Finishing Strong From Newhouse Summer Session One
Well, six weeks are up at Syracuse University and Newhouse. We endured six weeks of news packages, live hits, live VO/SOTs, and even some in-studio interviews. We went through crazy weather reports when we had no idea what we were talking about, pushed through cameras just about running us over and cameras shutting off as we were reading the prompters, and everything in between. But all in all, the Newhouse Summer Session One for BDJ was nothing short of amazing.
When coming into the first summer session, we didn’t know what to expect. We didn’t know if it would be hard or if it would be a hassle to get contacts when the city is a little slower than usual, but we managed to get nine really good newscasts out for the city of Syracuse and surrounding areas with a lot of breaking news and a great team of classmates, professors, and directors to help us.
After we were finished, we had a send-off dinner and toast the next day. We all cried, we laughed, and cried some more. We talked about our next adventures and how we would miss each other and we screamed laughing at the blooper reels we made. Through every single tough time, we learned to live another day and to celebrate small victories. Things will always go wrong during a live newscast, but what matters is what you do with the information for the next time to make it better.
All the sports emphasis people got to decide whether they wanted to go to the DC capstone, and all-news emphasis were required to go. Two and a half months ago, those who are going to DC received news station placements. I was chosen to work with three stations in Ohio: WCMH in Columbus, WDTN in Dayton, and WKBN in Youngstown. My main station is ranked Market #34, which is amazing. A top-100 station is good but a top-50 station is amazing.
We will be in DC for 6 weeks and must produce six packages to be aired on however many stations we’re working for. We get the chance to do live hits, VO/SOTs, web stories, web mini-packs and more. We will be reporting from “On the Hill” in DC and surrounding areas. We will mainly be doing everything on our own again as MMJs (Multi-Media Journalists) but this time for major companies who could possibly employ us after we’re finished in DC. We will still have some officials in the newsroom to help us, but for the most part we’re solo journalists with a real job — to make air for our stations.
Along with working weekdays and some weekends 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. (sometimes earlier and sometimes later), we also will have speakers come to the newsroom to talk to us about the industry and what to expect, what to take away from the business and what works or doesn’t work in all aspects of the media world. Lastly, we get a special tour of Jake Tapper CNN studio and we get to watch a special taping of his show “The Lead with Jake Tapper” as our last hoo-rah!
We start bright and early on Monday and we couldn’t be more excited.
