Comm465 provided me the essential tools for doing broadcast journalism. I’ve learned the mechanics behind the journalism business, and the basic skills of television reporting. By the end of the semester, I can tell what are the main elements of a good story so that I know how to polish my skills in the future.
As I see it, the best part of Dr. Zhong’s Comm465 is that we didn’t have many in-class writings like some of the other classes did. Dr. Zhong spent most of the time talking about specific approaches for reporting, introducing inspiring research results, and showing demonstrative examples from real newscasts. I’ve learned that writing is vital for any kinds of journalism, and doing some research before you start the stories can help you add more dimensions and depths to the reporting. Personally speaking, our time was spent more efficiently in this way than just doing a lot of intensive writing practice.
Secondly, we were encouraged to learn how to work as a team as well as working solo. Dr. Zhong said that the industry today needs more teamwork than it ever has. Working as a team is the essential interpersonal skill that a young journalist needs to survive. My teammates and I always try to collaborate the strengths of each other, and regarding the results, we did a great job. Working with students from SISU was also a good experience. I tried to work solo in my Project four, because we’ve discussed that nowadays, more and more entry-level jobs require the young professionals to know “everything.” In another word, we are the “one-man bands.” Project four is my first try-out as a one-man band. It’s not as hard as I thought, but without teammates’ heads-ups and helps, I surely made much more mistakes in this project than the other ones.
Moreover, the final project itself is like a pushing hand that helps us to launch our professional careers as soon as possible. The newscast critic gave us the guidance to form a habit watching local newscasts, which is actually the most effective way to learn from the professionals. Meanwhile, having a website is the first step to brand ourselves. I feel fortunate that we covered how to set up websites and the fundamental ideas of website design in a television reporting class.
Above all, all the lectures, workshops, and projects we had are aiming at something that is essential for us to become professional or to stand out among other graduating students. This course is intensive to some extent, but it worth all the efforts.