Riya V. Anandwala
IBJ staff
Two months after reopening under new owners, the Music Mill restaurant, bar and concert venue has closed its doors again.

Formerly a Discovery Zone children’s amusement center, the 700-person venue at Clearwater Crossing in Indianapolis is owned by locally based The Broadbent Co., which posted a “no trespassing” sign on the Music Mill’s locked doors late last week.

Broker John Beouy said yesterday that new Music Mill owner Jeremy “Hoss” Tevebaugh has defaulted on the rental agreement – just a week after the commercial real estate firm announced that the lease had been signed.

Neither Tevebaugh nor former majority owner Nick Davidson returned phone calls from IBJ about the abrupt closing or the status of Tevebaugh’s contract to buy the business.

The Music Mill opened in 2005, providing a mid-sized venue for local and national talent. Davidson and business partners Ron Schiffli and Jack Shockman closed the business in late February, saying the sour economy had taken a toll.

Tevebaugh, a former Shelby County deputy sheriff who also worked security at Verizon Wireless Music Center, signed a contract to buy the Music Mill in April and reopened the venue April 17.

Broadbent changed the locks last week.

Earlier this month, Tevebaugh told IBJ that he wanted to transform the venue into a dance-oriented nightclub with DJs and dance nights. Under the previous ownership, it had featured live acts of regional and national stature.

Just a week ago, Tevebaugh signed a contract with Indianapolis-based Mundo Beat Entertainment LLC to host a Latin Rumba night every Friday from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m.

The first event occurred without incident June 9, but Mundo Beat was informed the day before the scheduled June 19 show that the venue would be closed, said talent coordinator Margie Estaeban-Gonzalvez. At the time, Tevebaugh said he has hoped to reopen the venue this week.

Estaeban-Gonzalvez said the group is now searching for a new venue after hiring dancers for the event.

“I am in a blur right now. It was a waste of money and goodwill, both,” she said.

The Music Mill’s Web site is still operational, listing three upcoming shows – in addition to the ill-fated Rumba nights. All of the live music was scheduled for the Whammy Bar, the 21-and-over restaurant and bar adjacent to the music venue. The listed events offered free admission.

Steve Gerardi, who managed events and bookings for Tevebaugh, said the venue was trying to provide more entertainment options than it did under the previous owners, by scheduling comedy shows, for example.

Local musician Cliff Snyder, who also books talent for local venues, said Indianapolis is a challenging environment for places like the Music Mill.

“It was very unfortunate, but the reopening was not very well-planned,” he said.

In fact, it appeared the new owner hadn’t completely taken over the business yet. As recently as mid-June, the Music Mill’s liquor license was still held by Davidson and his partners, according to the state Alcohol and Tobacco Commission.

Davidson, however, denied being involved with the venue anymore. “We have sold Music Mill to the new owner on contract and the transfer is in process,” he said.

Beouy, the Broadbent broker, said the company is looking for another tenant for the Music Mill space.

Riya V. Anandwala
IBJ staff

The budding entrepreneurs who practiced their business lessons at last month’s Indiana Black Expo Summer Celebration posted record sales – thanks in part to the popularity of the Michael Jackson T-shirts they were hawking.

The 18 students from Indianapolis’ Haughville neighborhood sold their wares – ranging from caps and sunglasses to purses to home-baked cookies – as part of Business Leaders for the Next Generation, or BLING, a summer business-education program for low-income youth.

Founded in 2004, BLING is a program of the Academy of Greater Works, a not-for-profit education group operating in the Martindale-Brightwood neighborhood. BLING received about $16,000 in funding over the years from Lilly Endowment Inc.’s Summer Youth Program Fund, but this year its 13 board members opted to raise the money themselves.

“I wanted to move aboard in fund raising,” said Director Jeffrey Berry. “All of the money, about $10,000, was raised by the board members this year.”

Berry, who also founded the academy, is a full-time teacher at Pike Township’s Snacks Crossing Elementary School.

BLING trains a group of 15 to 20 students each year. Berry, the primary instructor, teaches the fundamentals of business – from legal structure to sales and marketing. The board also brings in local professionals to talk about their experiences.

The students – ages 9 to 16 this year – do not pay to participate in the program, but they do invest in promoting the businesses they create.

“Students make business cards and fliers; they pay $2 for that. We don’t charge them the market rate,” Berry said. “We do let them know that nothing is free.”

Students meet at different community centers in neighborhoods like Martindale-Brightwood and Haughville for about six weeks. After learning the basics, they write a business plan and sell their products at the Summer Celebration.

To become proficient at handling money, students also open savings accounts under BLING’s umbrella in the Community Choice Federal Credit Union. The program also includes field trips to the credit union to learn more about accounts and loans.

The culmination of the program is the graduation ceremony and the business-plan competition, held Aug. 1 at IUPUI Kelley School of Business. This year, Genesis Howard won the $200 first prize by selling purses.

Participants also get an opportunity to earn some money during the course of the program. Berry said students can earn up to $25 every week by attending classes and meeting all the program requirements.

Such business-oriented programs are important and valuable for young people to be financially literate, especially during a financial downturn, said Jennifer Burk, CEO of Junior Achievement of Central Indiana. JA has been running a financial literacy program for kids of all ages in Indianapolis since 1919.

In a 2006 survey conducted by Junior Achievement, nearly 71 percent of the 1,474 youths who participated said they wanted to be self-employed someday, up 7 percentage points from 2004.

JA hasn’t done another such study since then, but Burk said there has been an increase in the number of student inquiries about the program.

“These kinds of financial skills are truly critical to the success of the next generation,” she said.

Berry agreed. Every year, the BLING group runs one group business and several individual student businesses. This year, the group sold Michael Jackson T-shirts, generating a record $ 800 in sales.

James Cowherd, 17, broke the individual student record, making a profit of $223 selling hats and bandanas. He placed second in the business-plan competition.

Students decide what to sell, then go to a wholesale market to purchase their products. Berry teaches them how to set a retail price.

In addition to the revenue some students received job offers from employers at Black Expo. Fourteen-year-old Azia Watts, who sold home-baked chocolate chip cookies, received two job offers from catering organizations.

“The program was very interesting,” she said. “We learned a lot from the guest speakers about our own business, competition, how to improve our product and service.”

A few students strive to continue with their business even after.

BLING veteran Arron Smith, who joined the program in 2006, sold self designed T-shirts at that year’s Expo. Now a high school graduate, Smith still designs shirts whenever he finds the time.

“From my part-time business, I make around $700-$1,000 a year,” he said.

Read the story on IU School of Journalism Website

Photo by Riya V. Anandwala

Erica Hunter (left) and Rishika Murthy received their master’s degrees in journalism Saturday. Murthy will work as an intern this summer.

Like many of the Class of 2009, School of Journalism senior Michael Sanserino is headed to an internship this summer instead of a fulltime job.

“I applied to seven newspapers in October just for internships,” said Sanserino, who will work at The Wall Street Journal in San Francisco this summer. His early start paid off. After a phone interview in November, he was offered the internship.

With unemployment at an all-time high, this year’s graduates in all fields are having tough times landing jobs. A National Association of Colleges and Employers’ survey found that employers expect to hire 22 percent fewer graduates this year compared to 2008.

“This is indeed an uncertain and difficult time period in the job market,” said School of Journalism Career Services Director Marcia Debnam, who has been conducting Career Cafes once or twice a week this semester for students to bring their job and internships problems in addition to her regular one-on-one sessions with students. She and others at the school have invited professionals to campus this spring meet with students to talk about the job outlook and strategies for landing a job after graduation.

“A record number of jobs have been cut in media and media-related industries,” said Debnam. Newspaper jobs, for example, are down 15 percent from last year, and other areas have suffered as well.

Though she acknowledges the tough times, she is not all pessimistic about the prospects for this year’s graduates.

“You can’t judge at this time how the economy is affecting hiring,” she said. “Even in better times, jobs open only on an as-needed basis.”

NACE’s survey found that only about 20 percent of the class of 2009 who applied for jobs has one, down from 51 percent in 2007 and 26 percent in 2008.

So students such as Sanserino are opting for internships they hope will lead to fulltime jobs, once they get their feet in the door and establish their talents and abilities. Or at least, these internships will beef up their resumes. He’s no stranger to interning as he already has worked for the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, the South Bend Tribune and St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times.

Chip Cutter will join Associated Press in New York his summer, hoping to turn this internship into a full-time job. Specializing in business journalism, Cutter received a Reynolds Business Scholarship last summer and interned with Indianapolis Business Journal.

For Cutter, the key to land a job is having a specialty in some area of journalism.

“It is important to know multimedia, but at the same time one has to stand out from the others,” he said. He will be working at the business desk of Associated Press, covering the banking and financial markets.

He also believes keeping a casual relation with one’s previous editors and colleagues helps, too.

“Once in a while, I send a text message to my editors at IBJ. This way they don’t forget you,” he said. Cutter also has a full-time offer from IBJ.

While Cutter emphasizes having a specialized area of interest, Sanserino believes in variety.

“I covered sports at the IDS when I was a reporter, but I didn’t cover the same beat when I was interning,” said Sanserino, who also was editor-in-chief at the IDS and won many awards during this college career, including top honors from two journalism organizations.

He said reporting and writing hard-hitting stories increases the chances of getting an internship. He wrote about Vietnam veterans suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome while at the St. Petersburg Times and the story garnered a lot of attention.

Photo by James Brosher

Chip Cutter is interning for Associated Press this summer.

Graduate student Rishika Murthy, who has worked on the Muslim Voices project at the Center for the Study of Global Change, will intern with Indianapolis Monthly magazine.

“This is something I always wanted to do. I applied to quite a few newspapers for paid positions, but they didn’t have any openings,” said Murthy. She also applied to a few jobs in Singapore, but didn’t hear back.

While Murthy will fact-check and assist editors, Jingting Zhao, another graduate student, will be working for NBC Chicago this summer. Zhao is thankful to Debnam, who continually sends out lists of internship positions to all journalism students.

“I was surprised when I got the phone interview opportunity. But it just came that way. By that time, they told me they have several candidates for that position because it’s very competitive,” said Zhao.

Not only are internships competitive, but fewer are available. According to the NACE survey, employers are cutting the number of college students they will offer internships by nearly 21 percent compared to last year.

Some undergraduates are looking at entering graduate school instead of striking out in the job market. NACE found about 27 percent this year’s college graduates are planning on graduate school compared to 24 percent last year. Earlier this semester, the School of Journalism hosted a graduate school open house for those students looking at graduate schools to learn more about the program.

Photo by Riya V. Anandwala

Junior Brian Spegele is one of nine winners of the Roy W. Howard Collegiate Reporting Competition. He heads to Asia June 13-27.

Junior Brian Spegele’s passion for international journalism gets a boost this summer as he heads to Japan and South Korea as one of nine winners of the Roy W. Howard National Collegiate Reporting Competition.

Spegele was in Canada when he received the call from the Scripps Howard Foundation that he had been selected as one of the winners. The contest awards winners with a 14-day, all expense paid tour of Japan and South Korea in mid-June.

Even the destination fits Spegele’s plans.

“I am definitely excited about being one of the winners in this competition as I have an interest in international journalism and Asia,” said Spegele, who spent last fall in China. He is working on a double major in journalism and international studies, and a minor in Chinese.

But his journalism skills landed the award. Winners are chosen based on their published or broadcast work and an essay on their interests in international affairs.

“We are pleased to be honoring Brian Spegele as a candidate who has demonstrated international journalism skills,” said Sue Porter of the foundation in a telephone interview. “He has won some prestigious journalism awards and balanced his life well as the managing editor of the IDS.”

This school year, Spegele was a managing editor at both the IDS and INside magazine. He had amassed plenty of clips as a reporter and as an intern last summer for Conde Nast Traveler.

While in China, he worked on a story about Eli Lilly & Co.’s venture capital investment plans in Shangahi, a piece the Indianapolis Business Journal later published. Spegele is fascinated with China’s economic development and its performance on the global stage.

“It is an emerging economy and so active,” he said. “I am currently writing about it for my senior capstone project in international studies department.” After he graduates, Spegele hopes to work in China for international media.

Already, he has built an impressive resume. Spegele won several prizes for this writing this spring, including awards for feature writing and in-depth stories in the Indy Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists’ contest; prizes for reporting at the SPJ Region 5 contest; and similar awards at the Indiana Collegiate Press Association’s contest.

Earlier this year, Spegle won the Poynter Scholarship, which provides a cash prize as well as an internship at the St. Petersburg Times. He’ll complete that internship just before he heads off to Asia with the other Howard winners for the trip June 13-27.

Photo by Riya V. Anandwala

IDS art director Larry Buchanan (left) and Spegele talk with other staffers about upcoming plans. Spegele has been a managing editor of both IDS and the INsider magazine.

Since the competition has included this trip as part of the award, groups have visited both cultural and media sites in both countries, from Osaka Castle in Japan to the demilitarized zone that separates North and South Korea, from broadcasting groups to newspapers.

The trip is designed to allow winners to better understand the life of Roy W. Howard, who led Scripps Howard Newspapers from 1922-1953 and United Press International from 1912-1920. An inveterate traveler and newsman, Howard landed an interview with the emperor of Japan in 1933, the first American to do so.

The School of Journalism houses Howard’s correspondence and Dean Brad Hamm is a Howard scholar who has led the trip for the last several years.

“Students like Brian and the other eight winners go on to become much better journalists with all the knowledge they grasp through such opportunities,” said Hamm.

Read the story on IU School of Journalism Website

Riya V. Anandwala | April 29, 2009
After covering a series of local police and court stories in Bloomington, associate professor Anthony Fargo‘s nine graduate students packed their bags to cover the Supreme Court in Washington D.C.

The J551 Reporting the Law class left April 19 to cover oral arguments at the Supreme Court and returned five days later having blogged about their findings at IndyStar.com, the Indianapolis Star’s Web site.

The students spent the semester preparing for the trip, the second Fargo and the school have sponsored. Students spent much of this semester researching the Supreme Court cases, learning about the justices and exploring the style of reporting required to cover courts. The students formed teams of two or three to study four cases: Iraq v. Beaty, Safford v. Redding, Horne v. Flores and Ricci v Destefano.

Each day, students mingled with professional court reporters, such as those from CNN, CBS and Bloomberg. While some students were shoulder to shoulder with the likes of National.

Public Radio’s Nina Totenberg, recording the respondents’ statements, others tried fitting their cameras along those of CBS and CNN.

During hearings, they watched the proceedings, studying the attorneys and justices as well as noting the court artist who sketched the scene.

Oral arguments are a chance for the attorneys to make presentations and answer justices’ questions about cases, which usually are selected because they involve interpretations of the U.S. Constitution. The justices already have read the attorneys’ briefs, submitted earlier, and often question the attorneys about significant points, according to the Visitors Guide to Oral Argument at the Supreme Court of the United States.

As soon as each case was submitted, students went to work, rushing back to their hotel to file their stories for the Star blog.

“It was gratifying to see students write such intelligent stories in a very short amount of time,” said Fargo.

During downtime, they continued to talk about cases, reflect on what they had seen and dissect each justice’s remarks and body language.

Photo by Riya V. Anandwala

Graduate student Lindsay Eckert interviewed a firefighter involved in one of the cases the Supreme Court heard while students visited Washington, D.C.

Student Emily Loftis’s team covered the Iraq v. Beaty case. She said the trip not only made the process of Supreme Court decisions more tangible, it helped her understand the dedication and diligence that is required of a Supreme Court reporter.

“I realized how important a court reporter is to keeping the public informed of the evolution of law in a nation,” she said.

Loftis had no journalism experience. She saw the trip as a valuable learning experience.

“A student cannot possibly have the same experience of reporting in such a significant environment while sitting in a classroom,” she said. “It revealed elements of reporting that will help me in career decisions as well as journalism methods.”

Also during their stay in Washington, students visited IU alumni Shawn Chen, Associated Press online news editor, and Bill Nichols, managing editor at Politico.com. Each spoke about graduates’ chances to join news organizations.

“They made me feel I can be an integral part to the transformation,” said Loftis. “They balanced the optimism with a warning that it might be rough, and gaining multi-media skills and experience is vital to making me marketable.”