Mike Boettcher and Gaylord Students to work with ABC News

On Sept. 1, the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Oklahoma launched a groundbreaking project in Afghanistan partnering with a veteran network correspondent and with ABC News. Mike Boettcher, a Gaylord Visiting Professor, will report for ABC News from Afghanistan and work with Gaylord students to produce multimedia content. Boettcher and the students will cover in-depth, personal stories about U.S. military personnel deployed in Afghanistan.

Boettcher, who began his network career with CNN in 1980, moved to NBC News in 1984 and reported for ABC News last summer in Afghanistan. Boettcher and his son Carlos will spend a year embedded with U.S. troops in Afghanistan and will use advanced multimedia techniques to explore new ways of covering this difficult subject. The Norman, Oklahoma-based Sarkeys Foundation is funding the project.

Much like Pulitzer Prize-winning World War II correspondent Ernie Pyle, Boettcher will record footage and interview the rank and file men and women at the front lines of the war in Afghanistan. Boettcher’s reports will air on several ABC News programs and appear on ABCNews.com.

Boettcher will also transmit material to Norman, Oklahoma where Gaylord College undergraduate and graduate students will offer content for the ABC website and do independent reporting about families of troops covered by Boettcher in Afghanistan. Some of the student projects will be made available to ABC news outlets while other stories will be posted directly to a website dedicated to the project and hosted by the college.

Boettcher has spent the past year as a visiting professor teaching multimedia journalism with John Schmeltzer, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago Tribune journalist and the Engleman/Livermore Professor of Community Journalism. This past year, they launched the college’s new online news magazine, Routes.

In spring 2009, Boettcher taught a “War and Media” course with Gaylord College Dean Joe Foote with Boettcher delivering his content live from Baghdad. It was there where Boettcher developed the formula for providing lectures live from the front lines via satellite, a practice he will again employ with this project.

“I really enjoyed these past couple of years working with the Gaylord College and OU,” says Boettcher. “I was able to bring the war zone to the classroom previously for the ‘War and Media’ course and this year I got to work with John Schmeltzer and a great bunch on students on Routes. Now, I am really looking forward what we can do with to this next project.”

 “Mike Boettcher has been a huge asset to our students during the past two years whether he is teaching them about international news coverage live from the front lines or sitting next to them as they edit their stories,” said Joe Foote, dean of Gaylord College. “Mike cares deeply about the next generation of journalists and has bold ideas on how to inspire and help them. We’re excited that this partnership between Mike and ABC News that will allow our students to have a unique view of how a war is covered and how multimedia journalism is playing out in real time on an international level.”

 “This is a project that is very important to me,” continued Boettcher. “The war in Afghanistan has not received anywhere near the media attention it deserves. I want to tell the personal stories of the men and women that are fighting this war. This project will let me do that and still work with the great students at OU.”

In a third component of the project, Boettcher will produce real-time tutorials on cutting edge multimedia journalism techniques for use in the classroom and as self-paced instruction for the Gaylord College’s online software training site, Pacesetter.

Mike Boettcher, a Ponca City, Oklahoma native and 2002 Distinguished Alumni Award recipient of the OU journalism program, is a Peabody and multiple Emmy award-winning network foreign correspondent who has spent the past 30-years covering the world’s trouble spots for CNN, NBC and ABC News. He joined the Gaylord College faculty in the fall of 2009 as a visiting professor.