Back to the Future-- Former BC 251 students return

Westminster grads Jon Joy (2003) and Chris Norris (2008) visited campus on Wednesday as guest judges for the BC 251/Video Production Mini-Movie Showcase. They both were former students in BC 251 and judged the group projects at this year's event. Check out some of their feedback and advice about playing with Flip Video cameras and doing mini-movie projects.

Rubbing elbows with creative types could lead to internships & jobs

November 6, 2009

PITTSBURGH, Pa.- Sixteen Westminster students traveled to CMU in Pittsburgh on Friday for a glimpse into their futures as they participated in the Creative Arts Career Seminar.

Organizers presented a variety of panels made up of experts ranging from filmmakers and broadcasters to poets and publishers to actors and musicians.

Each student picked two panels out of eight to attend. Those panels featured professionals discussing their backgrounds, internships and the future of careers in their fields.

"Wander and explore until you find something you really like that feeds your creativity and don't be afraid to take risk," Deborah Acklin, WQED Multimedia COO, said during the seminaor's keynote address. "I never looked for a job, they seemed to find me and I took chances on what I thought would make me happy."

The seminar also included a networking session where students rubbed elbows with panelists and had a chance to collect business cards.

Westminster Broadcast Communications major Lori Wise met Modcloth.com's Molly Prosser. Prosser is the Lead Eidtor/Writing Team Coordinator for the company. Modcloth is an online Pittsburgh-based fashion retailer specializing in vintage, vintage-inspired and indie clothing as well as blogs on fashion, art and music.

"We're definitely growing despite the economy and we're using social networking media to connect and we're looking to hire good writers who can work in new media," Prosser said. "I need people who can write for the web as well as Tweet, Facebook and be creatie with content for our products and for communicating with our visitors."

Wise happened to be wearing a shirt she purchased from the company.

"I like fashion and I like to write," Wise said. "It's also interesting to find out from Molly Prosser that she wants to read someone's blog as she considers who she hires."

Prosser says she looks for employees who can write in various formats and she's impressed to hear some Westminster students, like Lori Wise, maintain blogs and video blogs.

"Anyone who sends me a resume and has a blog link gets my interest as that's what we're about. The whole blogging and social networking for marketing is what we're doing."

Wise and other Broadcast Comm students maintain weblogs as part of their capstone projects.

The Westminster delegation to the Creative Careers Seminar was organized by the Career Center. Career Center Assistant Director Kati Edminston says the chance to network and ask questions from all these experts is extremely valuable when looking for internships and jobs.

"Knowing someone really helps you get a foot in the door," Edminston said."We're very pleased with the turnout we had from our students and it looks like they will take a lot away from this experience."

Vote for your favorite BC 251 INDIVIDUAL Mini-Movie project.

Click here to watch & vote!!!

BC 251 Mini-Movie Showcase- GROUP PROJECTS

ALWAYS ROLL!!! ON EVERYTHING!!! PROTECT YOURSELF!

Anchors running their own prompters? Hmmm...we do that at the college station...and always did it at small market stations.

WTTG-TV: anchors working teleprompters
from
http://www.rbr.com/tv-cable/17760.html

The Washington Post reported another sign of the times in local TV news: “The day's news may soon rest in the hands -- and quite possibly on the feet -- of newscasters at [News Corp.’s] WTTG, Channel 5, in Washington.”

In a bid to save money, the station is planning to reassign the technicians who operate the prompters that feed scripted news copy to the anchors while they're on the air. Instead, the station wants its anchors to do the job themselves.

WTTG, Fox 5, intends to train its newscasters to operate prompters using a series of hand levers and foot pedals, all while they're reading the news as it scrolls by.

"Instead of orchestrating coverage, fact-checking, handling breaking news, paying attention to the [newscast], engaging reporters, questioning authorities, covering bad writing and technical mistakes, anchors will now spend most of their time" running the prompter, a newsroom employee told the paper. "It's kind of like a literal one-man band -- singing, banging a drum, crashing cymbals, playing a trumpet and strumming a guitar…except we're not playing show tunes here."

Fox5 News Director Phil Metlin briefly described what the station had in mind in an internal memo last week, said the story. Metlin said reassignment of the prompter operators' work was part of a "corporate directive". Wrote Metlin to his staff: "We have purchased new equipment including foot pedals and hand controls. In the coming weeks, we will begin placing this equipment throughout our studios and we will begin a vigorous training program. Our goal is to use this equipment flawlessly."

WTTG GM Duffy Dyer told The Post his station hasn't decided when it will implement the new system. But he said the anchor-controlled prompters tested well at Fox's station in Austin. "Some anchors and news talent prefer to operate it themselves because they can be in complete control of the speed and the pauses. Maybe this will allow our talent to handle the prompter exactly as they want it."

RBR-TVBR observation: Sure, the move could increase the potential for on-camera blunders. Viewers may also notice some awkward movements beneath the anchor desk. However, the bottom line is to keep the newscast on the air and hopefully profitable. Eventually, newscasts may resemble more of a video blog on the internet as far as professionalism is concerned. As it stands now, most stations are relying upon citizen journalists with cell phone videos for much of their content. Nothing wrong with that – it gets the viewers more involved in the product, and more engaged.

Learn to use Twitter & Facebook-- & the ethical implications

Learn to use Twitter & Facebook—and no matter what tools you are using or how you are communicating with an audience, ACCURACY is the cornerstone for ethics in journalism.

WKYC-TV journalist Eric Mansfield posed a rhetorical question to the students attending a journalism ethics workshop wondering how many of them wanted to get a job after graduating college. Then he told them they better learn how to use Facebook and Twitter.

Mansfield joined other journalists and media ethics experts at the 2009 Poynter Kent State Media Ethics Workshop to discuss what values journalism will carry over from traditional media as the evolving model of news continues to change shape.

I brought along 10 Westminster College students from BC 311/Broadcast Journalism to join other students, faculty, professionals and ethics experts in attendance at the national conference featuring online journalists. Those students agreed the most compelling session came in the afternoon during the panel discussion called "When the News Finds You Through Social Media."

The conference advanced the ethics discussion concerning online journalism in a gathering called “What Values?” bringing together faculty, students andprofessionals. While sticky ethical issues came up concerning how journalists pull images, video and information from Facebook, MySpace and weblogs to using

Twitter for story ideas and news tips, all the experts kept brining the issue back to accuracy and credibility.

Rubber City Radio Vice President of Media Ed Esposito stress it was important to get the story right. He stated no one will remember who got it first if they don’t get it correct.

He pointed out only media insiders brag about who’s first because in an age where immediacy is no longer owned by broadcast outlets being accurate is paramount and the utmost important issue when it comes to driving ethics in any newsroom.

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One-Man Bands- The NEW NORMAL

"Most young journalists coming out of universities, such as the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, are “multi-media journalists the day they step out of college,” says Jerry Gumbert, president and chief executive officer of Audience Research & Development (AR&D), a news consulting firm based in Fort Worth, Texas. “They’re a very sophisticated breed that’s been used to operating their own websites to show and tell their own stories. There’s something to be said for a story teller having control of all facets of telling a story. It’s the new normal.”

FROM AZBiz.com

KVOA staffers fear changes
from newsroom reorganization
By David Hatfield, Inside Tucson Business
Published on Saturday, September 26, 2009

Sometime, supposedly in October, viewers watching local news on KVOA 4 will see the results of what station insiders are looking upon as a sea change in the way TV news is gathered. Reporters and videographers, as separate job titles, will be gone replaced with the title multi-media journalist.

It means reporters will be carrying cameras and shooting their own video and videographers will be out researching and reporting their own news stories.

Pejoratively the new job title is being nicknamed “one-man band” or “VJ,” short for video jockey.

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Actually the idea for multi-media journalism has been around for a few years as media companies try to meet the challenge to deliver news and information on multiple platforms. Indeed, Ed Tribble and Tyler Wing already carry that title at KVOA 4, though Tribble is leaving to take a similar job at KPNX, the NBC station in Phoenix.

What has put KVOA’s newsroom on edge is the manner in which the station is making the changes. Several weeks ago at a station meeting, staffers were told there would be a reorganization of the newsroom. Besides the change to multi-media journalist, KVOA is changing its news assignment desk,

which is usually staffed by one person per shift, into an area for “content managers” and “content producers” who will be responsible for updating the station’s website.

KVOA’s newsroom staff consists of about 45 employees. Those directly involved in these changes say they are being told they can audition for the new job titles, which has left at least a few of them with the distinct implication that not all will make the cut. Beyond that, KVOA is advertising it has openings for multi-media journalists as well as content managers and producers.

KVOA’s news director Kathleen Choal didn’t respond to a request to talk about the changes.

The announcement rippled through other newsrooms. And, for good reason, by the end of next year every TV station and print media outlet in the country will be using multi-media journalists to some degree, says Jerry Gumbert, president and chief executive officer of Audience Research & Development (AR&D), a news consulting firm based in Fort Worth, Texas. He says his company has 150 media clients, from both traditional electronic and print media companies. KVOA is an AR&D client.

Gumbert says media companies will still put together what he calls “a polished finished product,” either a TV newscast or a newspaper but the new normal he says is that consumers are going online to get news and information. More specifically, there are three peaks during a typical day, from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. after people arrive at work, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. just before going out to lunch and 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. just before going home.

“As any producers of a product do, we have to follow the consumer. And the consumer has spoken as to how they want their news. They want it when they want it and where they want it and if we don’t do that, then somebody else will,” Gumbert said in an interview. “We aren’t blazing any new trails. We either have to follow the changing media consumer to get them what they want, or we’ll be obsolete.”

Gumbert says he doesn’t get involved with how stations make the change.

Many of the early TV station adoptees of the multi-media journalism concept did it as a cost-saving measure. Often they were not the strongest news stations to begin with. In some of those cases, it was a last-ditch effort and hasn’t proven successful.

Other pushback has come because it requires employees to change. “Nobody likes change, it’s uncomfortable,” Gumbert said, adding, “Nothing is easy to the unwilling. It’s really about desire and passion.”

MORE...

Guess Doubling Up On Station Ownership Didn't Work

NEW VISION'S VISION'S BANKRUPTCY KILLING NEWSCAST IN YOUNGSTOWN

When companies take over multiple TV stations in the same market claiming it makes sound business sense keeping stations viable, do they know what they're doing? I guess that business model worked out so well that New Vision ended up bankrupt?

MORE FROM YOUNGSTOWN'S BUSINESS JOURNAL

WYTV to Eliminate 5 p.m. Newscast;
New Vision Expedites Chapter 11 Exit
By Andrea Wood


YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- As the operators of WKBN/WYFX and WYTV sail through bankruptcy reorganization with a hearing set for Sept. 10 to confirm the restructuring of $400 million in debt, local management today announced it will eliminate one newscast effective Sept. 21.

WYTV’s 5 p.m. weekday newscast will be replaced with a syndicated version of “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader,” says Dave Coy, general manager of the three TV stations. WYTV will continue to broadcast a local news program at 5:30 p.m., he notes.

Coy emphasizes no newsroom jobs will be lost -- just as no jobs have been lost in parent company NV Broadcasting's Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Nor has employee compensation been cut by the 14-station group, unlike the measures taken by other broadcasters and newspapers across the country as they grapple with the recession that has reduced advertising revenues, he says.

The programming decision includes a new 4 p.m. program on WYTV -- “Dr. Oz", a medical and lifestyle advice show with Dr. Mehmot Oz, professor of surgery at Columbia University.

Part of the rationale for the changes is that WYTV and WKBN will no longer compete for news viewers at 5 p.m., Coy notes. Instead, viewers seeking local news at 5 can watch WKBN’s program and those who look for local news at 5:30 can watch WYTV.

“This is the strongest lead-in programming we have ever built going into the late afternoon important news block,” adds Gary Coursen, news director of WKBN/WYFX and WYTV. “We are still meeting the needs of local news viewers at 5, while providing engaging entertainment for those who want their news a little later.”

Yesterday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, parent company NV Broadcasting received court approval to expedite hearings on its consensual reorganization plan.

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Spoofing the Prez

A funny take on the hyper-reality that is President Obama...

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CBS Taps Into One-Man Band Reporter in Afghanistan

Now one of the networks is tapping into the one-man band model.

Read more from the New York Observer.

CBS News Hires Digital One-Person Band Journalist to Be Based in Afghanistan

By Felix Gillette/NY OBSERVER

CBS News executives announced today that they have hired Mandy Clark, a former video journalist for Voice of America News, as the network's digital journalist to be stationed in Afghanistan.

Back in April, we wrote about various news organizations shifting their resources overseas from Baghdad to Afghanistan. At the time, Paul Friedman, a senior vice president for CBS News, told us that the previous fall, CBS had engaged in discussions with other networks, including NBC News, about the possibility of opening a joint facility in Kabul.

“We have all known for months that the focus was shifting from Iraq to Afghanistan,” said Mr. Friedman at the time. “We’ve all budgeted for it, and we’re all trying to figure out how best to get it done.”

Stationing a nimble, digital journalist—or so-called one-man band—in Afghanistan will no doubt help the network better cover the region in the months ahead.

At the same time, the move provides further evidence that the broadcast news divisions are undergoing a major shift in how they cover news overseas. Out: large, permanent bureaus. In: digital journalists armed with laptops and small cameras, who can report, shoot and edit their own video, while moving in and out of regions quickly.

“The old model no longer applies,” Mr. Friedman told us back in January. “You do not need a massive infrastructure, as long as you can mobilize people quickly when the story develops.”

To date, ABC News has been the most aggressive at investing in the new model. In October 2007, the news network announced that it was hiring seven digital journalists to report for the network overseas. The program has since expanded.

With the hiring of Ms. Clark, CBS News would appear to be exploring a similar model. "Mandy has done great work from the field in all conditions and we are pleased that she is joining CBS News,” said Mr. Friedman in today's release. “Mandy is intrepid and her wealth of experience reporting from the Middle East, Central Asia and elsewhere and her adroit use of technology, make her a terrific addition.”