really makes me laugh, you might be in line for a fabulous prize.
Growing up as a television child, the media have always been a part of my life. I can’t really get away from media, which is why I went off to school, got a journalism degree from Ryerson University (Go Rams!) and ended up using my last name to land a few gigs, including internships at the Nor’wester in Springdale, N.L., the Windsor Star and the Globe and Mail.
After working for more than three-and-a-half years at the Kingston Whig-Standard, most of which I spent as the city hall reporter, I went back to school in 2009. Good timing for me because I got caught in a round of layoffs.
Two years of hard work ended with a master of education degree from Queen’s University where I focused my research on how best to teach news literacy. After graduating, I moved to Ottawa and am now a parliamentary reporter for Postmedia News, covering whatever happens on “The Hill” with a focus on digital storytelling. I enjoy doing journalism every day — hence why I’m smiling and laughing so much.
I also enjoy learning. When I went back to school, this blog was a way to organize my thoughts and post whatever little journalistic endeavours and personal stuff that came up in my life. Now it’s a place to keep posting my thoughts and make sure I don’t stop trying to learn more about the news.
If you have any ideas, great resources or comments for me, leave comments here or on any posting.
Oh, and most people just call me Press. It’s just something about the last name.
Jordan Press
I’ve also been thinking about these issues. A useful book on news literacy is UnSpun by Jackson and Jamieson. I’ve also written a digital multimedia book for college students and advanced high schoolers called Detecting Bull: How to Identify Bias and Junk Journalism in Print, Broadcast and on the Wild Web.
Good luck! It’s an important topic.
Thanks for the book reference. I’ll have to pick it up. Considering the questions that I received from my classmates and faculty at Queen’s, along with questions from two local high school classes, I’m realizing how important this topic is. Send me more suggestions! The more the merrier.
Hi, Jordan
Could you or Mark Kerr post the 2010 Election Results for the Township of Frontenac Islands online somewhere? We can’t find them anywhere yet.
Tweeted a link to the Whig story. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the final vote tally for the councillor seats, but I did get who won. Here’s the link just in case: http://bit.ly/cvojkx
Hi Jordan,
I noticed on the CentreforNewsLiteracy interactive map of participating institutions that Queen’s University was listed with you as a contact. Can you advise whether their course ever got off the ground ?
I’m looking for a way to contact students and lecturers of News Literacy in order to ask them to visit an online survey I am hosting to try to categorise the various web 2.0 technologies that can enable news consumers to educate themselves on various news issues.
Would you be able to participate in the survey and ask any of your students or colleagues that you think will be interested to contribute their opinions as well. It is located at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/LKKDQBG.
Many thanks,
Jonathan
jbsinbox -at- yahoo.co.uk
Jonathan,
Thanks for the note. Unfortunately, I’m no longer at Queen’s and I wasn’t able to do any lecturing there while I was working on my thesis. I’ll pass on the survey to friends and colleagues, but let me know how things progress with your research. I’m curious to see what you find. Good luck!
Thanks Jordan. I’ll keep you posted.
Jonathan