by Jon Beaupre
jbeaupre@broadcastvoice.com

As minority journalism and broadcasting organizations have come into their own over the past few years, one of the most promising offerings at these groups annual conventions are the student broadcasting projects. These endeavors, usually set up in a suite of rooms in the hotel's convention center, give young students from across the country a chance to learn some tricks of the trade from professionals in their respective industries. The equipment is usually donated by local TV and Radio stations, and the volunteer staff of teachers and mentors come from the best broadcasting organizations around.

At the Unity 99 convention in Seattle this past July, some two dozen students representing the four host journalism groups - National Association of Hispanic Journalists, National Association of Black Journalists, Asian American Journalists Association, and Native American Journalists Association - learn to write, record, edit and use the high tech gadgets that will be the hallmark of journalism in the new millennium. While the most popular of these student programs are often the Television and New Media tracks, the radio contingent's have definetely held their own. On hand at Unity, NPR's Doug Mitchell led his charges through the fundamentals of sound editing, and especially, how to construct a compelling and provocative story for radio. Mitchell is scheduled to repeat his work with student programs at another half dozen conventions around the country over the course of the coming year.

In 1998, at the NAHJ convention in Miami, Executive Producer of the NPR distributed program Latino USA, Maria Martin oversaw the radio effort, along with NPR reporter Mandaliet Del Barco, and at the recently completed National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Convention in Atlanta, NPR's Mitchell was joined by audio engineer Flawn Williams. Their combined years of experience producing award winning radio made their contributions literally invaluable to the young students in the program.

The students come from a wide range of school sizes and communities. Roman Sierra, from Lehman College in New York went on to intern at WXTV, the Univision affiliate in Ft Lee New Jersey. Mario Lopez of Los Angeles has gone on to work at Market Place productions at USC. Nicolle Hernandez, who took part in the 1997 student program in Seattle, has gone on to anchor an evening TV news program in Colorado. Students at the NLGJA convention in Atlanta came from the University of Chicago, NYU and other schools across the country. David Adox is completing his Masters degree in Journalism at Columbia University, and Neda Ulaby will complete her Ph.D. in English at the University of Chicago.

On one hand, it is critical that radio students learn how to produce their work on high tech programs like ProTools, SoundEdit 16 and Sound Forge. Clearly, radio production - especially in news and public affairs - will come to rely heavily on this techonlogy in coming years.

However, perhaps more important than the technical skills is the ability to craft stories, write and produce compelling narratives, and learn to take advantage of the years of experience offered by the volunteers who give their time and effort to these student journalism programs.

While the mentors and teachers who help out on these programs do so at their own expense, all of them find the experience enriching and deeply rewarding. The student programs provide an opportunity not only to look at their own careers in new light, but also to network with others in their field, and especially, to scout for new talent to work with in coming years.

AIRSPACE

Home | Join