Uncovering - West Virginia University

Elaine McMillion
Kendal Montgomery
Kendal Montgomery
Above: Kendal
Montgomery assists
with lighting while
working on a
story about James
Snodgress and Kasha
James’ camouflagethemed
wedding in
Summersville, W.Va.
• Left: Elaine
McMillion walks to
the top of Fenwick
Mountain, where Roy
E. Russell, a Nicholas
County native, built
his house on the side
of the cliff.• Below:
Leann Arthur and
Tricia Fulks practice
recording audio and
video in class.
Top: Graduate student Steve Butera shoots video interviews at Coopers Rock State Forest. • Top Right: “West
Virginia Uncovered” project participants. Front row: Jessica Rhodes, Steve Butera, Andy Smith. Second row:
Tricia Fulks, Megan Bowers, Leann Arthur, Elaine McMillion. Third row: Andrew Barnes, Kendal Montgomery, Erin
Wooddell, Erin Murray. Back row: Bill Kuykendall, John Temple.
In Fall 2008, four newspapers were selected
to participate: the Hampshire Review, the
Nicholas Chronicle, the Pocahontas Times
and the Parsons Advocate. Temple and his
students bought cameras, learned editing
software and helped design the project website
at http://WVuncovered.wvu.edu/.
During the first semester, SOJ students were
primarily focused on creating feature packages
for the newspapers’ websites. Stories ranged
from an in-depth look at how one town’s
shrinking population was affecting its high
school football team to a lighter piece about a
camouflage-themed wedding. The stories ran
on the participating newspapers’ websites and
the Charleston Daily Mail’s website and were
added to the project website.
The first semester was an eye-opening
experience on a number of levels. In addition
to discovering the issues impacting rural
communities, the students also learned how to
work in teams across media disciplines.
The multimedia features the students produce
for “West Virginia Uncovered” typically
include a variety of media, including text,
audio, still photography and video. Some
pieces also include interactive infographics
and written stories with internal and external
hyperlinks.
Graduate student Steve Butera, whose
background is in broadcast news, said the
project prompted him to begin incorporating
still photography into his multimedia projects.
“In my opinion, after two semesters of this
class, a still picture is more powerful than a
moving picture,” he said.
tRaininG thE
PRofESSionalS
In Spring 2009, the students continued
to produce multimedia features for the
newspapers. At the same time, Visiting Shott
Chair of Journalism Bill Kuykendall helped
Temple launch the training component of the
project. A former newspaper photographer,
editor and multimedia producer, Kuykendall
led a series of on-site multimedia training
workshops for the participating newspapers’
editorial staff.
The training covered still photography, audio
and video recording and Web design. The
sessions were designed to address the specific
concerns of the participating newspapers,
focusing on the most accessible and affordable
equipment and software and addressing the
limitations of rural broadband service.
Students assisted with the hands-on training
and documented the sessions through
photography, audio and video. Using this
material, graduate student Jessica Rhodes
created tutorials on dozens of subjects, adding
them to the project’s training website.
After the training sessions, Kuykendall
assigned the newspapers their first multimedia
projects to help familiarize the staff with the
process of producing their own content across
media platforms.
“The emphasis is on content and getting into
real active situations so that you’re more of a
participant in the story,” Kuykendall said. “It
brings people together in fresh ways. It’s a
different kind of culture in which to learn and
do work.”
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