Feedback November 2002 (Vol 43 No 4)

matter what medium houses the final product. So, in the fall of 1997, print andbroadcast journalism majors found themselves together for a stint as beat reporters. Atthat time, colleague Brian Richardson and I met our reporting classes jointly forlectures and story budget discussions while maintaining our separate tracks; his print,mine broadcast. Students’ stories stayed in their respective media. Print pieces oftenwent to the campus newspapers, and broadcast reports to the department’s radio andTV news programs. But that began to change in November 1999, when we urged printstudents to volunteer for our local broadcast election night coverage. 2 I recall theexcitement in the newsroom as producers briefed their staffs and sent them out into thefield to file live telephone reports and interviews with candidates. The first call camefrom a print student at the courthouse, with a story on the sheriff’s race. “I’ve got aninterview with Pederson,” she said.“Is he standing by, ready to go on the air?” asked the producer.“Standing by? No, he’s gone. I’ve already interviewed him, and I’ve got some greatquotes,” the reporter responded. She had applied a print interview model to a broadcastvenue. Instead of interviewing the candidate on the air, she filled her notebookwith quotes, and then read them as we broadcast live. While not ideal, the experiencetaught us a valuable lesson: we had a long way to go.Since then, we’ve moved closer to a converged media operation, with the linesbetween print and broadcast continuing to blur. For the past year former newspapereditor Pam Luecke has guided our print students through beat reporting, with veteranbroadcast journalist Bob de Maria leading the broadcast counterpart. Together, they felttwo professors for eight students was “a bit indulgent,” and separate textbooks andgrading authority made the distinct yet converged courses cumbersome to teach.Luecke will now teach print and broadcast students, with de Maria consulting on thebroadcast-specific aspects of storytelling. This arrangement might be impossible if notfor de Maria’s rare attitude.“I’m an old guy, but on the other hand, I’ve always been open to change,” said deMaria. “Change in and of itself is something positive. If you do something and it fails,you know not to do the same thing the same way. Do you remember the song HighHopes? I have high hopes.”Luecke is also optimistic. While she admits she’s “biased,” because she believes asolid background in print reporting is “essential for Internet and broadcast reporting,”she recognizes the strengths of broadcast journalism methods. A recent mid-termassignment requiring both print and broadcast students to conduct an on-camera interviewwith a newsmaker is a case in point. “It was a wonderful pedagogical device,” saidLuecke. “There is something about knowing you’re going to be talking on camera thatfocuses attention and energy in a way a print assignment on interviewing skills wouldnot do. So I was thrilled with that.”She’s also enthusiastic about the prospect of assigning print stories to broadcaststudents, moving us closer to true convergence.Working in one another’s mediaThe cross-platform opportunities continue to grow for our students both before andafter they take beat reporting. My neophyte electronic media students still learn thebasics of broadcast writing, shooting, and editing. But, they also write short pieces forBEA—Educating tomorrow’s electronic media professionals 29