UA Journalism Students Produce French Lifestyle Magazine ‘Alpine Living’

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — A University of Alabama journalism class recently produced the third edition of Alpine Living, a multimedia lifestyle magazine on French culture, as part of a capstone journalism course in magazine production.

The group spent two weeks this spring in France covering stories for the Alpine Living project, which included a full-color, 132-page print magazine and multimedia Web site. Before the trip, the 20 graduate and undergraduate students enrolled in the course conducted background research and preliminary interviews and developed an itinerary. After their return, they wrote and edited stories and photographs, designed the magazine, and handled other editorial tasks. Students completed the magazine three weeks after their return from five regions of France – the Alps, Provence, the Riviera, Paris and Normandy.

Dr. Kim Bissell, Southern Progress Corporation Endowed Professor in Magazine Journalism, developed the course about five years ago. She was looking at best practices of college journalism departments around the United States and noticed that many produce a magazine, usually with a local focus. To make UA’s class more unique and challenging, she decided to take an international perspective.

This year the students added a multimedia dimension to the project, blogging during their trip and creating a companion Web site, alpineliving.jn.ua.edu.

Bissell feels it’s important for students to have the opportunity to write and produce for varying media platforms in the evolving world of journalism. “The blog, video and Web features were simply ways of ‘keeping up with the times’ but it was also a way to showcase more of their work,” Bissell added. “Obviously, the Web is limitless in terms of space, so we could post more stories, photos and video in the Web format. More importantly, students learn how to think about preparing content for multiple platforms.”

Alpine Living is produced every other spring semester. The class traveled to Switzerland for the first edition in 2005 and to Italy in 2007.

Students who produced Alpine Living include:

Allyson Angle, St. Louis, Mo.
Sarah Belanger, Huntsville
Emily Bell, Knoxville, Tenn.
Danielle Borsh, The Woodlands, Texas
Robert Bozeman, Wetumpka
Katie Cole, Tuscaloosa
Anna Lee Gresham, Monroeville
Brett Harman, Tuscaloosa
Megan Honeycutt, Mobile
Robyn Jorgensen, Pelham
Jessie Patterson Jones, Tuscaloosa
Ashley Kalifeh, Mobile
Shannon Langan, Daphne
Andrea Mabry, Pelham
Mary-Keeley McAllister, Tuscaloosa
Lacie Pinyan, Blountsville
Laura Pitts, Oakman
Allison Sperando, Birmingham
Forest T. Sumrall, Northport
Brittany Tate, Niceville, Fla.