COMMUNITY VOICES
Part II
PLANNING A COMMUNITY NEWS PROGRAM WITH STUDENT REPORTERS
“In the future, we may well rely more on citizens to be sentinels for one another. No doubt that will expand the public forum and enrich the range of voices. Already people are experimenting with new ways to empower fellow citizens to gather and understand the news — whether it is soldiers blogging from Baghdad, a radio program on the war produced by students at Swarthmore College carrying eyewitness interviews with Iraqi citizens, or a similar effort by young radio reporters in Minnesota to cover local towns.”
The 2006 State of the News Media reported by Project for Excellence in Journalism
The key part of any plan is a vision. You need to envision your students as community storytellers who assemble narratives that are diverse, creative, and fun to watch. Your student’s natural enthusiasm and playful energy makes viewers come back for more. Viewers tune in to watch your students as local reporters and students watch themselves become celebrities and community advocates. Both students and viewers develop a deeper understanding of your community in the process.
As you create a strategic plan for your school program, it is important to keep in mind the enormous changes occurring within the world of journalism. You could not find a more opportune time to be building a community news program. Your community administrators face increased challenges to communicate to residents, visitors, and potential investors in your community. The media sources that these administrators traditionally relied upon to do this are changing and soon may be unavailable. Your student-based community news program teaches students technology and storytelling skills. It also creates community narratives that administrators can use. Frankly, your student narratives are more powerful than any news story that a traditional news reporter could deliver. You are empowering your students to be community change agents.
Before I outline the key steps to planning a student-based community news program, let’s examine some significant changes occurring in local news.
Challenges Facing Local News
Part II
PLANNING A COMMUNITY NEWS PROGRAM WITH STUDENT REPORTERS
“In the future, we may well rely more on citizens to be sentinels for one another. No doubt that will expand the public forum and enrich the range of voices. Already people are experimenting with new ways to empower fellow citizens to gather and understand the news — whether it is soldiers blogging from Baghdad, a radio program on the war produced by students at Swarthmore College carrying eyewitness interviews with Iraqi citizens, or a similar effort by young radio reporters in Minnesota to cover local towns.”
The 2006 State of the News Media reported by Project for Excellence in Journalism
The key part of any plan is a vision. You need to envision your students as community storytellers who assemble narratives that are diverse, creative, and fun to watch. Your student’s natural enthusiasm and playful energy makes viewers come back for more. Viewers tune in to watch your students as local reporters and students watch themselves become celebrities and community advocates. Both students and viewers develop a deeper understanding of your community in the process.
As you create a strategic plan for your school program, it is important to keep in mind the enormous changes occurring within the world of journalism. You could not find a more opportune time to be building a community news program. Your community administrators face increased challenges to communicate to residents, visitors, and potential investors in your community. The media sources that these administrators traditionally relied upon to do this are changing and soon may be unavailable. Your student-based community news program teaches students technology and storytelling skills. It also creates community narratives that administrators can use. Frankly, your student narratives are more powerful than any news story that a traditional news reporter could deliver. You are empowering your students to be community change agents.
Before I outline the key steps to planning a student-based community news program, let’s examine some significant changes occurring in local news.
Challenges Facing Local News
News organizations are going through massive changes as they compete globally for revenue and customers. News organizations like newspapers and radio and television stations are a part of global media companies that depend on advertising as their primary source of income. Although advertisers expect to spend over $750 billion on advertising in 2007, competition for that money is ferocious. The Myers Media Business Report for 2007 forecasts a trend away from traditional TV and radio to nontraditional ways to reach buyers, like videogames, product placements, and movies. Video game ads are expected to increase 90%, product placement ads 35% and cinema advertising 15%, while the 30-second television commercial that local affiliates depend on is projected to decrease 5%. Some media organizations that own multiple stations in different communities broadcast news from a single newsroom, an effort that saves money but raises questions about localism and stretches reporters thin. Newspapers are also consolidating. In 2006 several well respected newspapers cut their newsroom staff. The New York Times cut its staff by 60, the Los Angeles Times 85, and Time Inc cut 205 jobs from its news division. Tom Goldstein, the former dean at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, said at the time, “Unless they urgently respond to the changing environment, newspapers risk early extinction." Local news makers need to reinvent how they communicate with their communities, and your program fills a real need.
How to Take Advantage of the Opportunity
While contraction of the news industry creates anxiety among community leaders left in the lurch to connect with residents, it could spell opportunity for you. Your student-based news program fills the void left by inattentive or nonexistent media outlets. You teach students storytelling skills and help your community at the same time. To begin, you need to identify individuals in your community who need to communicate with residents or visitors. Consider administrators at the city and the schools and members of civic organizations like Chambers of Commerce and Tourist Boards as well as service clubs like Rotary and Kiwanis.
Make Your Stories Different
Traditional newscasts lead with crime and accidents. “If it bleeds it leads” is a standard news axiom. Unfortunately, this attention-grabbing, breaking-news cycle drives most news organizations. Human interest stories often take a back seat to stories about corruption or plane crashes. Make your stories different. Breaking news stories are important but human interest stories tell more about a community than do accidents or crimes. Community narratives may not be as dramatic as a plane crash, but these stories, like no others, tell of the resourcefulness of residents and the hope and heroics that bind your community together. Your students’ stories will be short narratives, 2-5 minutes long, self-contained, each with a student reporter placing the story in the context of your community and giving a final summary at the end. Your stories can be viewed individually at public meetings or during half-time at school sporting events. But they can also be placed end to end with segues or humorous skits between them and made into a cable television show. The flexibility of this short story format allows maximum and repeated coverage for your students’ work.
How Will the Stories Be Shown?
Early television evolved in the 1950’s as an extension of radio networks and television used the same production model as radio. Programming was produced centrally and broadcast to affiliates who rebroadcast the signal and added local news. Viewers passively watched programs at a time predetermined by the television networks. Digital Video Recorders like TiVo, portable video players like iPods, and video sharing like YouTube and SchoolTube has changed all that. Your student work can be uploaded to YouTube or SchoolTube free of charge and viewed by the world on-line, linked to social networks like MySpace or downloaded to iPods. You can also submit a DVD to your local access cable TV channel for a regular timeslot or post the show on your class website and/or your school’s or city’s website. You can present your students’ work at service clubs, city council meetings, and board of education meetings.
I cannot overstate the impact of taking your students to public meetings and showing community leaders a community story that students produced. It is a life-changing event for students, telling them that they have a voice and place in their community.
Bottom-Up Journalism
Scott Grant’s new book We're All Journalists Now: The Transformation of the Press and Reshaping of the Law in the Internet Age chronicles journalism from the American colonial pamphleteers to present-day bloggers. His message is clear: A new market for citizen journalists is rapidly growing. A community-based news organization can give your students a career path while providing a needed service to your community. Bottom-up production is changing the way we view news and changing the way viewers impact the news they watch. As I write this article, CNN is preparing to initiate a presidential debate using questions posted by individuals on YouTube. Viewers are asking very direct and personal questions that scholars believe may change the way politicians conduct campaigns. Current TV also promotes bottom-up journalism. Current TV is a media company led by former Vice President Al Gore and businessman Joel Hyatt that invites individuals from all over the world to produce and post local stories about their community to the Current website. The stories are reviewed by Current producers, voted on by viewers, and assembled into a cable show that airs world-wide (in the U.S. on Comcast, Dish Network, and DirectTV and in Europe on Sky and Virgin Media). Current wants a global television network that gives viewers a voice in what they see. Current’s bottom-up programming is also an avenue to publish your students’ stories. You and your students can be a part of the global shift in the way local news is produced. Local news is now in demand both locally and globally. It is important for your local partners to know that.
Form a Strategic Planning Committee
Make a list of potential partners based on their need to communicate with residents, willingness to work with students, and resources to contribute. If an organization doesn’t have money, they could help raise money. The ability and time to raise money is a resource too. Survey potential organizations and prioritize a list. Then make an appointment to meet directly with the organization’s leader. Explain that you want to create a community news organization and you need their help to have student reporters tell local stories on cable television and the Internet. Offer to meet with their organization and introduce your students. Give examples of 3-5 minute news stories that your students could produce that directly impact on the mission of their organization.
Plan Your Equipment Needs
You need equipment and I go into greater detail about that in later articles. Briefly, you need a camera, tripod, microphone, headphones, and an editing computer. Ideally, you want a production station for each team of students. Three students need to work as a team to shoot the interview. Editing is where the story is created and students invest their individual personality into their storytelling style. The student who reports the story will want to edit it. You cannot paint a very good painting with a committee. Students can share a camera but you should plan to have as many editing stations as you have students or spend your time juggling student work schedules. You may already have the equipment but if you do not you should budget $5,000 for a camera (with tripod/microphone/headphone) and $5,000 for an editing computer with software. Media supplies run $3,000 - $10,000 per year.
Plan Your Curriculum
You need to carefully think through the curriculum component of your news organization. Will you teach it as a part of the curriculum for graduation credit or as an extra-curricular activity? You may want to start the program as extra-curricular and then add classes to make it part of the curriculum. To maintain a constant pool of trained reporters, you need to create a full media studies program: Journalism, Digital Editing, Digital Production, Digital Imaging, and Scriptwriting. These classes taught as beginning, intermediate, and advanced provide you with students who are trained and can compete for community reporter jobs. I recommend you pay your “professional” student reporters. They will earn it. These suggestions can get you started with your strategic plan. I’ll write an article on curriculum details at a late date.
If you have taken the time to read to the end of this article, you can already imagine a community news program at your school. Now take the next step. Get others interested in your vision and create a team to help you marshal resources and create stakeholders. You will have the time of your life doing it. In the next issue of School Video News I will write about interview and story-telling techniques that provide professional results with beginning students.
How to Take Advantage of the Opportunity
While contraction of the news industry creates anxiety among community leaders left in the lurch to connect with residents, it could spell opportunity for you. Your student-based news program fills the void left by inattentive or nonexistent media outlets. You teach students storytelling skills and help your community at the same time. To begin, you need to identify individuals in your community who need to communicate with residents or visitors. Consider administrators at the city and the schools and members of civic organizations like Chambers of Commerce and Tourist Boards as well as service clubs like Rotary and Kiwanis.
Make Your Stories Different
Traditional newscasts lead with crime and accidents. “If it bleeds it leads” is a standard news axiom. Unfortunately, this attention-grabbing, breaking-news cycle drives most news organizations. Human interest stories often take a back seat to stories about corruption or plane crashes. Make your stories different. Breaking news stories are important but human interest stories tell more about a community than do accidents or crimes. Community narratives may not be as dramatic as a plane crash, but these stories, like no others, tell of the resourcefulness of residents and the hope and heroics that bind your community together. Your students’ stories will be short narratives, 2-5 minutes long, self-contained, each with a student reporter placing the story in the context of your community and giving a final summary at the end. Your stories can be viewed individually at public meetings or during half-time at school sporting events. But they can also be placed end to end with segues or humorous skits between them and made into a cable television show. The flexibility of this short story format allows maximum and repeated coverage for your students’ work.
How Will the Stories Be Shown?
Early television evolved in the 1950’s as an extension of radio networks and television used the same production model as radio. Programming was produced centrally and broadcast to affiliates who rebroadcast the signal and added local news. Viewers passively watched programs at a time predetermined by the television networks. Digital Video Recorders like TiVo, portable video players like iPods, and video sharing like YouTube and SchoolTube has changed all that. Your student work can be uploaded to YouTube or SchoolTube free of charge and viewed by the world on-line, linked to social networks like MySpace or downloaded to iPods. You can also submit a DVD to your local access cable TV channel for a regular timeslot or post the show on your class website and/or your school’s or city’s website. You can present your students’ work at service clubs, city council meetings, and board of education meetings.
I cannot overstate the impact of taking your students to public meetings and showing community leaders a community story that students produced. It is a life-changing event for students, telling them that they have a voice and place in their community.
Bottom-Up Journalism
Scott Grant’s new book We're All Journalists Now: The Transformation of the Press and Reshaping of the Law in the Internet Age chronicles journalism from the American colonial pamphleteers to present-day bloggers. His message is clear: A new market for citizen journalists is rapidly growing. A community-based news organization can give your students a career path while providing a needed service to your community. Bottom-up production is changing the way we view news and changing the way viewers impact the news they watch. As I write this article, CNN is preparing to initiate a presidential debate using questions posted by individuals on YouTube. Viewers are asking very direct and personal questions that scholars believe may change the way politicians conduct campaigns. Current TV also promotes bottom-up journalism. Current TV is a media company led by former Vice President Al Gore and businessman Joel Hyatt that invites individuals from all over the world to produce and post local stories about their community to the Current website. The stories are reviewed by Current producers, voted on by viewers, and assembled into a cable show that airs world-wide (in the U.S. on Comcast, Dish Network, and DirectTV and in Europe on Sky and Virgin Media). Current wants a global television network that gives viewers a voice in what they see. Current’s bottom-up programming is also an avenue to publish your students’ stories. You and your students can be a part of the global shift in the way local news is produced. Local news is now in demand both locally and globally. It is important for your local partners to know that.
Form a Strategic Planning Committee
Make a list of potential partners based on their need to communicate with residents, willingness to work with students, and resources to contribute. If an organization doesn’t have money, they could help raise money. The ability and time to raise money is a resource too. Survey potential organizations and prioritize a list. Then make an appointment to meet directly with the organization’s leader. Explain that you want to create a community news organization and you need their help to have student reporters tell local stories on cable television and the Internet. Offer to meet with their organization and introduce your students. Give examples of 3-5 minute news stories that your students could produce that directly impact on the mission of their organization.
Plan Your Equipment Needs
You need equipment and I go into greater detail about that in later articles. Briefly, you need a camera, tripod, microphone, headphones, and an editing computer. Ideally, you want a production station for each team of students. Three students need to work as a team to shoot the interview. Editing is where the story is created and students invest their individual personality into their storytelling style. The student who reports the story will want to edit it. You cannot paint a very good painting with a committee. Students can share a camera but you should plan to have as many editing stations as you have students or spend your time juggling student work schedules. You may already have the equipment but if you do not you should budget $5,000 for a camera (with tripod/microphone/headphone) and $5,000 for an editing computer with software. Media supplies run $3,000 - $10,000 per year.
Plan Your Curriculum
You need to carefully think through the curriculum component of your news organization. Will you teach it as a part of the curriculum for graduation credit or as an extra-curricular activity? You may want to start the program as extra-curricular and then add classes to make it part of the curriculum. To maintain a constant pool of trained reporters, you need to create a full media studies program: Journalism, Digital Editing, Digital Production, Digital Imaging, and Scriptwriting. These classes taught as beginning, intermediate, and advanced provide you with students who are trained and can compete for community reporter jobs. I recommend you pay your “professional” student reporters. They will earn it. These suggestions can get you started with your strategic plan. I’ll write an article on curriculum details at a late date.
If you have taken the time to read to the end of this article, you can already imagine a community news program at your school. Now take the next step. Get others interested in your vision and create a team to help you marshal resources and create stakeholders. You will have the time of your life doing it. In the next issue of School Video News I will write about interview and story-telling techniques that provide professional results with beginning students.
