A little credit where credit is due

Photos by Richard Ortner Broadcast News major Jayme Bregman presents a weather report in front of the chroma key screen in KMGH-TV's studio. The monitor at right displays what viewers actually see.

"It was a little intimidating and scary at first, being in front of the green screen and decribing graphics, but I learned a lot." - Kaitlin Ko Second from right, Ko is seen on a KMGH-TV monitor mugging into a studio camera along with fellow students.

Recognizing the need to prepare students for the increasing variety of journalism and mass communications job opportunities – and the limited amount of time those students have to acquire specific skills – the School has begun offering one-credit courses in areas of high interest to SJMC majors.

The trend began in fall 2005, when Assistant Professor Lee Hood (MA '97, Ph.D. '01) created the Broadcast for Non-Majors course. As the title suggests, it's a course taught by Broadcast News faculty for students who otherwise don't have access to curricula restricted to Broadcast majors. It's especially valuable for News-Editorial majors who want to learn new ways to present their stories in a career marketplace that is placing a premium on multimedia capabilities.

"The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive," Hood said. "The one-credit courses give students a chance to expand their knowledge into other areas that they might not need a full semester for."

Since then, one-credit courses have included Journalism & Trauma, the Art of the Interview, Legislative Reporting, Computer-Assisted Reporting and Weather Reporting.

Instructor Sandra Fish, who taught Legislative Reporting and Computer-Assisted Reporting, said the short courses give students some hard-to-find opportunities.

"They learn about the topics while getting some practical experience in writing stories," she said. "In Computer-Assisted Reporting, students report stories using data such as restaurant inspections. A broadcast student made that data analysis into a fun video package. In Legislative Reporting classes, students spend time at the Capitol in Denver, covering committee hearings and floor action, giving them a good feel for real-life beat reporting."

Instructor Amy Herdy went outside the School to add realism to the one-credit courses she taught this spring.

"In both the Journalism & Trauma class and the Art of the Interview class, student actors from the Interactive Theater Project gave the budding journalists a chance to practice real-life interviewing skills," she said. "The student actors performed mock confrontational interviews for the Art of the Interview students, as well as mock trauma exercises for both classes."

Every exercise was videotaped and later critiqued with the students. "The students all gave the process rave reviews, and the trauma class caught the attention of local media," she said. In February, Denver's KUSA-Channel 9 did a report on the course, one of only a few offered by U.S. collegiate journalism programs.

Also this spring, meteorologist Richard Ortner (MA '93) of Denver's KMGH-Channel 7 returned to the classroom to teach the Weather Reporting class. Or, to be accurate, the classroom returned to him.

Students traveled to KMGH studios on Saturdays to get experience in front of the chroma key – or green screen – used to produce local TV weather segments.

"It was fabulous," Broadcast News major Kaitlin Ko said.

"It was a little intimidating and scary at first, being in front of the green screen and describing graphics, but I learned a lot."