Under Pressure:
NYC Students Learn about Deadlines at IC

Five students with no journalism experience, eight newspaper pages to produce, one deadline looming: that was the challenge for junior and senior high school students during the second Ithaca College/Frederick Douglass Academy summer media workshop.

The students proposed story ideas, made a story list, researched their articles, interviewed subjects, wrote the stories, took pictures, and then designed and produced the pages.

The workshop, designed by assistant professor of journalism Mead Loop '88, was organized like a newsroom. Students learned how to run a school newspaper at FDA. "We used the same digital cameras and computer software that the students use back home," said Loop. The young journalists saw how full-time journalists handled deadlines during a tour of the Ithaca Journal newsroom and printing press. One Journal editor told them his job was a "daily tap dance."

The students' finished product (which, of course, was completed on deadline) includes profiles about what makes Ithaca distinctive, such as the Sciencenter and community gardens, editorials about what is on the minds of teens, and even a book review of the latest Harry Potter tome.

Six other FDA students worked with assistant professor of television-radio Gossa Tsegaye '76 (in photo, above, on location), producing a video documentary of their experiences. "The students who participated in the workshop," said Tsegaye, "will not have any difficulties implementing the knowledge and experience they gained at the weeklong workshop once they get back to FDA." The College, in fact, donated the equipment for the school's broadcast studio in 1998.

Like the Introduction to Broadcast Production class that decades of Ithaca College television-radio students have taken, the FDA workshop first emphasized audio production skills, then moved to studio television work and finally to fieldwork. Add the time-consuming task of editing, and it was like compressing Broadcast Production into one week. In the end, though, another deadline was met.

The FDA students were accompanied by two of their teachers, Maya Roth '99 and Jana Nordquist. Roth said, "It was truly rewarding for me to see how the students' interviewing techniques and writing skills developed throughout the week under Professor Loop's guidance. The students felt empowered and were able to take full ownership of their creation―an eight-page newspaper called FDA Today." Similarly, Nordquist said that "watching Professor Tsegaye turn six untrained students into videographers was amazing. They became camera operators, crew, technicians, and producers in less than a week. We are excited about implementing this knowledge into the daily life at FDA."

For the second straight year, a generous grant from the ABC Foundation helped support the workshop. The 11 FDA students and their teachers were welcomed by communications dean Thomas Bohn at a kickoff barbecue, and associate dean Virginia Mansfield-Richardson and director of multicultural affairs Roger Richardson hosted a closing ceremony at the end of the intensive week. There the video students presented and discussed their documentary, and the newspaper students did the same with their completed four-color newspaper. The students were all awarded a certificate for their successful completion of the workshop.