He has interviewed Yasser Arafat, broadcasted from within the depths of Russia, and now the Ball State University telecommunications instructor is about to finish a month-long skills refresher at a television station in Omaha, Neb.
Phil Bremen left the world of broadcast news eight years ago and is now participating in a program sponsored by the Radio-Television News Directors Foundation, which places university instructors in radio and television newsrooms somewhere in the United States for four-week periods.
Telecommunications professor Dominic Caristi has already participated in the program by working at a station in Indianapolis, and he urged Bremen to apply for the program. Maria Williams-Hawkins, also a Ball State TCOM professor, was involved with the program during the summer of 2004 at a station in Memphis, Tenn.
Nebraska was one of three states that Bremen had not yet been to, and he lept at the chance to work with a network that has one of the most watched news shows in the market, he said.
"He's sort of a best-kept secret at Ball State because he was a former international correspondent for NBC," Nancy Carlson, TCOM department chair, said of Bremen.
This work in Nebraska will only make him a better teacher than he already is, Carlson said.
Bremen's time at KETV has so far been mainly spent observing the activities of the newsroom, going with reporters to cover stories and occasionally helping when he can.
Not only has the last month in Omaha refreshed his skills as a broadcaster, but it has also given him a chance to see how things in television news have changed during the last decade, Bremen said.
A good newsroom change that Bremen has seen take place is the use of better and faster technology, which helps reporters get information out more quickly and get more general information for their stories.
However, Bremen does not think that all the changes he is seeing are for the better -- too much entertainment in news broadcasts is one of these negative changes.
"The runaway bride is getting more attention than stories that affect people's lives because it's sad," Bremen said, "so the challenge is to try and make the stories that really matter more interesting."
This experience has also allowed Bremen to watch "a first-class news operation work successfully and very efficiently."
"But the most important thing I've learned is that really good stations do exist, and that's encouraging," Bremen said.
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