Young newscasters, reporters make WHS Viking News
High School news goes glossy, high tech
Students at Williams High School (WHS) can get a little more news this year thanks to daily news broadcasts produced by the school's audio-visual technology class, taught by teacher Tristan Heisley. The broadcasts, called the Williams Vikings News, air each day on television screens in every classroom of the school and cover a broad range of subjects. Each broadcast, complete with on-screen student announcers, lasts roughly five minutes.
"It's every day of the week. We do the announcements. If there's a football game or volleyball game, they'll show highlights of the game the next day," Heisley said. "Different kids do it every day, so once every three weeks the same kids go, so it's kind of cool. The kids get somebody new every day. It keeps it kind of fresh."
The news comes on about 8:35 each school day, right after the bell rings and following the morning Pledge of Allegiance. According to Heisley, staff at the school hoped visual stimulation would help keep students at the school interested in WHS events.
"They used to do it over the PA, (but) the kids didn't pay attention so much to it," Heisley said, adding that even a five minute production can be "very tough."
"We only have one class period to do it and it seems like, 'oh, it's just a five minute news broadcast, it shouldn't take that long,' (but) it takes them five cuts sometimes to get it right and we have to fix sound issues. We have to add it in and burn it on a DVD. We have to burn a DVD every day. There's no way to get it from this computer to every TV, so I have to burn a copy every day," Heisley said.
Input on the daily news program has been positive so far, he said.
"I think most people like it. It's kind of in its infancy, so it's kind of very basic, but I think by the end of the year it will be pretty good."
Also new this year is the Williams Vikings News, produced by budding WHS journalists and under the direction of teacher Angel Atencio. The revamped school newspaper has a glossy feel, unlike prior school newspapers from WHS, and offers color pages on both the front and back covers. Many of the 17 students in the class are also students in the audio-visual technology class, Atencio said.
"The cover page for the newspaper is in color as opposed to black and white and this year we're following a journalistic approach. Every two or three pages is in color. Every article has to be researched. If it's an article about a specific person in the school then a formal interview has to take place," Atencio said. "In the past, journalism, or the newsletter, was part of the business program and this is the first year we broke away from that. The class has its requirements on a journalistic level and then also on a publications level, as far as meeting the requirements of writing articles, doing the research and quoting sources if they pulled it off of somewhere."
The new look for the monthly Viking newspaper will continue throughout the year, Atencio said.
"It will stay with the same look. The cover and the back page will always be the same," she said. "The content in the middle will vary, but it will be columns. A lot of the students refer to it as a magazine as opposed to a newspaper and that's okay. They're still getting information with regards to local news, global news and anything that is associated with teenage life. The students thought that if they added the local and international news then that would just be one more way that other students get news from beyond, because not everyone watches or reads newspapers. Every student is required to write five articles every month on top of the other requirements they have for the class," Atencio said.
"We're hoping to get some sponsorships. The students are trying to figure out a plan of action to get the back page dedicated for businesses to advertise for just a small amount, which will pay for the paper and the color in the newspaper, no profit on it; it will directly go to the production materials and toner."
One reason for the overhauled Viking News, according to Atencio, was to offer something flashy for students who sought an alternative to the annual yearbook.
"We took a survey last year, in April of 2007, and not very many students could afford the yea rbook, so the newsletter was the replacement of that. The students asked for more photos of other students, or random shots, so that will be a page in the newsletter, the random photos. It does replace the yearbook if the student can't afford it," she said.
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