By Lauren Milideo
In rural communities like Natchitoches, Louisiana, the local holiday parade or high school football game can be big news. And the students of Northwestern State University Louisiana’s NSU-TV News Service are making sure that their neighbors, far from larger cities, are still finding themselves in television news coverage. In the process, these students are learning the practical skills to move forward in broadcast news careers.
“We all know that local news is suffering,” said Erbon and Marie Wise Endowed Chair of Journalism Brian Gabrial. So he and another faculty member, assistant professor Nick Taylor of the New Media, Journalism, and Communication Arts Department, began the News Service for student journalists to contribute content to local new outlets and to provide an internship opportunity for student journalists.
“Our young student journalists can do this work if there’s plenty of oversight or editorial control from supervisors and mentors,” Gabrial said. “They can do a lot of things that local news, especially on the newspaper side, used to do and they don’t do anymore.”
Gabrial said he and Taylor view the students as professionals and not as students.
“They (regional news affiliates) can't send crews down to Natchitoches to cover events,” Gabrial said. “And so we're more than happy to provide that content for them.”
He added that students are “getting true professional experience and getting their stories on the local TV stations. They never would have had that opportunity even if they were interns of those TV stations.”
NSU-TV News Service started out providing a Friday night high school football highlight reel at the request of a local ABC affiliate in Shreveport, Louisiana, about 70 miles north of Natchitoches, and the NSU-TV News Service expanded from there.
“We've evolved from doing football, and now we work with the local news stations, who (make) requests, or we send them (stories) if we think they might be interested,” Taylor said.
The students cover the rural region surrounding campus, Taylor said, often heading to events like holiday parades and festivals – and still providing those high school sports highlights.
“We do about a news story a week,” Taylor said. “They (local news affiliates) call us up and say, ‘There's this going on in your area. Can you guys cover it?’”
Students come to the News Service through various avenues, Taylor said: Some may take it as an internship or independent study credit. Some just show up to volunteer to learn more about reporting and journalism.
The university has a memorandum of understanding with Shreveport’s ABC affiliate KTBS to work with the station and the department, according to Gabrial. However, the News Service has expanded that collaboration. Students can also offer their stories to stations in Alexandria, La. through an informal arrangement, and are encouraged to provide stories to the Natchitoches Times or Natchitoches Parish Journal.
“The goal was to give these students professional experience and something for their resumes when they look for work,” Gabrial said. “I'm happy to say that most students who have worked for the News Service have found work in television or digital news operations.”
Indeed, students have their experience with the News Service worthwhile. “We learn a lot of things in our programs, but once we graduate, what someone is looking for is your experience in the field,” said News Service student reporter Naydu Daza Maya, who first joined the program knowing she wanted to work in broadcast news, but unsure how to reach that goal.
“It was a process of teaching and learning, but it was the most rewarding thing of all,” Daza said. “(Without someone) taking the time to teach me or… make me believe in myself and trust me that I could be able to do it, I don't think I would have been able to do it.”
Daza has reported on stories around campus, including interviewing one of the university’s first African-American students about her experiences when the school integrated decades earlier.
The students do all the work in creating each news report, Taylor said. “Everything we do is student-produced,” Taylor noted, adding, “Brian (Gabrial) and me (make) sure that journalistic values are being followed.”
Taylor explained that a producer at KTBS might offer two or three story ideas, and the student journalists select which to report. “They choose the stories, they shoot the stories, they write and edit, and then they're the ones who send it off to the news station,” Taylor said.
Associated with the news service is the chapter of the Hispanic Student Journalist Association, which produces the Spanish-language podcast Latino Living and provides discussion and reporting on issues of particular interest to the growing Spanish-speaking community in the region, Taylor said. This includes many Hispanic students on campus, Daza said.
Daza, who creates and produces podcasts, works with fellow students to tell the stories of students and neighbors who have ties to Hispanic cultures. So far, the podcast has seen an enthusiastic reception in the local community, Daza said, with listeners eager for the release of each episode.
The key to the student-run NSU-TV News Service, Daza said, is having the faculty’s support. “I don't think it would be possible if we didn't have a good director and someone that is out there looking out for us,” Daza said, adding, “None of that would be possible if he (Taylor) wouldn't be there trusting us and supporting us.”