eHub

I love these kids.

At about 2 a.m. this morning, after last call at the bars, J694 class member Rylan Howe's phone rang. A friend told him that Boardwalk apartments, northeast of 6th Street and Kasold Drive, were on fire. Rylan lives in what we in the multimedia newsroom sometimes call the "convergence house." Rylan, photo editor for the University Daily Kansan, is roomates with KUJH-TV producer and sports director Adam Sechrist and KUJH sports anchor Jimmy Chavez. As luck -€” and the gods of journalism -€” would have it, multimedia newsroom coordinator Staci Wolfe was also hanging around their house at 1326 Massachusetts after a night out with the boys.

The 1326 Mass news team sprang into action.

Rylan cruised by the Kansan to pick up his still cameras and Adam grabbed a KUJH video camera. Then the whole multimedia newsroom gaggle rode toward the glow of flames in the sky. It was one hell of a fire; one that destroyed 76 apartments and sent dozens to the hospital. The news team hiked through back yards, shot some killer sound bites from eyewitnesses and had the story posted, with Rylan's slide show and a full text story, by about 5 a.m.

Meanwhile, journalism student David Heller was hanging out of his Boardwalk apartment window, hoping to be rescued. Heller was supposed to show up for his first day of KJHK radio news training at 9 a.m. KJHK had already led the 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. newscasts with the fire. Radio News Director Audrey Esther was in the Dole newsroom to walk Heller through his first newscast as anchor. Heller showed up about 8:15 a.m. with a story on a piece of paper about escaping his flaming apartment by jumping out his window. He had lost everything, he told her. Rather than have him do the news, Audrey put together the 'cast and interviewed Heller on the air at 9 a.m. You can see Heller's story on KUJH-TV.

By about 10 a.m. J694 student and associate editor for the Kansan's Jayplay magazine, Brian Wacker, was on the newsroom phone. He had a friend who had shot home video of the fire. It was stunning stuff, he said. And it was. Wacker knew citizen journalism when he saw it. Staci and Adam, who caught about two hours sleep, are back in the newsroom editing citizen video right now.

I feel great. Nobody told these kids to do converged news. They just did it. And, damn, I am proud of them.