Student Work

Description of the video:

The video opens with a sped up time-lapse view of The Media School Commons. There is a large screen that says “The Media School Welcomes You.” It is a busy scene with students moving around, etc.

Interview with Chase Baker outside of Franklin Hall

Chase: What interests me most about journalism is just how broad it is, you know. There are so many different fields that you can go into whether it’s game design, or broadcast, or journalism, you know, writing, reporting. There’s just so many different fields that you can go into, so I think it’s one of the most interesting things ever. I want to go into broadcast, specifically, work for the news: ABC, NBC…My dream is to be like an executive producer.

Image of a student wearing headphones and working on a computer.

Chase: What made want to go to HSJI was that it’s a great opportunity to learn new things about journalism and media in general, plus you know hanging out with some friends and meeting new people. My favorite part about high school journalism is hanging out with a lot of people, making a lot of connections with teachers. Also just learning as much as I can. It’s a super, super fun experience and I’ve been doing it for a long time. My dream position is to be an executive producer for a news station out in New York, preferably. One fact about me is I’ve been in media for almost eight years now since around sixth or seventh grade.

Interview with Lexi Lindenmayer, a student at the Media School, in one of the School’s TV studios

Lexi: I’m going to be a senior. I am studying journalism and education, secondary education. I am going to be creative director for the IDS – I’ve worked there since my freshman year. I have a radio show at WIUX, “Girls with mics.”

Shot of Lexi behind the radio mic in the studio, and then the hallways and offices of the IDS news room.

Lexi: I served as managing editor for the IDS and that was a pretty big thing for me, because I had to grow as a journalist to gain that confidence to even apply for it. And the fact that I got it and had to do it for an entire semester — that really, like, meant a lot to me. I think we accomplished some great things that semester. I was editor-in-chief for my high school, but even then I don’t think I was very confident in decisions I made. I often looked to my managing editor, or like my friends, or people on the newspaper with me to help me like make decisions.

Close-up of Lexi smiling and talking into the radio mic. And then back to the interview in the student TV studio.

Lexi: So, definitely gaining confidence and just being an editor for the IDS, and now I’ve been an editor I think three times and I’m also creative director in the fall. I’ve met probably a lot of my longtime friends from the IDS, and IU has so many talented people and it’s so great to see me accomplish things, and see them accomplish things at the same time.

Lexi: Oh I’m such an advocate for the media school at IU — just there’s so many different opportunities, like, I do the Indiana Daily Student — the newspaper here — but that’s not all we have. There’s the Arnold Center, which is investigative journalism.

Video of the Arnolt Center wall plaque and classroom. And then back to the interview with Lexi.

Lexi: There’s WIUX, where you can learn student radio. There’s ISTV where you can do broadcasts. And there’s so much more, like there’s sports things, podcasts. There are so many opportunities at The Media School, that I don’t know other schools have. I’m actually studying journalism and education, so I’m definitely looking to maybe teach journalism in the future. But I’m also not opposed to being a reporter for a bit. I guess I’m a little — I just don’t know right now — I’m pretty open to anything.

Interview with Chad Carrothers, adjunct instructor at the Media School, in the podcast studio.

Chad: My name is Chad Carrothers. I teach Story Lab for The Media School which is multimedia journalism for The Media School. I also work at WFHB Community Radio WFHB here in Bloomington. Indiana.

Shot of the front of the building and street where WFHB is located in downtown Bloomington.

 Chad: I decided when I was 17 years old that I wanted to be the editor of Esquire magazine, which I’m told is a bit of a strange thing for a 17 year old to want to do. So I came to IU to learn magazine journalism, and then I got bit by the radio bug. I was listening to the radio one night and I heard a station that was unlike anything I had ever heard before in my life, and that was WFHB, our Community Radio station here in Bloomington. Within a couple weeks I was volunteering at the station and then when I graduated from journalism school here at IU, I went to work my first full-time job in journalism was as the news director for WFHB and that’s where we created dozens of independent local news programs, featuring programs that give a voice to the voiceless, and provide media access to people who traditionally have had very limited media access.

Shots of Chad teaching a workshop on podcasting and showing students how to work a recording device.

Chad: Primarily I work in broadcast journalism, “broadcast podcast” as we call it, so we have a slate of programming at WFHB that is hyper local so we have a GLBT podcast called Blooming Out. We have Spanish language public affairs program called Hola Bloomington. We have this area’s only daily half hour local newscast. All of these things staffed entirely by volunteers and interns.

More of the interview in the podcast studio, and then pictures of students participating in the podcasting class.

Chad: My favorite memory, in general, is one that repeats over and over again and it’s what I call the aha moment, right? So that’s when we have a student or a a volunteer come into the station quickly realize that there’s no barrier, that that we are shattering that glass between consumers and producers of media, that you can literally be the media. You can walk into a station like WFHB, or any community radio station or community TV station and within hours you can be a reporter, you can be a producer, you can be a DJ. You know? You can be those things. You don’t necessarily have to have a bunch of fancy equipment or go to a fancy school. You can walk in and be part of something you know bigger than yourselves.

Panoramic scene of one of the student TV studios and facilities at the IU Media School.

Chad: Journalism has helped me understand the things that bring us together are more important than the things that drive us apart. We can use journalism to build community and to build a healthy democracy. And our founding fathers saw that. That’s why journalism is the only uh profession that is expressly protected in the U.S Constitution, the freedom of the press. Because our founding fathers – and mothers – knew that the key to a healthy democracy is healthy media!