Fall 2007 - SCOOP Magazine

Building BlocksAdvancing technology has driven changes in journalism and electronic mediacompiled byKimberly HoodRADIO:THEN:Every track was on its own record (then eventually itsown 8-track), so songs had to be manually selected andplayed. The station was full of shelves holding all thevarious tracks and albums. The original station broadcastfrom campus was WUOT, started in 1949, but in 1982WUTK-FM, 90.3, The Rock, came into being. WhenWUTK originally signed on, it was broadcast at only 128Watts — barely enough signal to be picked up where WestTown Mall is today.NOW:The shelves and drawers full of albums have been replacedby a computer. All tracks are stored digitally on a harddrive and a computer program selects songs and createsplaylists. WUTK now broadcasts at 1,000 Watts and isstreamed worldwide via the Internet. Today, WUTK’stechnology is on par with most corporate stations, whichhas made it an invaluable experience for students seekinga career in radio.EDITING:Everything was done by hand — stories were typedon typewriters, headlines were written and countedby hand and if anything needed to be movedaround, students used a ruler and a straightedge tocut the story apart and glue it back in the order theywanted.Everything is done on the computer. The computer takescare of counting the spaces allotted for letters and, if anythingneeds to be rearranged, it is only a matter of a fewkey strokes until it is copied and pasted. Also, today mostcopy editors are expected to be involved in the design andlayout of pages.fall 2007