Until this semester, one class that had not shown its face at Keene State College for at least ten years was Radio Journalism.
Journalism is one of the most hands-on and interactive majors offered at KSC, some believe. Students can choose to major just in journalism or minor in one of its three sub-categories: print, multimedia or broadcast. The journalism program is housed in the Media Arts Center where students use the journalism computer lab, the television broadcast studio, and audio and video editing labs to get experience for what they will do in the field.
One of the most up-and-coming aspects of journalism at KSC is broadcast. Since the broadcast angle was created at KSC, the college has offered a mandatory broadcast journalism class for all journalism majors. In addition, there are several upper-level broadcast classed students can choose to take including Television Journalism, Multimedia Journalism and Community Television News. However, Radio Journalism was not among them.
When the broadcast program began, there was a radio class. Throughout the years, with faculty changing, a time came when there was no professor teaching the course any longer and radio fell off the map. Professor of journalism at KSC, Rose Kundanis, said when radio took a backseat to television in the basic broadcast class, she decided the audio portion of broadcast needed its own course.
Brian Cantore/ Photo Editor: KSC sophomore Olivia Schiaffo (left) host her radio show at WKNH. KSC sophomore and Equinox staff writer Angela Scionti (right) is a guest on Schiaffo’s show. The radio station gives any student the opportunity to air their own show.
“Professor Chad Nye really wanted to have the broadcast course do more video and less radio-oriented things which is understandable, because we have such a limited amount of time and to teach video journalism,” she continued, “it is a very big learning curve because we’ve got the equipment, we’ve got the presentation and we’ve got the writing so when broadcast evolved in that direction, I felt like the audio needed to be revived. It hadn’t been taught in awhile and students were asking about it.”
Kundanis said her reasoning for adopting the course was also a personal one.
“I decided it was something I really cared about as well as the students so I thought, well let us try it lets see if it will work. Seven years ago I did faculty internships in radio, print, TV and public and commercial TV so I wanted to get back in the field,” Kundanis said.
The course was put back on the catalog for the 2013 Fall semester and 12 students joined the class. Kundanis said this was not as many students as she would have liked but it is certainly more than she expected.
In this course, students first learn how to conduct interviews. From there they move onto producing a reader, which is a script meant to be read over the air. Lastly students produce actuality based scripts, which are like readers but include audio recorded from interviews they conduct.
Radio Journalism student and KSC senior Ellissa Colburn said the course load is heavy but the end results are rewarding.
“The course definitely involves a good amount of work. It’s like putting together a newscast, so you have to go and reach out for sources, gather the material, write scripts and edit,” Coburn said.
The class works with both on-campus radio station, WKNH, and also with New Hampshire Public Radio. They will have three newscasts appear on WKNH and a final project, which has not yet been decided.
Tim Gagnon, a DJ at WKNH, said he thinks radio can be a great medium for journalism students.
“I think in radio you get some of the best personalities and who they are really shines through, whereas that wouldn’t come through in a newspaper setting, you kind of have to write in a certain format, whereas on the air you can say pretty much whatever is on your mind and just kind of have a personality and so I think that’ll kind of be a release for the journalism people that are used to writing in such a strict format they can maybe be a little more loose and fun,” Gagnon said.
Coburn expressed she was happy this course is offered again and that she believes it gives journalism student more options to chose from. “I was looking for a journalism elective and I didn’t know what to pick. I am leaning more towards broadcast than towards print, so Radio Journalism is a very good fit.” Coburn stated.
Professor Kundanis said her students seem to enjoy the radio news they have been introduced to.
Additionally, Coburn said this class allows students to develop team work skills because they are required to work together to put on a newscast. About her classmates Coburn said, “The people in this major [journalism] are really great and great to work with, so that makes the course work and everything run a lot smoother.”
The Radio Journalism course will continue to be offered Fall 2014 and most likely annually in the Fall after next year. This course is open to students who have and have not taken broadcast journalism.
Rachel Heard can be contacted at rheard@keene-equinox.com