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Live Podcast: Featured Guest Sree Sreenivasan, Columbia Journalism Professor, Dean of Students and Former WNBC-TV Tech Reporter

by | May 1, 2009 | Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Eastwick Communications, How I Got Here, Podcasting, Social Media, Web 2.0

[Editor’s note: This post and podcast originally produced for Eastwick Communications here…]


Prof. Sreenath Sreenivasan

Those of you who know me know that I don’t scare easily… but today I’m feeling just a tad intimidated.

I could not be more pleased to welcome esteemed professor, dean of students and former WNBC-TV tech reporter Sree Sreenivasan to “Break though the Noise.”

As usual on the program, we discussed influence, the changing state of it and whole lot more.

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[Click here to listen if the player above does not appear]

The In-depth Bio:
Sree is a journalism educator at Columbia University, freelance technology reporter and an expert on convergence journalism – teaching journalists to work in multiple media formats such as print, TV, radio and online.

In January 2008, he was promoted to a newly created position at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, Dean of Student Affairs, overseeing all aspects student affairs for the school’s 400ish students from 25+ countries – Admissions and Financial Aid, Student Services/Acitivites, Career Services. He had previous worked as Dean of Students from July 2005-December 2007.

In this, his 14th year of teaching, he continues to run, and teach in, the new media/Web journalism program. In July 2007, he was promoted to Professor of Professional Practice. He also teaches workshops in “Smarter Surfing: Better Use of Your Web Time“, Figuring Out Blogs & Whatever’s Next, along with other topics, in newsrooms and educational institutions around the US and abroad.

Sree has been a fixture on NYC-area television for almost seven years. Until recently, he was WNBC’s tech reporter, covering all kinds of technology issues, gadgets and trends. He had previously served for six years as the “Tech Guru” on WABC-TV (he made 500+ appearances there). He has hosted and helped produce two half-hour specials about technology: Dec. 2007’s “Tech4NY: Holiday Gifts” for WNBC and April 2002’s “Computers 101” for WABC. He has also guest hosted segments of “Asian America” on PBS, a nationally syndicated English program about Asian American affairs (samples).

As a freelance journalist, he has written for The New York Times, Business Week, Popular Science, Time Digital, National Journal, India Today, Newsday, Bloomberg, Forbes.com, Sesame Street Parents, Rolling Stone (samples). He has been published in several other periodicals, including the Fiji Sun (in which he got his first byline at 15), and has been a freelance producer for the “Nightly Business Report” on PBS and a reporter and editor in India for The Sunday Observer and Business Today. From 2001-2007, he wrote a twice-a-month Web Tips column at Poynter.org (read online and e-mailed to 10,000+ media subscribers) and for several years wrote a weekly “Sree’s Smarter Surfing” tip for ShopTalk, the largest newsletter (he gave up both as his role at Columbia increased).

He is co-founder and former president of SAJA, the South Asian Journalists Association, a group of 1,000+ South Asian journalists in New York and across the U.S. and Canada. A former administrator of SAJA’s awards and scholarships programs, he continues to serve on its executive board and to write regularly for SAJAforum.org, its newsy blog.

For 10 years, he served as faculty adviser to Columbia’s chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and won the group’s “National Faculty Adviser of the Year” award in 1998 among 200 campus chapters.

From 2000 to 2002, he was the founding administrator of the Online Journalism Awards, the world’s largest new media contest, run by Columbia and the Online News Association (a group he helped co-found in 1998).

Sree is a frequent commentator and speaker on various issues, including trends affecting journalism; technology & convergence; the Internet; writing for the Web; and South Asia & South Asians in America. He especially enjoys speaking at schools and colleges about the charms and challenges of working in the media (more on these talks and see OJR article, “Meet Columbia’s New Media Guru“).

In April 2004, he was named one of the 20 most influential South Asians in America by Newsweek magazine. In July 2007, India Abroad named him one of the 50 most influential Indians in America.

Sree has a Master of Science degree in journalism from Columbia; a Bachelor of Arts in history from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi; a high school diploma from Marist Brothers High School in the Fiji Islands (he also studied part of 13th[!] grade at Suva Grammar School in Fiji); a sixth-grade diploma from P.S. 6 in Manhattan; a kindergarten (or deskisat) diploma from Mosow; and a birth certificate from a Catholic hospital in Tokyo (though he’d be hard-pressed to produce any of these in a pinch).

He lives in Manhattan with his wife, Roopa Unnikrishnan, a strategy consultant, Rhodes Scholar and world-class sports rifle shooter (and now a blogger); and their young twins, Durga & Krishna.

On the Net:

[cross-posted here…]