March 10th was a special day for our class’s guest speaker, Willy Weinbaum; it was the fifteenth anniversary of starting his job as a producer for ESPN. Weinbaum began his journalism career as a student at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, soon taking a job at Major League Baseball doing video production. While covering the Super Bowl, Weinbaum received the call that changed his life; he was offered his dream job as an ESPN producer and has been there ever since producing pieces for Outside the Lines, SportsCenter, and other ESPN programming.
In addition to discussing some of the editorial choices he made in his different video clips that our class watched and wrote about, Weinbaum shared his advice for those students seeking careers in journalism; for Weinbaum the key is writing.
“I can’t emphasis enough to young people, being able to write is the most important skill,” said Weinbaum. “Letters and emails need to be clear and concise, they are the first thing someone is going to see from you…work on your writing, the more you can hone your skills the better you’re going to be.”
-Cate Harding ‘10
