BY KAYLA LOKEINSKY AND SARAH ROUSSELL
We are blogging together from the University of Miami summer journalism program. As we begin to put together our video stories let’s recap our second week at the Miami Montage
We recently completed all of the articles that are going into the Miami Montage publication, and we are beginning to work on our videos that will accompany our stories. Although making a video segment wasn’t exactly what Sarah and I planned on doing when we came to this program, it has been an enlightening experience. It’s led us to realize that there is an entirely new side of professional journalism that we had never seen before.
As the world progresses through the twenty-first century, the journalism world is changing. Newspapers are becoming more visual in order to hold their audience’s attention. Whether it’s through the web, magazines, or video, journalism has morphed into multimedia. It’s important to know how to do it all, from writing to filming, in order to be successful in this field.
For our video projects, we have to figure out a new spin on the articles that we’ve written and create a visual presentation for them. For example, I’m writing an article about a website that creates fake business resumes. I went out on to the University of Miami campus, found students and got their opinion on what they think of this website and if they would ever use it. Then I shot footage of someone surfing the website, and finally edited it all together.
Video journalism is not that different from print journalism. You find your sources, you interview them, you throw in some background history and devices, then you put it all together. However, video journalism has an editing process that takes years of experience to master and trying to cram it all into a week and a half isn’t easy. In video journalism, if you mess up your interview, that’s it. It’s not like in print journalism where you can call your source back and ask more questions. With film, messing up an interview could mean messing up your entire story. Learning all this has given me a newfound appreciation for non-print journalists
Although the hours here are still long, and the projects are incredibly stressful, we’re still having one of the greatest experiences of our lives. I have met so many student journalists who no doubt will become my lifelong friends. When you get 21 strangers together and make them spend every hour of the day with each other, they become a family. Students from rival newspapers are now working together. One of my favorite people here is the feature editor for The Circuit, one of the Lariat’s main rivals.
As we continue to work, the pressure almost becomes too much to handle. However, I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything in the world.
Sarah here:
Like Kayla said, this experience has definitely been one to remember. I’ve learned and absorbed so much incredible information that’s transforming me into a better journalist. For the first time in my life I feel 100% confident about what I want to do with my future—Journalism.
Being here has opened my eyes to the fact that in just a year I’ll be leaving high school and starting a new chapter. Who knows what the future will entail, but I now know that I’m ready to embrace it.
My experience here at UM has definitely been life changing, and I’m not sure if I ever want to leave. I never expected to become so close with the counselors and staff here. What’s so interesting is that everyone is so diverse and yet we are all bonded by a passion for journalism. The second week of our three-week experience is over, and as the days start to dwindle I can’t help but feel sad. I really don’t want to say goodbye to anybody here.
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