Just For TV Teachers

School is back in session and that means high school football takes center stage on Friday nights. Too bad, because in our town, that often means mediocrity gets the spotlight.

We have five public high schools in Springfield, MO. In years past, we have had our success stories. Some excellent teams have put together great seasons, but we have not had a state champion yet in the sport that dominates the headlines every September, October and November. And lately, it’s been ugly.

Last night, city teams went 0-5. That’s actually nothing new. Our schools have a lot of trouble competing against smaller schools, or similar-sized schools that seem to have better participation, and tradition, than we have.

Back to last night. Springfield was outscored 117-45. Central, our “IB” school where they say they can’t muster a strong enough team to compete against even the other city schools, played Warsaw High School, with an enrollment of 400. Central has over 1,500. Result: Warsaw 13, Central 12.

Hillcrest lost 17-6 to a team we scored over 40 points against last year. Parkview, which has had a terrible run the last decade, was shutout 30-0. Glendale lost by 28. Kickapoo was close, but no cigar, in a two-point loss at home.

Here is the thing with football. It costs a lot of money. It brings in a lot of money. It involves a LOT of kids. Think team, band, cheerleaders, pep squads, dance teams, and so on. It is the ultimate squeaky wheel. A lot of people have an investment in the sport.

Another thing we TV teachers know. Football is one of the absolute best sports to cover. So many great visuals, so much wonderful sound, so much emotion. I just wonder if we actually “cover” our football teams like we cover other news topics. I mean, that is what a football game is. It’s a news event. People come together, things happen, and some go home happy, some go home disappointed. Money is involved, taxpayers’ money. The games bring in money, but it still takes our tax dollars to turn on the “Friday Night Lights.”

From what I have observed, high school TV shows rarely scratch beneath the surface of the game being covered. We get caught up in the action, the emotion, the school pride, and avoid practicing “journalism” at any cost. When is the last time our kids asked tough, but fair questions about the team, or the game? It almost never happens.

While we preach to our kids the importance of objectivity in journalism, where does objective news coverage go when it comes to the school football team? How long can losing seasons and poor participation continue to be ignored by the school NEWScast? Is your district pouring money into football when it may involve only 30 or 35 players, while it ignores classrooms with outdated technology, leaky roofs, a textbook shortage, or a library in need of a serious update? Those things impact your entire student body every day, not just on Friday night.

I challenge you, this fall, to teach your kids to cover football, and all sports, like you would cover anything else. Avoid tip-toeing around issues that deserve to be examined, questions that need to be asked.

If your school journalists continue to ignore serious issues related to sports in general, they might as well wear team jerseys when they anchor your show.

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Depending on your point of view, you either think Simon Cowell, the now-departed judge from “American Idol,” is a jerk, or a genius. Or you might just think he’s mean, arrogant, cruel, entertaining, usually right, often wrong, or a little of bit of each.

While I agree with almost everybody that Cowell phoned it in last season as he prepared for his departure, I have been pondering this question in recent days: Is there a lesson or two or three we educators, er, teachers, can take from this bratty Brit? Maybe.

Teachers can not treat kids like Simon treated contestants on “Idol.” If we did, we would be in the principal’s office the next day, explaining why we told Tommy he was dreadful at Math, or had the writing skills of a toy poodle, or needed to think about NOT moving onto the 11th grade because it would be a colossal waste of his time and ours. Can you imagine? No, we can’t, and shouldn’t, “go there” as teachers. Mr. Cowell went there regularly in front of 20 million viewers. Ouch.

On the other hand, Simon was also brutally honest, and often correct about the wannabe singers he judged each week. So what exactly is wrong with a cup of honest feedback? Nothing, really. It is what we should be providing our students all the time.

When I was coaching, a parent who was also a highly-placed administrator in the school district told me this the day before baseball tryouts began: “If my kid is ever average, cut him from the team. He needs to move on and find something he is good at. Just cut him.” That happened ONCE in all my years of coaching.

Each week on “Idol,” I saw Simon try to explain to numerous singers that they just did not have it. His message, it seemed to me, was to keep looking for something you can excel at, but this music thing isn’t it.

Should teachers do something similar in the classroom? Sometimes, maybe we should. I have had a number of kids in broadcasting who really needed to move on to something else. I mean, fine, take the class, enjoy the experience, but seriously, do not pursue this as a career. Most figure that out on their own, by the way. It does not mean they are failures.

I have no problem criticizing my kids’ work, and challenging them to step it up. In fact, most of them find out early on I am very hard to impress. Lillian Olive and Rachel Miles, two of my top students in 2007, won the RFK Award. They claim the first time I said anything nice about their winning story was on our way out of the ceremony that night in D.C. I still deny that, but I also can not prove them wrong.

So should we channel our inner-Simon in the high school setting? Now and then, yes. I think students deserve total honesty most of the time when it comes to their work. But I have had teaching and coaching colleagues through the years who have had a very difficult time providing such feedback without making it personal, or coming across as cruel.

That is why getting honest with kids requires us to get honest with ourselves. Criticism should only be offered as a way to help someone improve. Otherwise, we’re just being mean. They do not need us for that. Too many of them get that at home, or in the hallways, everyday.

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Colleges and universities do it all the time. Shamelessly.

They contact graduates via mail, e-mail, phone calls, whatever it takes to solicit donations. I have an undergraduate degree from one institution, a master’s degree from another, and I hear from both of them regularly as they try to raise money for this or that good cause.

Six years ago, a few of my HTV alums decided to raise money each year and provide a $1,000 scholarship to a graduating senior on the HTV staff. In 2004, Jeremy Wells walked away from our year-end banquet with a very nice check.

Since then, we have maintained the yearly scholarship, but wisely changed it from cash to a laptop computer, which will last a lot longer than a thousand bucks in today’s world of higher education.

I encourage all broadcasting teachers to keep in touch with their alumni. Now, thanks to Facebook, it’s easier than ever. We started a page last year and it’s been a great avenue for publicizing the scholarship drive, and other activities such as last October’s big reunion where we celebrated HTV’s first 20 years. We had about 200 former students show up.

You do not have to constantly raise money and beg for donations. There are other reasons for keeping your alumni involved. It says a lot about your program, and how it impacted the students, if they feel it is important to stay involved after high school, and give back in some way. It also sends a clear, strong message to your current students. Sure, some will be “too cool for school” and will avoid you and high school in general in the years ahead. That’s fine. There are plenty who will want to do something to say “thanks” for the experience you provided, and the memories they value.

Make the most of the time you have with your students, and then, when they leave, don’t say “goodbye.” Instead, say, “I’ll see you later.” Or maybe more appropriately, “See you on Facebook.”

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Colleges and universities do it all the time. Shamelessly.

They contact graduates via mail, e-mail, phone calls, whatever it takes to solicit donations. I have an undergraduate degree from one institution, a master’s degree from another, and I hear from both of them regularly as they try to raise money for this or that good cause.

Six years ago, a few of my HTV alums decided to raise money each year and provide a $1,000 scholarship to a graduating senior on the HTV staff. In 2004, Jeremy Wells walked away from our year-end banquet with a very nice check.

Since then, we have maintained the yearly scholarship, but wisely changed it from cash to a laptop computer, which will last a lot longer than a thousand bucks in today’s world of higher education.

I encourage all broadcasting teachers to keep in touch with their alumni. Now, thanks to Facebook, it’s easier than ever. We started a page last year and it’s been a great avenue for publicizing the scholarship drive, and other activities such as last October’s big reunion where we celebrated HTV’s first 20 years. We had about 200 former students show up.

You do not have to constantly raise money and beg for donations. There are other reasons for keeping your alumni involved. It says a lot about your program, and how it impacted the students, if they feel it is important to stay involved after high school, and give back in some way. It also sends a clear, strong message to your current students. Sure, some will be “too cool for school” and will avoid you and high school in general in the years ahead. That’s fine. There are plenty who will want to do something to say “thanks” for the experience you provided, and the memories they value.

Make the most of the time you have with your students, and then, when they leave, don’t say “goodbye.” Instead, say, “I’ll see you later.” Or maybe more appropriately, “See you on Facebook.”

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We wrap up our last monthly magazine by this year’s staff on Friday. That means our April show will be done, and my senior HTVers will draw the curtain on their high school broadcasting careers.

The last show by this year’s seniors should be pretty good. We didn’t make a big deal out of it being their finale. We just wanted to do some interesting stories, meet some interesting people, and let the chips fall where they may. After all, the class of 2010 is almost out the door. Some felt the screen door slam in their minds right after spring break, but that’s a topic for another day.

Each year, after the current staff wraps its last program, I turn over the production of our May edition to the new, incoming staff of “HTV Magazine.” That gives the newbies a chance to see what the production cycle is really like, and just how different the expectations are for a newsmagazine that airs on the local CW, and not just inside the walls of our school.

I’m taking the newbies “on the road” for that May show. We are fortunate to live about 40 miles from Branson, MO, and having taken numerous groups of TV teachers there during “Camp STN” in the summer, I am fairly confident we can find plenty of stories on or around historic Highway 76, aka “Country Music Boulevard.”

In addition to shooting an entire show, we plan to play a little, eat a lot, and hopefully, build some team spirit. While these kids go to school together sometimes for 13 years straight, it does not mean the are all “friends” or even very familiar with the personalities of those around them.

So B-Town, here we come. Let’s hope this is the just the first leg of a longer journey, as the new HTV staff comes together and creates some memorable shows to share with the audience in the months ahead.

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We go on spring break this Friday. That means when we return, my seniors will have about 35 days of high school left. Wanna know how motivated they will be to produce another TV show?

One thing we do each year as our monthly broadcast winds down is to turn over the last show of the school year to the incoming staff. That means in April the current staff, which is senior-dominated this year, will do its very last “HTV Magazine” before the new crew takes over.

Fighting the malaise that sets in after the break is a yearly challenge. It isn’t just in broadcast classes. It’s a school-wide problem that afflicts all teachers with 12 graders. How can we keep the class-of-this-year productive in the closing weeks of their secondary education?

To complicate things, the kids all know their semester grades in January are the last ones the colleges look at, so this last semester is even more insignificant. Nice.

I have tried several things through the years. Guilt. It works a little. “Johnny, after all we’ve been through, I’d sure like to see you show enough pride to do your best on your last show ever….” Or better yet, “Mandy, how can you not do one more great story after all the passes I’ve written, all the off-campus food runs I’ve let you go on, all the times I’ve loaned you a camera for those non-school projects you’ve done for your team and your youth groups and….”

If guilt fails, there is always the legacy thing. “I’d sure like this staff to leave behind one more great show for everyone to see.” Yeah, that rarely works.

Then there is the threat. You know, the ole “I still get to give you a grade, young lady, and while you may not care, your mom will.” Not a nice way to say goodbye, is it?

So teachers, let me know if you have a sure-fire way to make the post-spring break malaise tolerable. I’ve been doing this for 28 years, and uh, I got nothin.’

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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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