The University of Blog

This week I produced a show on cycling in Columbia.  Our guests included Ian Cheny of PedNet, Detective Jeff Westbrook with  the Columbia Police Department and Michelle Windmoeller, who is an avid city cyclist. It was a pretty good show and we had one caller and nine people in the chatroom, which was the most participation that we’ve ever had. Producing a show was pretty cool. I was in the driver’s seat, feeding the questions to Reuben. I could see when he was struggling for a new question, and since I had researched the topic I knew what would be good. 

 The next show I’m working on is Human Trafficking. This should be a pretty powerful show. The trouble I’m running into is deepening the conversation beyond just the awareness aspect. Yes, awareness to the issue is vital, but that’s only half the show. The other half is WHY it’s important. WHY should people care beyond the fact that it’s morally wrong? I’ve completed the show preinterviews and have the guests. Now I need to go back and re-interview a couple of them to get to the real issues. 

Also, we’ve talked a lot about audience development. For this, we will have a couple of happy hours at Uprise Bakery, invite our friends and push the show onto our friends and their friends. The hope is that it will spread by word of mouth. We’ll see.

In class we presented our progress with somewhat disappointing results. No one called in for our first show, which is no fun, but building an audience takes time. This week we did a show job landscape in Missouri. We had a couple of people in the chatroom engaging each other. Even though one woman turned out to be a guest’s mother from Lexington, SC, it was still good that people are using the chat function. Before and after the taping, I took some photos to add to the facebook fan page. We’ll be taking more photos for promotional purposes and eventually do some backstage video as well.

I was working on producing Monday’s show on biking in Columbia. This includes gathering all the pre interviews and research I’ve done for Reuben to have. We put them in a paper folder so that he can reference it if he needs to. It was hard to get more information from a previous pre interview because I wasn’t getting a call back, even though I thought that he had confirmed. Eventually I called him enough that I was able to get through. Hopefully Reuben will feel prepared with the info I gave him. I also booked two guests for a show on human trafficking. So it’s been a paticularly busy week producing, but I’m glad that I’ve done this class for capstone rather than just volunteering my time. I feel like so far, I’ve gotten a lot out of it.

We had our first show this Monday. Needless to say, there are many holes that we still need to fill in. Our discussion was valuable. Reuben worked well with the teleprompter and the questions that we provided. He kept the discussion flowing well. A few bugaboos: One of our guests was late and we had to integrate her. Our major issue was with the broadcast. We had some turnover with our staff leaving our New Media Producer position unfilled. Lindsey and I filled in, but unfortunately the video didn’t go through. This meant that the people in the chatroom couldn’t participate. The broadcast over KBIA 2 worked well. Also, the video we captured was also nice. Thus, Lindsey and I learned how to do the New Media Producer’s job including setting up the connection in the server room. This will help as we fill in until we get another producer to do the job.

Next week we will talk about jobs in Mid-Missouri. Also, I’ve started making connections for a show on Human Trafficking. We are pretty good on show topics. Later in November we will do shows on cameras downtown as well as perhaps eating local during the winter. So far so good though. We had a good first show and we will continue to have good shows, but the biggest challenge will be audience participation. How are we going to get people to participate when we are starting essentially at ground zero? No calls and no people entered the chat. This will be the biggest challenge, which I will do my part by emailing people connected to each show.

We’re so close. Finally! This week we had a couple of tech rehearsals to make sure everything will work properly. I answered some calls and transferred them. We worked on our in-studio communication including what information Reuben would need to know about the callers. Currently, we don’t have the call screening software so we’re doing it via google chat. Reuben worked on his teleprompter skills, and we saw what the set would look like… hopefully we’re getting new chairs.

It’s amazing the amount of people it takes to get it all right. There was a sound expert as well as a broadcast expert so everyone would be getting what they needed for both radio and television. Since it’s going to be broadcast on television as well as over the radio, it’s essential to have the best product possible. I have yet to see what the online community discussion chat is like, but that should be interesting as well.

I have all of the biking show booked. Our show on the 19th fell though so we regrouped yesterday to plan a new show – this time it will be on job growth in mid – Missouri. It’s an engaging topic, so I’m pleased with the results… even if it seems a bit broad right now, we do have some good panelists.  We’ll see how Monday goes!

We have some shows booked. It helps working as a team because we can all fill in the gaps and divide and conquer. My task was to get a show on biking. I have gotten the guests narrowed down and confirmed and have preinterviewed two of them. The show will be on October 26th. Now my attention needs to be on crafting that show (how to phrase questions, in what order, what to give Reuben the host, show packet), and coming up with a new show. I’ve started to make contacts for a show on Human Trafficking. However, our concern is to really make a good conversation about that. This means to not just raise awareness on the topic, but to describe how this affects the community members of mid-missouri.

We are a week away from our first show. Our first show will be to define who is the uninsured in Missouri. This should kick us off nicely because it’s a topic that should define what our shows are like from here on out. We met with the Missouri Association for Community Action, which is an anti poverty organziation. They gave us some great statistics on what poverty looks like in Missouri which will be good for future show topics. It’s also a good connection for us to have because they will be able to find us people who have been directly affected by policies, etc. It’s all about Intersection right now.