Our watch on WVU News has ended, and what an incredible ride it has been.
We taped our final show, a 30-minute special edition newscast, with great success. I want to shout out everyone who worked tirelessly in this class. This cohort is brimming with ideas, so much so that we changed our original plan of basing our special edition on the gun pandemic in the country. We had five different show ideas from Prof. Gina Martino-Dahlia, which came down to voting. More people voted in favor of “Addiction in America: an Ongoing Epidemic.” Then we set to work. Ideation first.
Prof. Ashton Marra was vital in crafting our story ideas to fit the show’s theme and to distance it from bad faith practices that trail addiction reporting. She is an expert and an excellent resource for stories on addiction and substance use disorder. In addition, she runs Reporting on Addiction, a non-profit dedicated to improving how the media reports addiction. As the pitch lead, I accompanied each update with a condensed style guide from Reporting on Addiction to aid reporters in languaging and ethical obligations toward sources.
We aimed to explore how addiction and several disorders manifest themselves and the people they affect, from notable ones like opioids to subtler issues like sports betting and gaming. Our packages also explored solutions and provided people with links to helpful resources. Our kicker was a story on celebrating people in recovery and their allies via the WVU Collegiate Program (talk about yoga, tie and dye and how social activities can help those in recovery...you should watch the package!).
We knew we were asking a lot from our sources because of the sensitivity of the issue and how we might be prodding but doing this for the entire semester meant our reporters gained trust on the field and could find tips and leads from former reporting endeavors. I was also in the field to shoot and help reporters with Narcan and the collegiate recovery packages.
The final ten packages were at an average of two minutes, and we had a team report for sports based on sports gambling. Our executive producers had to be in Las Vegas for a convention, which meant the process had to be sped up, but we’ve been trained for this.
After a successful writing conference on Wednesday and throughout Thursday (which was my birthday) again, minor edits were needed. We had our producer meeting to stack the show. We were producing a lengthy show for the first time, and the producers had to turn it around faster to accommodate our executive producers’ schedule in Las Vegas. I sent the final feedback to all reporters on Thursday evening to have them enough time before Monday, when they came in for final fixes and upload packages.
On Friday, I had to work on my master’s thesis before writing the show. I edited and finalized the rundown on Saturday morning. Much research was required, and one has to be particular in how the anchors presented the stories in their lead-in, tag or toss. There were a lot of changes to be made to our original format. I was writing the B and C blocks, and the on-set camera setting for the sports coverage changed entirely because we had our two reporters on set. So it was a rollercoaster, but I got it done in time. I even had enough time to prepare for my birthday dinner hosted by my friends!
On Monday, we got the final scripts and rundown from the executive producers, who were about to get on a six-hour flight from Las Vegas. With GA Gillian Wanosky in their stead, everything panned out well. First, I helped reporters make edits and look at their packages in the edit lab before getting to Gillian for final approval. Then, Makenna Leisifer and I led the anchor rehearsal.
On show day, there were fixes in the studio to reflect how we built our script and anchor movements. We had three takes; the first was for warm-up, as we’ve never had this much movement and gone the length in this production. However, we could have easily used the last two, and we did use one of them.
After the show, we celebrated with graduation gowns and took turns taking photographs, sharing hugs and being almost teary-eyed. Almost half of the class are seniors or outgoing graduate students, and we probably won’t see the Waterfront Studio for a long while. The Waterfront Studio staff are some of the best and most gracious tutors. I can't believe how enjoyable it was for Joe to teach me how to operate the technical director's board with his fun and effective teaching style.
I'll miss everyone from this class who made it valuable, including my professors and classmates. I became a better broadcast professional in this class and can't wait to see where this leads me. Next is the class party on Monday, and I'm excited about the food. :)
I can't wait to defend my thesis and participate in the graduation ceremony on May 12th.
Signing off,
Tolu Olasoji
Co-producer, technical director & videographer, WVU News Spring 2023.