Yesterday carried a great story on the champion blogger in America, Andrew Sullivan, author of the The Daily Dish. If you want to understand blogging, you’ve got to check out Sullivan. He wrote a essay for The Atlantic called “Why I Blog,” that is essential reading for journalism students.

The broadcast had another good story on journalism schools, particularly the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. With people lamenting the decline of newspapers, cynics wonder if journalism is dying. Journalism is not dying. The means of delivering information are being transformed, but reporting, editing and writing are not dying. The story conveys the excitement of going through a period of transformation and change and the uncertainty that comes with it.

The people who make news usually exhibit obsessive behavior and that is why we want to know about them. Readers like to measure themselves against people who are highly accomplished. They want to understand the psychology of achievement and failure. They want to know the outer limits.

Nocera does a great job in analyzing the fictional and non-fictional treatments of the Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook and the central character in the new movie, The Social Network. It takes obsessive, selfish behavior to create a huge success, Nocera says. This is an unpleasant truth to hear.

And Nocera has a good message for journalists: sometimes you can get the facts right but miss the emotional truth of a story. The movie makers changed the facts but got the emotional truth right, Nocera says. The nonfiction writer got the facts right, but misinterpreted the emotional truth. It is possible for a nonfiction writer to get both the facts and the emotions right, but the danger lies in getting too close to the source.

I’m a man of color, one of the few on the train and often the only one in the quiet car, and I’ve concluded that color explains a lot about my experience. Unless the car is nearly full, color will determine, even if it doesn’t exactly clarify, why 9 times out of 10 people will shun a free seat if it means sitting beside me.

The French have an expression about this: the more things change, the more they stay the same.

But what he’s really concerned about is local original reporting, something that can only be done by having a staff on the ground. No amount of aggregating news sites can do this. Good point. There will continue to be a market for all sorts of specialized local news. And because the entry costs are low with digital technology, there’s an a wide open field for innovative publishers/editors/writers to create publications and videos of interest to a local audience. The question will be finding a way to make money for doing it. If I were trying to start up a profitable digital company, I would keep up with the advertising technology.

The foundation of news operations will still be the ability to report, write, photograph, edit and design. Students are flocking to communication programs because they instinctively know that these skills are going to be in demand, not only in news organizations, but in corporations, government and nonprofits. Study the technology, but also learn the basics. You have to be almost insanely obsessive about details.

My first goal is to provide some resources for student journalists. I’m helping Prof. Serbino Sandifer-Walker teach Introduction to Reporting. I’ll be blogging about class writing, and along the way I’ll post writing, reporting and editing tips at Reporting at TSU. I welcome your ideas about journalism at TSU.

I’ve already received a warm welcome from the students and faculty. I look forward to getting to know you in the weeks to come.

On Friday, August 20, I accepted a new position as chair of journalism at the school of communication at Texas Southern University. The job will be a wonderful opportunity to help build the program at this historic school.

My great regret is having to leave behind many wonderful students from the past two years. I know there is a great lineup of students in Opinion Writing.

Fortunately, two very good teachers are filling in for me. Joe Holley, the political writer for the Houston Chronicle will be teaching opinion writing. Joe has been the opinion page editor for the San Antonio and San Diego newspapers. His last gig was at the Washington Post. He has taught opinion writing at the University of Texas and George Washington University. He’s a good friend of mine and I am delighted to that he is going to teach the class.

Joe Leydon, the film critic, magazine writer and blogger will teach Social Issues in Journalism. I can’t quite remember when I didn’t know Joe. He was the long time critic for the Houston Post. He is a great teacher, with a great sense of humor and a very good writer. He makes it look easy, which it ain’t.

One of my big regrets is that I won’t be able to teach environmental writing in the spring. I had a nice grant from the university to make make environmental writing into an undergraduate research course.

In four years at UH I’ve learned a lot, especially from students. I will miss you all. I hope to build some bridges between UH and TSU, and I won’t be far away. At some point soon, I will change the title of this blog. There will be a tiger instead of a cougar. But I won’t forget all that UH has meant to me.

Best of luck to all of you journalism students and stay in touch.

Michael Berryhill