Jenny Cook wants to get ahead.
The sophomore is trying to gain an edge on her competition aftergraduation. As a future meterologist, Cook is working to gain therequirements she needs to earn a seal from either the AmericanMeterological Society or the National Weather Association.
"It would put me ahead of future broadcast meteorologists," Cooksaid. "It takes a while to earn and it would put me up there withpeople who have been in the business a long time."
However, because of shifts in the programming schedule at BallState's NewsLink Indiana, where Cook works, she might not haveenough on-air experience to gain her competitive edge.
After investing more than a million dollars in a digital mediaventure designed to place the university at the forefront of newsconvergence, Ball State's NewsLink Indiana faces an uncertainfuture.
The program is student-run, but enhanced by four professionalstaff members. Despite Provost Beverley Pitts's assurance that itwas in their plan from the beginning for a half-hour newscast,NewsLink Indiana's plans have changed. The staff was notifiedThursday that three 3-minute news segments and one 1-minute weathersegment would be all that would air.
CREATING A PARTNERSHIP
NewsLink Indiana grew out of the student immersion curriculum,which was created through the university's $20 millioniCommunications grant, Dave Ferguson, director of the Center forMedia Design, said. One million dollars of that money was spentbuilding and equiping a state-of-the-art converged news centerwhich allows for the combination of television, radio, Web andprint media, including the DAILY NEWS, which entered into apartnership with NewsLink last spring.
"We think we are a national model of a convergence newsroomproviding a multi-media outlet for undergraduates," Nancy Carlson,chairwoman of the department of telecommunications, said. "It takesmy breath away and makes me so proud to be a part of something soinnovative and so cross-disciplinary."
Telecommunications professor Bob Papper said the goal ofNewsLink Indiana was to redefine news. The segments are airing onWIPB, Ball State's PBS affiliate, and serve cities thatIndianapolis and Fort Wayne markets do not serve, such as Muncie,Anderson and Hartford City. Students, especially those in thedigital immersion class, travel to these cities to file theirreports.
The immersion program here involves a dozen students who areearning 12 credit hours for working at NewsLink Indiana. They areresponsible for reporting, shooting and editing all of the packagesthat air. Carlson said that many executives from news organizationsand representatives from colleges have visited the newsroom toobserve and learn.
Scott Olson, the vice-president for academic affairs atMinnesota State University, was dean of the university's College ofCommunication, Information and Media when iComm received its grant.Olson co-wrote the grant and worked with the Telecommunicationsdepartment to create a road map to put NewsLink on the air. Thistimeline listed dates when projects were to be accomplished and thepeople who were to carry out those activities.
"What we tried to do is lay out a pretty clear path that wethought everybody had agreed to," Olson said. "Maybe it wasn'tdetailed enough. I felt kind of good about it when I left. I guessmaybe I was wrong about that."
Part of that road map included hiring professionals to helpstudents in the project. Three of the project's four professionals-- managing editor Terry Heifetz, Web editor Wright Bryan, andanchor/reporter Chris Bavender -- left other jobs to come to BallState.
The students spend forty hours a week working at NewsLink. Theirefforts now are seen for ten minutes a day.
LOOKING FOR FUNDS
"We thought (the newscast) was going to be a half-hour," Carlsonsaid.
The staff entered its brand new newsroom in August and began toproduce story packages and dry runs of the show. The aspect of theprogram that is being developed right now is sustainability,Carlson said. The department wants to ensure that when iComm grantmoney runs out in June 2005, NewsLink Indiana will still haveenough funding to exist.
Ferguson said the half-hour newscast was just one model for newspresentation that was used because students needed a model to workfrom.
"In my opinion, nothing is wasted," Ferguson said. "It's anexploration process and ... the route to the ideal convergent newsformat is still in research and development."
Pitts said that the telecommunications department shouldunderstand that no one in the administration is involved in thedecision to change NewsLink Indiana's air times.
"From where they are, it looks like someone here is saying 'yes'or 'no,'" Pitts said. "But, that's not the case. It's just that allthe pieces aren't in place yet."
To make these pieces fit, Ferguson is using some of the grantmoney to hire a consultant who will assist in looking at differentmodels. An advisory team will consider a feasibility plan forkeeping NewsLink on the air for years to come. Ferguson said thatiComm research and development is an evolution, and he does notthink that at the beginning of the grant process there is a way tosee what will happen several years later.
"The thing that excites me is that if we come out of thisprocess with a sustainable model for local convergent news, we'llhave something that's nationally significant," Ferguson said.
FAILING TO SUCCEED
Papper said he is concerned.
As a part of an original proposal that suggested converged newsbecome a priority at the university, Papper said he has long beenbig on the notion of convergence, even leaving his job as directorof Indiana Public Radio to focus on these other efforts. Hiscontribution to NewsLink Indiana was in helping to create anadvisory council specifically for the project. The council includesprominent journalists and corporate directors from around thecountry, such as John Larson from Dateline NBC and news executivesfrom Hearst and Tribune.
The council, Papper said, works very closely with NewsLinkIndiana directors, suggesting innovations that students can try.The idea, Papper said, is that news professionals can learn fromexperiments Ball State students are trying; these professionalscannot try the same experiments in their own newsrooms because ofthe great risk involved.
"We can afford to fail as long as we learn something from it,"Papper said. "The stakes are too high for these people."
Papper said the advisory council agreed to help only with theunderstanding that NewsLink would be producing a half-hournewscast. Papper has not yet spoken with members of the council toalert them of the changes with the show.
"I need to talk to them soon," Papper said. "I'm concerned thatthey will be upset. What we're doing isn't what we said we weregoing to do and it's hard to imagine that they will reactpositively."
But Ferguson is not immediately concerned with the council'sreaction.
"The bigger question is, 'What can we learn about the procedurefor developing a convergent news model?'" Ferguson said. "If I werea major news person sitting on that board and I had differentexplanations for how to do convergent news, that would satisfy mygoals."
WAITING FOR INFORMATION
Ferguson, though, is working toward a different set of goalsright now. He has been speaking to consultants around the countrywho have helped with previous iComm projects, and he said he hopesto hire someone in three or four weeks. If classes for the summersession are to be scheduled, the business plan must be completed byFebruary.
"What I perceive is that we'll try and get significantinformation in place at the beginning of the semester and addinformation as we go."
For NewsLink's immersion students -- students like Cook who arelooking for an edge over their competition -- that informationcannot come soon enough.
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