The Adjunct Files
Adjunct faculty are a growing majority in higher education, shaping student experiences while navigating the challenges of contingent employment. As adjuncts at a regional public university, we know firsthand the realities, rewards, and roadblocks that come with the role. That’s why we’re here—to boost your mood and pedagogy with insightful dialogues on current challenges, practical strategies, and pathways forward for you and your students.
The Adjunct Files
From Newsrooms to Classrooms: George Lang on Student Media at FGCU
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What can adjunct faculty learn from a veteran journalist dropped into the deep end of FGCU’s Eagle Media?
In this episode, we sit down with George Lang, former entertainment editor, long‑time reporter, and now advisor to Eagle Media’s three student‑run platforms. George shares what student journalists are facing today, how media literacy affects every discipline, and why the most powerful teaching tool—whether in a newsroom or a classroom—is simply asking better questions.
If you’ve ever wondered how to help students find their voice, navigate today’s chaotic media landscape, or connect your courses to real‑world reporting, this conversation is packed with practical insights, stories, humor, and heart.
Give it a listen—your next class might look different afterward.
Theme music composed, performed and produced by James Husni.
Adjunct Nation is a collaborative podcast under the auspices of The Lucas Center for Faculty Development at FGCU. You can learn more by clicking on this link:
https://www.fgcu.edu/lucascenter/
Welcome to the Adjunct Files.
We're a growing, diverse community who face challenging work in an ever-changing, higher
education landscape.
Your co-hosts for this podcast are with you in this.
I'm John Roth.
Adjunct since 2015 and now a coordinator for Adjunct Faculty at Florida Gulf Coast University.
I'm Maggie Hohne, Adjunct since 2022 and currently work in the Office of First Year Seminars.
Together we hope to have conversations to empower, support, and elevate Adjunct faculty.
This conversation today is one to do just that.
Hello everyone.
Welcome back to the Adjunct Files.
John, how are you?
We're doing good.
This is doing good.
I guess that's not right.
Doing well.
Doing well.
Your son would correct me.
He is like the gramarian in the family.
You're not doing good.
You're doing well.
He sounds like my dad.
Transitive verb.
Yeah.
I know.
It's kind of wild.
Oh, your dad's a gramarian?
Oh, absolutely.
Or even just like directions.
I'll say, oh yes, we're going to go down to Orlando.
He's like, no, you're going up to Orlando.
So North is up.
Yes.
I need to make sure I have my directions correct when I speak about driving.
And Florida is so flat, you can't say you're going up anywhere really in terms of elevation.
Going across.
Yeah.
Well, we've got a great guest here today.
And I think it'll be great for Adjunct faculty to get to know George much better.
George Lang, who is overseeing Eagle Media here at FGCU.
We're going to have a great conversation.
And George, just introduce yourself.
Tell us a little about your background before we get into any questions.
Sure.
You've been here about a year and a half.
That's right.
And John, Maggie, thank you so much for having me today.
I arrived here in September 2024.
And I believe that September 13 was my very first day.
And it was consequential from the jump.
Yeah.
Like you didn't have a wind up.
You were.
Oh, yeah.
I was totally dumped into it.
And it's like, OK, now you have three branches of media to advise.
And what are you going to do with it?
And so a lot of it was just discovering what FGCU was about.
And then discovering where my students were at.
What was there?
What were they interested in reporting?
What were the precedence for e-gle media?
What were they covering in the past?
And just getting to know their personalities.
So I came here from Oklahoma, and I pretty much had to learn everything at once.
But it was amazing.
It really, really was.
What's your background, Tim?
OK, so I was a journalist for a full-time journalist for about 30 years.
I started out reporting on the Oklahoma City bombing.
That was like my goodness.
Oh, my goodness.
The first six months of my career, I was covering one of the biggest stories that I
would cover in my career.
Learned so much.
And I spent about a year covering stories that were adjacent to it in some way.
Yeah.
Going so far as to, in one instance, I, well, Timothy McVay, who was convicted of the bombing
of the Alfred P. Mera Federal Building, he, before he came to Oklahoma City, he stopped
in a white separatist community on the border of Arkansas and Oklahoma called Elleweem City.
And so me, junior journalist, went out there with a photographer, pre-cell phones and all
of that, and went to talk to these people.
With a bodyguard?
Oh, no.
It was just the two of us.
That was it.
I mean, it was, it was, it was a, it was a scary experience, but, but it really taught
me a lot.
I mean, my career really diverged wildly after that.
I mean, I, I had always been into music and film and, you know, things like that.
And I was given the opportunity to start reporting on, on film.
And in, in the very beginning, it was all about, you know, things that had been shot
in Oklahoma, right?
And so the first film that I got to cover was Twister, the original Twister.
That's so cool.
In 1996.
And so, you know, so I had known several people who had worked on the, on, on the set and
had been crew and all that.
And, and so, you know, I had been able to talk to them about their experiences.
And then I went to New York and talked to, you know, the cast and crew, the director,
all of these people.
And, you know, and it was really, it was kind of like a mind-blowing experience because
I was getting to talk to some pretty famous people.
Yeah.
And in, in a field that I was really, really interested in.
So, so I became an entertainment reporter.
And, you know, that was, that was my main focus, entertainment and features.
And, and so I spent a good probably 12 years or so covering the movie industry, talking
to musicians who were touring and coming through Oklahoma City and all of that.
And, and so, you know, but my, my adjunct career began while I was still full-time in
journalism.
I went to work for the University of Central Oklahoma, which is, which is just outside
of Oklahoma City.
But they had a satellite campus for the Academy of Contemporary Music at the University of
Central Oklahoma.
This is a really cool thing.
So this was, it was founded by the manager for the rock band, The Flaming Lips, who are
from Oklahoma City.
And, and so I was able to go in and teach about digital media.
Okay.
So, specifically for musicians and people who were going into the music business.
Well, nothing's changed in that area at all.
Not at all.
Yeah, right.
So, so I, so I spent, so I taught that for, I believe three years.
Okay.
And during that time, I had to change my, my lesson plan every single semester, because
everything was rapidly changing during that time.
It's probably exciting.
It is.
It's a lot of a pain, but also very exciting.
It's really exciting.
Yeah.
Because, because the, you know, these are things that you're paying attention to professionally.
And then you're able to impart it to all of these students.
Yeah.
So, you know, so yeah, that was, that was my introduction to adjunct work.
And, and I found it to be really fulfilling.
And so, you know, so I did it for several years after that.
We could talk a lot about these, just all the topics you've already raised as far as
I'm interested in Elohim City.
Oh, yeah, sure.
As, as, you know, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's a place that's not.
Is it still there?
Oh, yeah.
Absolutely.
And I, I, I did a follow up story several years ago.
I believe it was the 20th anniversary.
Okay.
And I did.
And so I went back and I actually ended up talking to some, some of them on the phone.
And you know, like, like their prime primary financial income is logging.
Okay.
Okay.
So they make a ton of money off of wood and, and that's how they bankroll their private
society.
Yeah.
So, Elohim is the Hebrew word for God.
Right.
Okay.
So it's a religious, military, wrist, stick.
Yes.
Extremist.
Yes.
I mean, that's just fascinating.
All of those, all of those things.
Yeah.
You know, we were probably more conspiracy theories.
You throw everything in, right?
Well, it's, you know, I mean, things that we are accustomed to hearing as conspiracy
theories.
This is an article of faith for them.
Yeah.
And it's hard to convince anybody of anything differently.
Right.
Once you would go down that rabbit hole.
But you don't want to be trying to convince people who are, who are like, who are carrying
guns.
No.
Well, that and also, you can't really like, you can ask questions and just see if they
can kind of square the circle.
That's really the key.
Whenever you're tempted to express an opinion or something like that, the better thing to
do is to ask a question.
Yeah.
And that's probably true actually in the classroom as well.
Keep asking questions.
Keep going a little deeper.
Kind of that socratic method.
Right.
Yeah.
Have you noticed a difference in students from your time being an adjunct to now being
here at a university full time and supervising them?
Have you seen a big shift in like their personalities, what they're interested in, how they approach
this kind of work?
The people who are studying to be journalists right now, they've been through a lot.
Most of them graduated at the tail end of COVID.
And so they've experienced a disrupted high school experience.
And so a lot of them, when I started advising media, student media, what I found is that
they had lost some key skills that they had to rebuild.
Mm hmm.
One of them was the ability to ask a question.
Okay.
Right.
Of authority.
Yeah.
And that's a really important skill for a reporter to have.
And during COVID, one of the things that we did a lot of as reporters was we were sending
emails.
Because we just couldn't reach out to people in person.
Right.
But a lot of people just got kind of stuck in that mode.
Okay.
And so one of the things that we had to do-
Like more passive outreach.
Yeah.
It was passive outreach, which given the circumstances, I totally understand it.
But we had to build beyond that.
And so it was like, okay, call them.
Yeah.
Just call them.
What happens if they don't answer?
Or what happens if they do answer?
Oh, which is even worse.
Yes.
All of those things, right?
Yes.
And then it was, oh, okay.
So they didn't answer the phone.
Okay.
Well, why don't you go to their office and sit there?
Mm hmm.
And so there is, you know, it's-
Putting yourself out there.
Putting yourself out there and letting yourself take control of the situation.
Is it a fear of rejection?
That's right.
Do you think?
Well, I mean, some of it is just, you know, not being conditioned-
Right.
For-
To go above and beyond to get that.
To go above and beyond.
Yeah.
I mean, because you're like, you know, you've spent the last, you know, couple of years
being told, oh, you've got to be over here by yourself, right?
Right.
Now they had to actually go out and talk to people.
And that could be really intimidating for a lot of people.
I think-
And they felt awkward.
I still think there's some social awkwardness that a lot of students have and just interacting
with other people in person.
Or even over the phone.
Right.
I just want to text, I want to screen in between me and you and some form.
Yeah.
Right.
That's safety net.
Right.
But, you know, but as reporters, you always get better information.
Oh, absolutely.
Absolutely.
Always.
Right.
Well, George, thanks for being here.
Of course.
This is fascinating already.
We've gotten to our real quote, real question.
You just have so many questions.
Yeah.
I've never spoken to like a real life journalist before.
Oh, wow.
This is fancy.
Wow.
Your opportunity.
Here we go.
So, George, you know, this is an adjunct faculty podcast.
You're going to elevate the voices and the experience of adjunct faculty as well as
just supporting them in what is very unique.
As you know, personally, unique situation where you're actually full-time employed or
doing other things and this is a part-time gig and you're on the edge in between at times.
But anyways, I think most of our adjuncts here are trying to do their best and do a
great job at integrating both their professional and practical experience into the classroom.
But I also think we often are not seeing all the resources that are available to support
our teaching and learning and our students.
So, what if faculty, especially adjuncts, often overlook in that area of media and as
a teaching resource and how might EGLE media help fill those gaps for adjunct faculty?
Well, just to start out with, media is in its essence education.
I mean, if it's being conducted properly.
Right.
If all your institutions are healthy, then media is going to be educating you.
You know, one of the things that John and I probably remember from our childhoods is
like a parent reading a newspaper every day.
Right?
You know, either in the morning or at night, sometimes both.
And that was your parents' way of educating themselves, you know, arming themselves with
information to get through the next day.
Right?
Like I said, in an ideal setting, media will do that.
It will educate you.
You know, unfortunately, we have a lot of what has become corporatized media where, you
know, it is answerable to stockholders.
And it is permissive toward power.
And it doesn't really, you know, like truly investigate things because, you know, when
there's, when there are, like, capitalistic forces coming at you, there's money at stake,
you know, then journalism can be compromised.
And it has been since the 1980s, right?
You know, when you started seeing, you know, corporate ownership of the three, you know,
the big three networks at the time and things like that.
So, you know, all of these media organizations that used to be independent now have corporate,
you know, overlords.
Yeah.
Overlords.
Yeah.
Right.
You know, so it does change things.
And so a lot of people have become people in power don't like them, don't like to be asked
questions.
Right.
And, and people who aren't in power, who are not seeing those questions asked, start to
distress the media so you can get it from both sides.
Right.
Just like a pressure cooker.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
You know, but like, you know, ideally what I'm, what I try to impart to my students is
that there are other options, right?
You can go as an independent journalist and a lot of people are doing it.
Right.
And that's going to be, you know, that's where education will start to come back into
play, right?
Yeah.
That, that media will be considered to be a, you know, a viable source of, of, of strong
information.
Mm hmm.
Yeah.
Right.
What I would say is that for, for adjuncts, for faculty in general, when you're looking
at, at student media, just know that, you know, a lot of times we're covering things
from the, from the specific vantage point of students, right?
Mm hmm.
You know, so, so like, if there's something major going on in the world, like, you know,
if the US invades Venezuela, right?
Right.
Or Iran or something like that, then, you know, then one of the things that Eagle Media
tries to do is look at the ways that it is impacting students, particularly students
from Venezuela or from Iran.
Yeah.
You know.
It's always taking that lens of the student part, like their true or authentic voice kind
of.
Exactly.
Exactly.
You know, so, you know, we're like, we're trying to say, okay, well, where are people's
heads at right now?
And how can we give them information about this war that's going on that, uh, you know,
that, that's is contextualized properly.
Right.
And, you know, and so, you know, so, so what I, what I advise my, you know, my editors is,
you know, ask questions about, you know, a potential draft, ask questions about, you
know, about boots on the ground and all of these different things, you know, because
it fundamentally changes things.
Yeah.
And it can fundamentally change things for students who are attending FGCU.
Mm hmm.
And really, you know, I think what I'd like to see adjuncts and, and other professors,
um, be thinking about is, you know, how, how we can, you know, take the questions that
our students are asking us, you know, and then maybe, uh, you know, like take some of
the reporting that's being done by student media, you know, and apply it because we're
always going to, we're always going to try to be there, you know, wherever, you know,
wherever the present is, we're going to try to, um, you know, look at things through the
lens of our students.
Mm hmm.
Awesome.
And that does create both, um, relevance in some of the courses I've taught.
We call it hermeneutics, which is interpretation.
It's what does this mean to me?
What does it, why does it matter?
It's that existential question.
It's not just information now, but how is this impacting my life and the decisions I'm
making?
Right.
And that, um, often has to come across in, um, a lesson otherwise, I mean, why do you,
why do I need to learn this?
Mm hmm.
Right.
But, but, you know, like that hermeneutics approach is often applied by, by media.
And that's, and, and like you said, I mean, that's, that's something that we're, that
we're doing.
And, and, you know, it's sometimes in the industry, it's referred to as like news, news
you can use, that kind of stuff.
Right.
It's, it's like, okay, so, you know, this major thing just happened.
How is that going to impact me?
You know, how's it going to impact my pocketbook?
How is it going to impact my education?
All of those things.
For adjunct faculty, sometimes we're just like, uh, pulling it together, just in time.
Or, um, there's so many other things that are pulling at us.
Um, so what are some simple low effort ways adjunct instructors could incorporate media
literacy or student-create content into their courses, even if they're outside of, let's
say the communication fields?
Right.
Well, okay.
So, um, John, what are you, what do you teach?
I, well, right now I'm teaching apocalyptic America in the book of Revelation.
Oh, wow.
Okay.
It's really lighthearted stuff.
Yeah, I heard of stuff.
And this week it's on how a political figures use political apocalyptic rhetoric in their
speeches to motivate.
Okay.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, and it's happening even as we speak.
Well, I mean, to me, that seems like a class that you can, you can almost entirely teach
in the here and now, although you're, you're going to have some, you know, some scriptural
basis for a lot of it.
And historical background, we've gone through history.
Now we're coming up to the modern era.
So, right.
Right.
Yeah.
So, um, you know, like in that case, what I would be doing is I would be like looking
at, um, you know, like legitimate reporting on these, on this kind of political movement,
the sort of, um, you know, the, the, you know, uh, the end times, uh, philosophy on, you
know, the Middle East and all of those things that are, that are kind of coming together
for people who believe this way, right?
And then how it impacts how they live, how they react, what decisions they're making.
It's fascinating.
And it, and it also, and it impacts people who don't believe that way.
Mm hmm.
So, so if you're, you know, you can take examples from every day of the news, you know, for
your, for your topic.
And, and that's applicable to everybody, right?
Right.
I mean, you know, if you're, um, if you're in, like, if you're teaching sociology, you
know, it's, it's a program that is, you know, that is not receiving a lot of support right
now.
Right.
Um, you know, uh, you know, from the state and from, uh, education in general.
Um, you know, but when you, uh, when you explain to people that, you know, when all of this
is done, you know, everything that's going on in the world right now, you know, there's
going to be, you're going to need sociologists to sort things out.
What actually happened and what was the impact?
What actually happened, right?
And, and, you know, and so I, I, you know, I say, um, you know, for people who are teaching
sociology and you, and, and you know, you have students who might be concerned that
they might not have a career out there.
Right.
You say, this is happening right now.
This is happening right now.
These are all the things that, that people are going to study in the years to come.
You know, so get ready.
Yeah.
You're going to be needed.
Start training now.
Exactly.
Coming up.
That's right.
That's right.
I see, um, you know, like reporting and, and, and solid reporting as being really important
to understanding these things.
But then also you can use bad reporting.
Yeah.
As an example.
Okay.
You know, like, like the, you know, the epic times, uh, you know, like, which is, it's
a media organization that is supported by the Falun Gong, uh, uh, in, in China, right?
Yeah.
And it's, it tends to be pretty extreme.
Right.
Um, and they have set up shop in the US over the last, uh, you know, about, you know, 12
years or so, uh, reporting apocalyptic news.
Yeah.
Right.
Not doing a very good job of it.
And there's a lot of conjecture in their reporting and it's, you know, and it's, and
it's coming from a very specific point of view.
You know, but a lot of people just like they pick it up and they go, Oh, it's the news.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, you got to dissuade people from, from verify verify verify verify verify.
And a lot of people are single source consumers of news.
Right.
And I've noticed that too, even with students, they're like, Oh, will somebody on X said
this?
And I'm like, do we even know if that's a real person or is that just an account with
the checkmark?
Like, like who is that?
But even media literacy, I think of everything going on in the healthcare industry.
Yes.
Right.
Like that's very important for people going to healthcare.
Like what are the actual facts of what we're talking about?
What studies are people pulling all these like sound bits from exactly like this one line
in this one study said this and this is the only thing I'm going to focus on.
And that's going to be my talking point.
Like how do you that cherry picking?
Yeah.
How do you tell students like, Hey, that's not like true reporting and not giving like accurate
holistic information.
Twitter or X or whatever we're calling it.
Whatever it is.
Yeah.
You know, that I mean, that's, you know, it's not a source.
It is a medium.
Right.
Right.
So, you know, it's so who on X said that?
And what's their background and what and do they have the authority to make these statements?
Yeah.
And so those are the kind of questions that you ask.
You know, like, was this a reporter?
But, you know, who's who is this reporter and where they report who they were for?
Who do they work for?
Yeah.
And are there any journalistic standards at all?
Like anybody reviewing there were?
Yeah.
Right.
I'm amazed at how many students when I taught politics and religion in America during the
election.
Yeah.
You just know how to pick them, John.
It's like, Hey, just wait.
Just wait.
Almost two thirds of the class was just getting their news through their social media feed.
And most of their sources from podcasters to whomever have no journalistic standards,
they can say whatever they want.
Right.
They don't link their sources.
There's nothing.
And it's like they're not in a traditional and I'm not necessarily for traditional, but
at least there's an editorial board usually at these places and a process to say, Oops,
that we have to retract that.
We have to change that.
Mm hmm.
Yeah.
And that is something that came with the internet and the democratization of ideas.
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
So, you know, once everybody was able to produce everybody produced, you know, or a good number
of them did.
For better or worse.
Right.
For better or for worse because a lot of them just didn't have the knowledge base or they
had, you know, or they had a circumscribed view of the world or whatever.
You know, and so, you know, so media got really confusing for a lot of people.
Yeah.
Right.
And so, you know, you see this on the listings of, you know, like media sources that are
most visited on Facebook.
Right.
There, you know, it's not the New York Times.
It's not, you know, you're, you know, reliable, pro-public, you know, that, you know, great
news sources.
It's, you know, it's, it's some, you know, like podcasts that are YouTuber.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Something like that.
And, you know, and, and it's somebody who did not come up through, you know, the, you
know, the reporting scheme, they came from the pummeling you with information scheme.
Right.
Right.
So, I have to say that they're not accurate because there are some like independent platforms
that they do a lot of that on the boots on the ground.
They link all their sources.
Here's the transcript.
This is where I found this information.
So I think that's great.
But it's those people who are just shouting into the void with those talking points.
Exactly.
They're just shoving it down your throat.
That kind of, yeah.
So it's stuck.
So like, you know, like, if you have people who are just reading their social media feeds,
right?
Well, you know, the one thing that you can do is you can improve your social, social media
feed, you know, you can, you can follow reporters that you trust.
Yeah.
I mean, I don't use X anymore.
I moved over to blue sky.
Okay.
Okay.
And so I ended up following reporters who were on blue sky.
And that's, you know, I didn't, I didn't follow, you know, celebrities or anything like that.
You just tailored your content.
I tailored my content.
And so as a result, I get reliable information through my social media feed.
You know, it's, it's really just about sometimes it's about architecture, how you build it.
Yeah.
Right.
And so I think, you know, one thing that I would, that I would suggest to students and
really to everybody is really examine who you're following and, and whether it's really
serving you the best.
Yeah.
You know, are you really learning something?
Or are you having things just sort of, you know, come, you know, having your ideas compounded?
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Kind of flipping to a, just a practical matter as well right now.
So what kind of collaborations between EGLE media and adjunct faculty, do you see that
are probably underused at the moment?
And what's an easy way for an instructor, even an adjunct faculty instructor to get
involved?
Well, the easiest thing in the world is to like find something that's going on in either
your program or your department that is really cool.
Right.
You know, because, because just about everybody has something here at FGCU that's kind of awesome.
Right.
You know, reach out to a reporter about it.
You know, you know, or if you.
Would you give us an example?
Oh, gosh.
Like how someone might reach out or like why they did and what you all were able to report
on.
I think one of the best examples that I can find is the, you know, the food forest.
Right.
Yeah.
You know, like that's something that a lot of students learn about in the very early
going of things, you know, like if they're.
The resource.
When they're taking their tours and all of that stuff, you know, but, you know, maybe
they don't, you know, maybe they don't go there.
Maybe they don't visit it.
It's a little off the, off the beaten path.
You know, so I get it, but you know, but the people at the food forest reached out to us
and said, you know, hey, what, you know, can you, can you come out and, you know, and do
a feature on us.
And you know, and so we've, you know, we've done that where, you know, like we, we go
out, we take pictures, we, we, we publicize the purposes of the food forest and, you
know, and what is available there and, you know, what, what you can do with it.
Right.
Right.
You know, and so that was, that was really just a simple act of reaching out, sending
an email, you know, to me or to the editor in chief or, you know, like, and just saying,
hey, I got something cool going on.
Right.
You know, and, you know, sometimes it's a professor who is, you know, who is running
a podcast that is really interesting.
Right.
We did a story like that not too long ago and how it was helping to promote his writing.
Right.
You know, so we, you know, we respond to emails about that kind of thing.
And, and also it's like, you know, it's like, this is another thing that you can do that's
kind of the opposite as an adjunct.
You can volunteer as a source for a, you know, you know, for a story.
Right.
You can send out an email to, you know, to eagle media and say, hey, I have expertise
on this thing that is going on in the world right now.
I am very willing to talk about it.
Yeah.
You know, that'd be cool.
And so, so that does a, that does a couple of things that, you know, that helps advance
you in your career because you've been, you know, you've been quoted by a media organization.
It also, you know, elevates you in the eyes of the students, you know, because you were
trusted as a, as a source.
Right.
You know, all of those, those, those two things can really, really help you in the classroom.
And it, and it just helps, helps educate maybe you like kind of knock, knocks down the
walls of the classroom a little bit so that, you know, so that your, the messages of your
class actually got out far beyond.
Yeah.
Cool.
If a faculty, if anybody really is doing a service learning project with their course,
that does impact like directly in the community, would that be something worth reaching out
about?
Oh, truly.
Okay.
Yeah.
Like, I just know that's a big push right now.
And we had Jamie Wilson on last week or a week or two ago, and she's telling us some of the
awesome things.
And I'm like, I would have loved to have known that.
That's so cool.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
She's got a lot of cool things going on.
But yeah, you know, really the, you know, the best way that you can impact the media
is by engaging it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right.
And, you know, and also respond when a, when a reporter calls you.
Mm hmm.
A lot of people don't like doing that.
Oh.
It's a, it's a, it's a knee jerk reaction.
I don't want to talk to the press.
What if they make me look like an idiot?
The reporters who are at Eagle Media are all about telling the story, you know, and they're
not about gotcha.
There's not an angle.
There's not an angle.
They're not, they're like, oh, I'm going to take them down.
Yeah.
There's none of that action going on.
We operate a, a very principled and ethical shop.
You know, so, you know, so yeah, responding to a reporter is, is it, you know, I mean,
that's, it's good karma.
That's good to know.
It is.
You know, but, but, but also it's like you, you actually helped that reporter who is getting
their education.
That's right.
So, so be thinking about that, you know, like, it's reciprocal.
It's reciprocal.
Yeah.
If you're, if you're a, you know, if you're a reporter at Eagle Media, you are a student
reporter.
Yeah.
You are, you're working toward getting into the professional realm.
Yeah.
And, and, and so you're going to, you know, they're going to do, they're, they're going
to operate in a professional way.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, George, what's something about Eagle Media's mission or students that faculty may not know
that they, they truly are students, you know, that it's, you know, that, you know, the fact
that they are part of journalism does not change the fact that they are very much
students and they, and they are learning this process.
Mm hmm.
You know, the one, the one thing that, that people can be assured of is that a lot of
eyes see everything before it goes out.
Right.
That's cool.
And, and that's, that's something I can, you know, I, I can even like lay it out for
you guys if you want to, if you want to hear what it's like, you know, a reporter,
you know, turns in a story and it, you know, and it gets read by an assistant editor and
an editor and then it, and then it gets looked at by me.
Mm hmm.
And then before it goes into our magazine that goes out every month, every single person
on staff looks at that page before it gets printed.
Okay.
So, so there's a, there's a lot of efforts to try to make this as, you know,
most legitimate as legitimate and responsible as we can be.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, so that's, that's one thing.
Right.
I, I feel like our, our quality control is really, really strong.
And some of the things that these students are doing are things that I had never seen
before in my professional life.
Oh wow.
I, you know, we would sit around, okay, I'll, I'll give you a story about, about newspaper
work is that, you know, like I was the editor in chief of an alternative weekly, which was,
you know, it was called the Oklahoma Gazette and we would have pages 11 by 17 pages clipped
into these restaurant clips, you know, like, like they use for orders.
Uh huh.
And, and we would line the halls with these things and every, and every single one of
us would go out into the hallway with a pen and start marking it up, you know, and they
would make the changes.
Well, that was the, that was the old school way of doing it.
Now what, what we do at Eagle Media is, uh, our graphic designer puts everything out
on PDFs and we all look at the same page at the same time.
We're all looking and it's a great way to maintain quality control and, you know, and
to, and we catch, we catch things, you know, and so I'm really glad that we have that system
in place.
Yeah.
And that's great practice for them once they go out into the real world.
They'll be, they'll be better than is expected of them.
That's amazing.
Yeah.
Any deeper connections adjunct faculty can make, um, that might also strengthen, uh,
Eagle Media here.
Hmm.
Well, um, you know, like first of all, I wanted to talk a little bit about, uh, about journalism
and about how, you know, how journalism schools, you know, typically are, are teaching our
students, you know, a lot, you know, like here at FGCU, we have, uh, we, we have on staff
faculty who are all coming from the field, you know, um, you know, nobody, you know,
like spent all their time in academia, you know, in journalism and journalism studies.
We are all, I think that's very important.
Yeah.
We all come from, we all come from, you know, newsrooms, you know, and spent a lot of time
there.
And so, uh, you know, so really the area of journalism is, is an area where adjunct
work really kind of flowers and is where it's expected.
And then, and so, you know, that's, um, you know, I've, I feel like, uh, it can be a model
for other, you know, other adjunct professors.
Now, you know, like how you, um, how you can, you know, build those connections with Eagle
Media.
You know, everybody who is adjuncting, you know, or I'd say most people who are adjuncting
have a story to tell.
Mm hmm.
Right.
And, you know, and so, you know, like there's a, there's a reason why you end up deciding
that there's a part of your existence that can only be fulfilled by teaching.
Right.
Yeah.
It's, it's not just being out in the field.
It, you know, it's an itch.
It's an itch.
Yeah.
You know, and so, you know, so like, you know, looking at what the journalists have done,
that, you know, every single one of them that it's, it's not because they needed the extra
money is this because they needed another extra outlet for the, for the information that
they had.
Um, you know, and so yeah, I think that everybody can learn from that.
George, this has been a lot of fun.
Yeah, it has.
I think the biggest thing that, um, like can be transferred across disciplines for students
is, um, what you said a lot of is keep asking questions.
Mm hmm.
Just keep asking them, right?
And if somebody, I like what you said about instead of if you feel the urge to give your
opinion, ask a question of the other person.
And I really like that because I feel like a lot of times it's like, we just want to
be heard.
Right.
I don't care about what you're saying or thinking, just hear me out.
But if you keep asking those probing questions, a lot of times you might get a different
answer than what you expected or have the other person kind of revisit their viewpoint
and stance.
And I think that's important in every discipline.
Very absolutely.
Got to pop that bubble.
Yes.
We're all in.
No question.
Well, George, we're happy you're here at FGCU.
Yes.
Thank you.
And we hope it's a long term situation.
I'm going to try.
I'm going to do my best to make it that.
We look forward to hearing more.
And we might do this again.
Who knows?
We should.
We should just get an update.
Excuse me.
See what else is going on.
Yeah.
Maybe we could invite one of the students on your team.
Yeah.
A couple of students get their perspective.
They are, you know, some of the brightest people I've worked with.
And so, yeah, I would love to bring some along.
That would be great.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Give us some names.
We'll do that.
That'd be fun.
We'll have a good rest of your day, whatever length it is, after listening to this.
And we hope to hear you again on the adjunct files.
Bye, y'all.
Theme music composed, performed and produced by James Husney.
