by Valeria Fanelli –

Beppe Severgnini was in Chicago to cover the presidential elections and to present his last documentary. He shared his experience with Columbia College Chicago grad students in journalism, on Monday, Nov. 5.

He talked to the students about the future of journalism and gave them some hopes for their career.

“You must be curious like a child if you want to do this job,” he said. “You must keep a side of your life childish otherwise you would not be curious enough.”

Severgnini, columnist for the Corriere della Sera and the Financial Times, as well as a best-selling author and the most widely read Italian author in the U.S. in the past five years, explained the students that they have to keep moving forward and don’t get discouraged by the lack of jobs.

Also, he told them to reinvent their job as journalists and try to experiment new ways of communication with the new means and technology that they can use nowadays.

“We need to become a little bit special,” he said. “People want something they can relate to, the byline is not enough anymore.”

Severgnini also explained the importance of finding new angles when writing a story and showed the class his unique way of writing about politics, through short cartoons.

“I love languages and I decided that everybody can talk about politics in his/her own way, so we created it in a very special way,” he said.

Severgnini created Italian lessons with a collection of videos that explains some key terms of Italian language, adapted to the current political scene.

The meeting with the Italian journalist also touched hot topics of American politic. He asked the students who they though was going to be the next president of the U.S. and created a video for il Corriere della Sera with their answers.

The students response was unanimous. They all predicted President Obama’s re-election.

To watch the video, click here.