Students from TV and online journalism classes put their skills to the test during a breaking news story last week.
KUJH-TV news ran the breaking story of a Lawrence bank robbery on its evening news broadcast. However, bringing the story to other media failed.
Jake Yadrich works across the street from Emprise Bank, 2435 Iowa St. Yadrich, a KUJH news anchor, called the multimedia newsroom when he saw the police respond to what looked like a bank robbery. KUJH-TV dispatched a videographer who raced to get video shot and back to the newsroom in time for the 4:30 p.m daily taping.
Ellyn Angelotti, the multimedia class student working during the robbery, sent an e-mail to the editor of the Kansan, but she admits a phone call may have been better. The Kansan did not have the robbery story the following morning.
"It felt like a newsroom," Angelotti said. "We were calling for information and waiting for calls, but we didn't know where to put the story."
Wolfe and Angelotti had been working on KUJH-TV's Web archives, and, sure enough, the bank robbery eventually made it to the Web site. But it was after the newscast. Is that fast enough?
The lesson learned? While the multimedia editors and producers are ready and willing to help students get stories published in all of the campus media, they still don't quite know how that process should work. Once they establish a protocol, it should be easier; but, they are still learning what that protocol should be.
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