Why TV newsrooms should put student reporters on the air
Reflecting on a partnership between Spectrum News and USC Annenberg journalism students
For years, local television newsrooms have been trying to figure out how to engage a disappearing audience . As a former news producer teaching at USC’s Annenberg School of Journalism, I work with students who rarely watch TV. Most get their news elsewhere, but some still want to be TV reporters. That’s what got me thinking about their future and the survival of TV news. Why not get student journalists reporting for local television stations while they’re in college? The students would get real-world experience. The television stations would get student-reported stories that attract younger viewers. Seems like a win-win proposition to me.
When Spectrum launched a new 24-hour news channel in Los Angeles last fall, I was curious about a possible partnership. Spectrum News is charting a new course, focusing on community issues and everyday people. The mission for reporters is to develop sources, cover neighborhoods, build trust.
After meeting with Spectrum’s VP of Content Cater Lee and News Director Scott Warren I understood what was in it for them. They wanted stories driven by people on the USC campus and surrounding South Los Angeles community, stories that matter and appeal to college-age students.
I invited six journalism students, all with television reporting experience, to take a course I created for this new partnership. We attended a workshop at Spectrum’s El Segundo studios where Warren explained the process for Spectrum reporters. As he put it, he “was setting the expectations for the students that they would be running through the exact same thing, which is to come up with a number of stories to pitch, to get those pitches approved, and then to go out and shoot them in our character-driven, visual way.”
The beta test was underway and all six students were excited.
Within a couple weeks, each student submitted a Spectrum pitch form with one or two story ideas. Madeline Ottilie wanted to follow a South Los Angeles high school student waiting to hear back from colleges where he had applied. Warren thought this was a great idea “in the zeitgeist of news coverage,” told from the perspective of a college student. ‘A’ali’ Dukelow pitched a ‘friendship class’ at USC that helps students form and nurture healthy relationships and de-stigmatizes mental health issues that affect many young people. Trevor Sochocki wanted to profile a shoe repairman whose shop, Village Cobbler, survived construction of the massive USC Village. Again, a story that Warren described as getting “down to the neighborhood level” and, at the same time, appealing to thousands of young people familiar with the area.
As the students started working on their stories, Warren paired each with a Spectrum reporter. He thought his reporters, familiar with the Spectrum style, would offer students a sounding board. Having a mentor made Dukelow more open to change. “It reminded me that you can’t be stuck on one way to tell a story.” Most students never met their mentor but agreed an in-person meeting could have improved communication.
I met with all six students throughout the semester to discuss the status of their stories. The biggest challenges were getting enough video and shooting an opening standup.
Since Spectrum’s stories can run more than two minutes (compared to a maximum one minute and a half at most television stations), compelling video and sound are key. Some students had to schedule a second and third meeting with their main character. Angel Viscarra did a story on a Little League umpire. His advice: “Shoot as soon as you can, as much as you can…because it might be hard to do down the road.”
Most of the student reporters like to be on camera, but the opening standups forced them to question what they would say and what the audience would see. When a standup launches the story as Spectrum requires, it can either engage or lose viewers. Dukelow had to re-shoot his standup several times but remarked, “It reminds you to be able to adapt and adjust.”
By the end of the semester, Warren gave the green light to all eight stories produced by the students. “I think the storytelling was excellent. I think every single one of the stories turned out to be a really unique, interesting, close-up look at a person and what they were going through.”
He offered students the chance to introduce their story on the set. “I thought that would be a really great opportunity to just get the full circle of what it is to be a reporter in all facets. To sit up there with a group of experienced journalists and a studio crew and cameras in the second largest market in the country watching you is quite an experience.”
Sochocki was thrilled to have such an opportunity. “No internship that I’ve done has let me put a piece I’ve done on the air,” he said. Ottilie believes getting on the air helped her land her first reporting job. After her first Spectrum story aired, she sent it to a news director in El Paso, Texas. “She watched the whole thing and then she called and wanted me to come visit,” Ottilie said. In a matter of weeks, she was offered and accepted the job.
As the semester came to a close, Warren and I reflected on the partnership. He felt the students were trained well for this reporting project. “It’s mostly the performance issues for most of them…like tracking and some of the standups, those are things that you have to practice. They just get better with time.”
Warren and I have already agreed to continue the partnership this fall. Students get a rare professional opportunity, and a television newsroom expands its reporting and reach. I have no illusions that partnerships like this one will impact TV ratings. But the potential is clear as long as student journalists are thoughtful and focused about their pitches. What matters is to give voice to the people and stories affecting them as students and young people in their community. That, I believe, is what can engage younger viewers to watch TV news.
“I think it worked out fantastically,” Warren said. “We got some great stories that we put on television, that were actually great for the viewers…So I would do this again in a heartbeat. I thought it was value all the way around.”
