Here’s a school project: Get your news report broadcast on “Good Morning America.”
Students at six journalism schools are getting that opportunity thanks to the ABC News On Campus program.
In September 2008, ABC News established a partnership with J-schools at five universities: Arizona State, Syracuse, Florida, North Carolina and Texas. This fall, the program will expand to the University of Nebraska.
At each school, the network created a multimedia newsgathering bureau to produce content for ABC News’ digital and broadcast platforms, including “World News Tonight,” “Nightline,” ABCNews.com and mtvU.
With faculty input, ABC News selected students to staff the bureaus and gave them cameras, computers and “hands-on training from some of the most seasoned news professionals in the business.”
“We have anywhere from four to six paid college bureau staffers at each of these universities. We want to make certain they get individualized attention,” said John Green, the network’s executive producer for special programming and development. He said ABC News checks in with the bureaus regularly and has two full-time journalists working with the students on scripts.
To prepare for the “real world,” Green said, the students do it all: produce, shoot and edit video packages and create online content, including blogs and interactive graphics.
“It’s been a wonderful experience all around,” he said. “It’s given us a great insight into the types of stories these students are interested in covering, and it helps us to better understand digital technology. This is the generation that’s grown up with those technologies. They’re much more adept at using them than we are.”
