Just For TV Teachers

This NBC fiasco has me thinking about network greed, and how the late-night TV shows have become, in comparison with the Carson and Cavett era of intelligent interviews, humorous sketches and inspired comedy bits, featuring stars and legends that are sadly absent from the landscape today, just weak imitations that actually find their origins in the 50s show hosted by Steve Allen, who was followed by the inimitable Jack Paar, who then stepped aside for Johnny, who sadly left his mantle to Dave, who was then ambushed by the Peacock gang in favor of Jay, who now finds that his recent coup to return to the “Tonight Show” at the expense of the more loved, but less-viewed Conan, has made him unpopular with the general public, and that he may actually take it on the chin when he resumes his role as the “Captain Obvious” of late-night talk, once we all finish watching the winter Olympics and begin looking for the color of spring, which will surely remind us that life is best observed outdoors, when things are coming to life again, and not through the idiot-box in the front room.

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I am honored to share the spotlight with one of former students for this blog.

Ashley Reynolds is a 2003 graduate of Hillcrest High School, where she was a reporter and anchor on “HTV Magazine.” Her junior year, she was part of the team that won the “Robert F. Kennedy Award” for high school broadcasting for their in-depth study called “Poverty in the Ozarks.”

She is now a working journalist, one who is still young enough to clearly remember her high school and college experiences, and how they helped prepare her for a career in journalism. Ashley is currently a reporter and anchor for WYMT in Lexington, KY.

Below find her answers to four questions I posed. (And thanks, Ash, for taking time to provide such thorough responses)

1. Tell me two or three lessons/concepts/approaches/experiences from high school TV that have stayed with you through college and now professionally.

A. The story is never about you. So many folks want to get into TV because they simply want to be on TV. The best reporters let their sources and natural sound tell the story. Always have a CCC- A Central Compelling Character. Center your stories around real people. Don’t just interview the city council members about the new smoking ordinance, get out and talk to smokers and nonsmokers.

B. Shoot in sequences. This is as basic as you can get, but it is true. This saves me everyday. I see what I want to shoot and write a basic script in my head so I can write to video…then once I edit, I just lay down the shots. This makes you fast!

C. KISS- Keep It Simple Sweetheart or as Davis says, “Puppies must die.” Everyday I get about 90 seconds to tell a story. It’s all about trimming fat. I hate throwing away good bites, but you can’t just use good bites… you have to use good bites that move the story forward.

2. What aspect of broadcasting was hardest for you to grasp or conquer in college, or now?

I think sometimes it is still hard to grasp not everyone will like your stories. No matter how much work you put into it, or how fair you think the story is, someone is going to hate it. That’s just part of the job. Many people do not see their own biases. I had a parent tell me once I had no right to interview school district officials about an educational story. The parent thought I should only interview parents. Even after explaining I couldn’t just tell one side to the story, the parent still did not agree with me. In some cases you just have to use sound journalism and hang your hat up and call it a day.

Also, I don’t think covering murders, car accidents, shootings, any of those stories will ever get easier. I’m a strong believer you have to feel it to tell it. I meet a lot of people on the worst day of their life. That will always be hard for me.

3. What excites you about your job now that you are a professional journalist?

What really excites me about my job is telling stories using different mediums. I love using the Internet to make my stories better. I have a blog that helps give our viewers more information. I also use Twitter and Facebook to give updates throughout the day. These are great tools to connect to viewers so we can improve news.

4. What is your biggest suggestion for finding a job in TV news?

My biggest suggestion is to learn how to do everything. Report, Anchor, Produce, Edit, Shoot, and web! If you don’t, you probably won’t get a job. News Directors are laying off people that have limited skills and hiring those that can “do it all.” The days of having a photog are basically over. Cameras are easier than ever to use and stations don’t want to pay two people to do the job when one can. This skill can only help you. The internet is king. The more tools you know how to use, the more marketable you are. Finally, go to a college where you are going to get REAL experience. Internships are great, but the more hands on experience you get the better. KOMU in Columbia, MO is a great setup to get the feel for what an actual reporter does.

Finally, the goal for your first TV job is to get you to your next TV job. Bigger cities are not always the best option. Go to a place that has opportunities.

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Everyone, or at least every publication, did a top ten list for the past decade. Top ten movies, songs, albums, innovations, trends, technical advancements, you name it. So now I’ll take a stab at it.

The Top Ten Stories Relating to Scholastic Broadcasting 2000-2009

10. The Copyright and Fair Use Dilemma As more scholastic TV programs popped up across the nation, including many that air only in-house, the use of copyrighted music, photos, and even video clips posed an ongoing dilemma for the teacher in the classroom. Kids have easy access via the Internet to all sorts of content, but when to let them use what became a daily challenge for teachers/advisers.

9. The Contest Explosion Contest opportunities for middle school and high school broadcast students have become so common, it’s impossible to keep up with all the opportunities to compete that come around almost every week. Yes, it’s made it easier to find recognition, but it has also watered down the meaning of a “national contest.”

8. No More “Student Emmy” Speaking of meaningful national recognition, the “National Student Television Award of Excellence,” often referred to as the high school “Emmy,” was a singular honor presented by NATAS. It started in 2004, and went away in 2008. Now there are still regional high school “Emmy” awards, but nothing matches being one of the seven winners at the national level, and having the legendary Av Westin say nice things about you at the classy award ceremony.

7. Camp STN It began in the summer of 2000 and has continued to be a unique experience among all the summer workshops for broadcast teachers. Demanding, hands-on, exhausting, rewarding, it’s been described as the “best week of training TV teachers can experience” by those who have attended. Many of the founders and leaders in STN first attended Camp STN and learned what the organization is all about. The Springfield, MO camp has gone on the road to Chicago, Boston, Las Vegas, and in 2010, California to train middle school and high school advisers.

6. The Journalism/Production Divide One of the outgrowths of the scholastic broadcast explosion is the gap between students and teachers who would prefer to concentrate on journalism and those who prefer to focus on film and production. It is an ongoing challenge in the classroom, and yes, it is an ongoing threat to those on the journalism side. Finding teens who are excited about covering meetings, events and straight news topics is difficult when these same teens see many of their friends making movies and music videos. It may be great for the production side, but journalism is taking a hit.

5. Schooltube The emergence of schooltube.com as a home for student video has helped hundreds of schools get exposure for their work. “Student-produced, teacher-approved” says it all in a world where there are plenty of portals for teens to share pointless, tasteless, unmonitored content. It was slow going at first, but Schooltube, with the support of the elementary and secondary administrators from coast to coast, is here to stay.

4. RTNDF’s High School Broadcast Journalism (HSBJ) Project In 2003 the HSBJ project was created to develop and nurture electronic journalism programs and promote First Amendment education in high schools across the country. Since then, thousands of teachers and students have benefited, and received training and even grants to support their efforts. Carol Knopes of RTNDF has been one of scholastic broadcast journalism’s real heroes in the last decade.

3. The STN Convention The first one was in 2004, and ever since the national convention hosted by the Student Television Network has been THE place to go for teens who are serious about broadcasting and video production. The event grew from 500 or over 1,600 in just three years, and it is the only event of its kind, focusing on video students dedicated to broadcast journalism or video production. The convention features the nation’s most competitive on-site contests for video students, and entrusts the hosting of its closing awards ceremony to the students themselves, making it a one-of-a-kind finish to a high-energy weekend.

2. The Digital Revolution It was felt in all areas of our society, including the broadcast classroom. The last ten years saw digital cameras and non-linear editing systems become the norm. The affordability of digital gear allowed many more schools to begin producing their own shows. It will be interesting to see where the next decade of digital innovation takes us, but rest assured high school and middle school producers will be along for the ride.

1. Convergence Not a new term by any means in 2010, “convergence” was hardly on our map in the scholastic setting back in 2000. We are still catching up with the professionals, but now most high school newspapers are going online, incorporating video clips into their coverage, and many (but not enough) high school broadcast programs have developed websites where they can make their work available. We are learning that it is all about delivering content, getting information to the consumer, in whatever form is appropriate. The days of being a high school PRINT journalist or BROADCAST journalist are about to disappear. A journalist in 2010 has to do it all.

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Getting older is fine. Feeling older stinks.

Seems like yesterday I was standing in my English classroom, which was also now the new “Media” classroom, preparing to teach TV for the first time.

I had two sections, one with 32 students, the other 33, and my only background was in print journalism in college and high school. Twenty years and two months later, we have a studio, a dozen cameras, 14 edit bays, a separate classroom, and every piece of equipment we need to do our little show. In fact, we are currently working on “HTV Magazine” number 174, which seems impossible.

My hair was dark brown in the fall of 1989, I wore glasses, and I was still coaching baseball. Now, the ever-thinning hair is grey, I have contact lenses, and I have not filled out a line-up card in 15 years.

I still get up excited to work on HTV and The Friday Show, but now I automatically awaken way too early, around 5 a.m. I’m dead by 8 or 9 at night. Those Saturday HTV work days are no longer as fun as they used to be. The kids seem to have a little less time to stay late or come in early. Maybe I don’t insist like I used to. Mellowing happens.

The novelty and excitement of producing a TV show has faded a bit because, thanks to Youtube and other online portals, anyone can upload video to share with the world, and it seems the dumber it is, or the more shocking it is, the more young people will watch. In general, across the nation, fewer kids want to do serious journalism. They would rather create the next big, pointless clip to “go viral.”

The equipment is changing again, and I have been through a lot of that since 1989. We have 12 GL2 camcorders, and are thankful for them. We will be one of the last programs on earth to go HD or to use tapeless cameras, I imagine, due to budget concerns, or maybe due to my concern that schools need to worry a little less about the bells and whistles and focus on finding, training, encouraging and championing reporters who will tackle tough stories, kids who will dare someone to take away their freedom to report the truth and question authority. I am probably itching for more First Amendment battles than most advisers, because I hear about very few of those in scholastic broadcasting these days. Many of us are not pushing the envelope like we should. Some of us aren’t even opening the envelope in the first place.

There have been moments to celebrate in my program in 2009. A memorable “convergence” bus tour where we saw a lot of the eastern and southern U.S. and shared it all with those who followed us online. A great ten days I’ll never forget. I probably have one more of those in me before I head into the sunset.

HTV won the “STN Excellence Award” last March, and we were all very thrilled, then we experienced the letdown of being a Pacemaker finalist, but not a winner. We have won ten times in the past, but not in 2009. It was another reminder that broadcast contests should not be your reason to exist. If it is, you will get your heart broken frequently by decisions made by judges whom you will likely never meet.

I have been bolstered more than I expected this fall by my Broadcast I class, which shows tremendous potential. They have enthusiasm, talent, and so far, the dedication to work after school until the job is done. The HTV staff has been improving each month, and their understanding that they have not done their best show yet gives me plenty of hope for them in the weeks and months ahead.

So as 2009 draws to a close, I look back with with a lot of great memories, and the realization that as I venture further into the twilight of my teaching career, we still have plenty of great stories in our future here at Hillcrest, stories by teens, for teens.

See you on the other side of the new year.

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Most kids have a heck of a time producing a news story or feature. It’s not easy. When I was in high school, I struggled all the time with my newspaper stories, first as a reporter, then as the sports editor. Finding the story was not as hard for me as telling the darn story. What’s my angle? Where do I start? I need a better lead. How do I wrap it up? What to include, what to leave out.

So as a teacher, I constantly look for ways to boil it down for my students, to make it not so overwhelming for them. One way that works for me is to ask the kids to tell me ONE THING I don’t already know. That’s it, really. Does your story say anything I haven’t heard before? Is there a piece of information I didn’t have access to until I watched your report?

It sounds so simple, and that’s the point, to take the pressure off and to focus the student on reporting new information. By asking them to find something for their audience that will be unique or new, you challenge them to go beyond the surface. At “Camp STN” every summer, we discuss what we see in many high school stories. They tend to be a mile wide, but only an inch deep.

Another way to issue the challenge, and at the same time give direction to your young journalists, is to say, “Tell me something I don’t know, take me somewhere I can’t go.” If they accomplish either or both of those, that depth that is often lacking will suddenly become a goal in every story they do.

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What will the future hold for high school TV when every kid becomes a broadcaster, whether they are in your class or not? Let’s face it, many of them already are going outside the confines of our classroom structure to get their videos “out there” for anyone and everyone to see. Youtube has forever changed the rules of the game, and as high school broadcast teachers, we better figure out what to do about it, or what to do with it.

How big is Youtube? Consider this: According to the latest “Shift Happens” report, conducted in conjunction with The Economist, more video was uploaded to Youtube in the last two months than if NBC, CBS and ABC had been airing new content 24/7/365 since 1948.

The number of unique visitors to NBC, CBS and ABC each month is 10 million, collectively. Youtube, Facebook and MySpace get 250 million unique visitors each month. None of those sites existed six years ago. What will it be like in another six years?

Other things we need to know as we walk into the classroom today:

*The average teen sends 2,272 text messages each month
*Newspaper circulation is down 7 million in the last 25 years.
*In the last five years, unique readers of online newspapers are up by 30 million
*In February of 2008, John McCain raised 11 million dollars for his presidential bid. In that same time period, Barack Obama attended NO fundraisers. Instead, he raised $55 million via online social networks.

If those things seem unrelated, we need to look closer. Everything about the way we send and receive information has been turned inside-out in the last five years.

The deep implications convergence has for our broadcast journalism classes goes beyond just building a website to feature your daily announcements, produced under the watchful eye of the teacher. It won’t be long before the most popular student-produced programs in the nation have nothing to do with the school’s broadcasting department. Don’t believe me? Search Youtube and see how many teen-produced videos, not filtered by adults, are already generating plenty of traffic. More people see teen videos on Youtube in an hour than will see your show in a month, maybe even a year.

Remember how teaching reading “across the curriculum” was all the rage ten years ago? Now the question is, can we afford to not teach “broadcasting across the curriculum” in the near future? If we don’t instill some standards, and create a new culture of media literacy that includes training teens as soon as they walk into our high schools, then we better prepare to sit back and watch Youtube fill up with student-produced content that will pay no heed to standards or ethics of any kind.

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I am the director of “Camp STN,” a workshop for broadcast teachers which began in the summer of 2000. Last fall, my camp partner, aka “Martha, my wife,” and I hosted a weekend conference for high school broadcasters here in Springfield, MO as a way to promote our camps while providing some fun, educational experiences for about 200 kids and teachers.

This year, the “Four-State Conference” continues thanks to Drury University and the broadcast leader there, Brian Shipman. While the 2008 conference was at a hotel, and lasted 2 1/2 days, Brian has trimmed it to a one-day event, and the response was great. He had to shut down registration about two weeks after it opened, and he will greet about 270 teachers and kids tomorrow.

Regional events for scholastic broadcasters make sense. Print people have been doing them for years. They allow schools to stay closer to home, avoiding the expenses of more ambitious trips, especially in tough economic times. They also allow the hosts to get creative. Drury offered three “pre-conference contests” in Broadcast Journalism, Music Video and Movie Production. Teams received prompts, audio tracks and such on Wednesday, and they will turn in their finished products tomorrow morning, 72 hours later, when they check in. There were also mail-in categories for news, feature, humor and such.

Another thing Brian is trying–unlimited entries, and unlimited numbers of participants on each team. Let me clarify. If I entered a team in “Spot Feature,” I could enter two kids, or four kids, or whatever. No micromanaging here. We could enter several teams if we wanted. A music video crew could include 15 kids if you want. Judges will just look at the final product, and evaluate its effectiveness no matter how many worked on it. Of course, we know too many cooks spoil the stew, so I am guessing most teams will not be “over-populated.” My Spot Feature team is just a photographer and reporter.

The conference will also feature presentations in the AM and PM, and get this–Drury is providing all three meals, including a Golden Globes-like awards ceremony that takes place during dinner. The day begins at 9 a.m. and wraps up at 7 p.m., time for most schools to return home if they choose, thus avoiding the cost of a hotel. Conference registration is a whopping ten bucks per person.

The Four-State Conference is working here in the midwest because it’s in the fall, when we still have time to provide motivation for our seniors, something that is almost impossible in the spring. It’s also an alternative to the large, national convention hosted every November by JEA/NSPA, where yearbook and newspaper people run the show.

Regional events make sense now more than ever. They can help stir up excitement for broadcasting, and thus more excitement for the STN national convention in March, the one big event truly designed for scholastic broadcasters. If you have a region where teachers are excited about broadcasting, you might give this approach a thought.

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When a handful of us starting talking about hosting a party in honor of HTV Magazine’s 20th anniversary, one lingering concern kept haunting me. Would anyone really show up? They did.

Around 200 former HTVers came to Hillcrest on October 17 to watch old clips, eat food they recalled from their high school years when calories didn’t matter, and to check out the incredible growth of a program they built from nothing. We had students from our first staff, in 1989-90, and members of our 20th staff, from 2008-09 all having a blast, it appeared.

The video I produced looking back at all 20 years just about killed me. It took a toll on my body because in true HTV fashion, it wasn’t completed until 4:30 a.m. the morning of the event. But it also took a toll on me emotionally. I had to make decision after decision about which kids (they’re all still “kids” to me) to include, which moments to include, and which soundbites from the six former HTVers I interviewed to use.

I could not mention every accolade earned by our staff through the years. We’ve got a bunch of awards, and things like the ten Pacemakers and five STN Excellence awards didn’t make the final cut. At one point I wasn’t sure I was going to mention any of the national honors. I ended up consulting Dan Arnall, who was on HTV its first three years. He’s at the network level, working for ABC News in New York, and he gave me good advice about this being the audience that earned most of those awards, so why not include as many as I could? So I did.

The thing that really saved me was getting more advice, this time from Jason Morrow, an Emmy-winning alum who now resides in Florida. He still edits video even though he got out of the news game a couple of years ago. His tips on the organization and edit of the final product were invaluable.

So I finally got the video figured out, and crammed as much of our first 20 years into 30 minutes as I could. The sections I like the most were simply labeled “Moments” and “Telling the Story.” Those two pretty much say it all regarding HTV. We live for those great stories, and within those great stories are priceless “moments.” But “moments” also speaks to those times of great celebration or surprise that come with a phone call from Ethyl Kennedy regarding the RFK Award. We’ve been fortunate enough to take that call six times.

The best thing about celebrating 20 years of HTV is seeing how great so many of our former students have turned out. One of my long-time colleagues was in attendance, and she noted how they had all grown up so well, and seemed so happy and “professional” in their demeanor. Sure, there were laughs, lots of them. But there was a sense of dignity and pride in the halls of our old school that afternoon as the HTV alums returned.

Why not? Look what they made.

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The sixth annual STN Challenge contest is just around the corner. It’s simply one of the toughest, coolest contests out there for scholastic broadcasters. I should know. I started them.

In 2003, which seems like the Ice Age in the ten-year history of STN, we wanted to put kids to the test in a brand new way. It was decided that a strict, five-day production contest, with the proper topic, could really give kids a taste of news pressure that they might not experience the rest of the year.

So we came up with a topic that asked teams to cover the problem of obesity among American teens. Over 30 schools entered, which was about twice as many as we anticipated. In the end, about 22 of them actually made the contest deadline. The judging began and we announced the five finalists on the STN website, which was a cool way to recognize five deserving teams, and to stir up interest in the final results.

Since there was no STN convention in 2003, and I was already making presentations regularly at the JEA convention, we set up a special hour in Portland, OR to honor our winners. What a great hour that was as we watched the top three entries, and in the end, Waianae High School from Hawaii walked away with the top prize. It would not be their last.

I remember the kids who produced the top three stories coming up front to talk about their entries. There was a lot of pride in that room, and a lot of appreciation from peers of both the honored students and their teachers. The STN Challenge had done exactly what it was intended to do. It had inspired students, in teams of four, to work together, often late into the night (or morning) to meet a tight deadline. It had also fueled their creative powers and lit a fire under them that often continued to burn the rest of the year. (”Hey, we did the STN Challenge…we can handle anything else you wanna throw at us”)

With all due respect, I have to ask you this, STN teachers: With all this contest offers, and the many lessons it brings, and the bonding opportunities it presents, how can you NOT enter your kids in the 2009 Challenges? Give it a shot. I promise it will be worth it.

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We do reinvent the wheel a little every year, don’t we?

When our broadcast staff returns to school in the fall, we greet our “returners” and our “newbies,” then it’s time to plan the first show of the new year. We just finished our September “HTV Magazine.”

Let’s start with what we did right.

*VISUAL TOPICS: The kids for the most part chose stories that had a strong visual component. What we lacked in “heavy” subject matter, we made up for in visuals and decent nat sound. Last year, our first show was derailed by the visual challenges of the stories covered.

*AUDIO FIRST: As far as I could tell, only one group initially forgot to stick with the practice of editing audio first. It was encouraging to see everyone else praciticing this approach. Of course, I more or less “reviewed” the technique in full “coach mode,” raising my voice for emphasis when needed. But no wind sprints, I promise.

*SAVE A SURPRISE: We got this one in at least five of the nine segments, if I counted correctly. There are no “shocks” or moments that make viewers gasp, but I think there are some decent twists and turns within the structure of several of the pieces.

*BY TEENS, FOR TEENS: That’s our focus, and that’s what we accomplished. The stories will be of interest to teens, and even when the subject is not teen-specific, there is something for teens to “chew on.”

Okay, now the not-so-good, but sure-to-get-better:

*DEADLINE: We had a September 16 story deadline. We had two stories finish on the 17th, one on the 18th. Yes, they all made the show, but some grades will take a hit.

*WRITING: For the most part, there was nothing too inspired in our scripts. That will improve with practice, and with a little better direction from me.

*AUDIO: It’s ALWAYS AUDIO, isn’t it? Getting solid video seems so much easier than collecting consistent audio levels in the field, and even in the studio when shooting the anchor spots. Thank goodness for Soundtrack Pro!

*DEPTH: We have stories that are maybe a bit too wide and a bit too shallow. The kids shot their footage in the summer, which was a first for us, and they produced features with no sharp edges, no “news peg.” For a summer show, that’s okay, but the rest of the way, we’ll look for more layers.

See you next blog. Now back to the Redbirds!

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