Broadcast Journalism
As a medium for journalistic expression, video was something I always enjoyed seeing but didn't often pursue as an avenue for publication. However, the ODYSSEY places a great deal of emphasis on training staffers for broadcast journalism, ensuring that I have learned -- and am still learning -- more than the final products I've worked with suggest.
01
CCHS Football Alumni Video
I knew students engaged more with video than other forms of media, so I wanted to produce a video when it came time to run the annual Classic City Championship package. For me, the package content had become repetitive, and I wanted to spice it up with a video featuring interviews with former Clarke Central High School football players speaking on what it meant to play against crosstown rival Cedar Shoals High School. I managed to get three alumni to the school, filming all of them at a three-quarter profile in the Billy Henderson Stadium stands to add context. To keep viewers engaged, I made sure no clips were longer than 10 seconds, changing audio and video as much as possible to maintain a cohesive narrative.
02
Homecoming Hype Video
This video went through several iterations before being posted. Prior to creating the video, I had recorded some video clips during a half of football against Loganville High School, while a staffer also had compiled some against Cedar Shoals High School from earlier in the year. With this library to choose from, I made multiple video drafts set to different songs. I wanted not only to capture the hype of the game, but the idea of a Homecoming as well. My first draft was to TV Girl's "Lover's Rock", my second to Jay-Z's "4:44." However, both suffered from the same flaw -- the clips were too long, making the viewer lose interest. My final draft, using Ye's Homecoming as audio, allowed me keep students visually engaged with shorter clips and evoke the sense of homecoming I was going for.
03
Coaching Spotlight: David Perno
The video spotlighted head varsity football coach David Perno amidst a difficult season for him and asked him about his coaching philosophy. The video went through a lot of drafts with Sports Staffer Kendarius Butts, before I finished editing it and had it published, forcing me to think about the order of shots and the timing of them with the music.
04
What's your favorite CCHS sporting memory?
Another collaboration between Kendarius and me, this video was a man-on-the-street style form where Kendarius asked students and staff around the school what their favorite CCHS sporting memory was while I filmed. We didn’t originally plan to make a video, but after a consultation with our adviser, we decided to change course, so I sequenced the clips together and added music, eventually publishing it on the Instagram.
05
Social Media Carousels
As a staff, we did these a several times with different hosts, with me often filming or editing on the back end. However, in this preview of the upcoming Classic City Championship, I was the on-air talent, meaning I bore the brunt of the responsibility to get the students engaged. Tying into diversity, in this video, I tried to select a mix of students by race, gender, and grade level to ensure a variety of perspectives were included.
Practicing Broadcast Journalism
Throughout high school, I've had the opportunity to learn a great deal about broadcast journalism, and been able to apply some of those concepts to my work. At CCHS, this learning was usually hands-on, as my Journalism I class devoted a significant portion of time to understanding and practicing broadcast journalism techniques.
Scripting
For broadcast and podcast projects, I always make sure to script my words. Public speaking hasn't always been a strength of mine, but writing has. Being able to script my words allowed me to focus wholly on my on-air presence without worrying about what I'm going to say. For broadcast, I've focused on making my sentences short and digestible, which allows me to speak them confidently and viewers to understand them.
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Storyboard
If scripts are a textual plan, storyboards are a visual one. I've created rough outlines like this one, which showed the arc of a video about the senior Class of 2023 graduating, to help sketch out the narrative of a video. More than anything, storyboards help organize my mental process and formalize the end product I'm going for.
Stakeholder Planning
I know the importance of staying organized on a broadcast video, which is why I created this document to coordinate the interview schedule for a video I was making as part of a group. This document allowed our editor to know where we were with our filmed interviews and held my group-mates accountable.
Compiling B-Roll
One of the first things I learned about broadcast journalism was the importance of an establishing shot to ground your viewer in the scene. This photo is an example of a shot I used to do this for a practice video in my Journalism I class. It shows my high school head-on, giving the viewer a sense of context for where the video's story will take place.
Practicing Stand-ups
This clip shows a walk-and-talk clip of me discussing the impacts of the Georgia High School Association's decision not to allow trans athletes to compete in the sport that aligns with their gender identity. I struggled with talking with my hands in this clip, making a lot of movements but failing to match them with my annunciation. However, I did a fair job of walking with pace and purpose while maintaining eye contact with the camera.
Voiceovers and Audio
To go with B-roll, I've recorded voiceovers that move a story along while allowing viewers to engage with more relevant visual material. In these two voiceover examples, I'm discussing a recent bill that banned critical race theory in Georgia schools. In both, I'm very happy with my tone, which was active and engaging. Note also the clips' length -- neither is a complex sentence, allowing the reader to understand my words more clearly.
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The final clip is a piano intro I recorded for a practice video. I'd learned that publications often have introductory audio to begin their videos, and this recording was my attempt at that.
Learning Broadcast Journalism
At the fall 2024 National High School Journalism Convention in Philadelphia, I made a point to learn more about broadcast journalism. In understand that video is often a far more captivating medium than print in which to tell a story, so I wanted to attend sessions that spoke to my desire to tell immersive stories in a video format.
Keynote: Matthew O. Henderson
I was so captivated by the work Matthew O. Henderson did with Life Stories that I stayed behind 45 minutes after his speech had finished just to talk with him for five extra minutes about it. His work synthesized exactly what I would want to do with broadcast storytelling: communicate people's true experiences. I walked away from the speech feeling inspired by Henderson's words and with a better understanding of the power broadcast journalism could have.
A Choice of Weapons screening
I have a philosophy at journalism conferences: 2/3 of the sessions I attend should be to learn, but 1/3 should be to inspire. This session was to inspire. I didn't know much about Gordon Parks's life, but having attended Henderson's keynote the night before, I was itching to see an example of Life Stories's humanity-based storytelling. I was more than satisfied. The documentary engaged me both as a viewer and analytically, allowing me to both enjoy and understand the techniques the documenter used to convey a powerful life story.
NBCU Storytellers Lab
This session was more practical than the previous two. It was with two NBC broadcast anchors and discussed their experiences with broadcast journalism and the NBC Storytellers Academy. In some ways, I feel as though the panelists pulled behind the curtain to the ins-and-outs of professional broadcast journalism, showing what the day-to-day job looked like at a legacy media company. Though this session didn't necessarily inspire me in the same way as Henderson or the Parks documentary, the tangible experiences of the NBC anchors lent a realistic perspective to what it was like to be a broadcast journalist.