2012 PROCEEDINGS - Public Relations Society of America

students practice skills and educators observe mastery while service learning components
―develop students more deeply as learners, as citizens, and as change agents‖ (Britt, 2012, para
4).
Project Definition and Goals
Campus News, broadcast weekly, engages students through curricular requirement and
covers weekend weather, headline news, community calendar and field reports. It aligns with
learning outcomes: 1.) Develop an understanding of the communication and media industries and
discipline; 2.) Gather and critically assess information from a variety of sources; 3.)
Communicate messages effectively; and, 4.) Be engaged, socially responsible communicators.
The project provides a venue in which students grapple with concepts of newsworthiness and
objectivity, examine issues from multiple perspectives, select appropriate and credible sources,
develop interviewing skills, meet media deadline and format requirements, edit audio and write
for a specific audience.
Set-up
Student roles include field reporter, engineer, on-air interviewer and assistant producer.
Writing for Public Relations students are engineers for a three-week period or assistant producers
for a two-week period. The first engineer has radio station experience; engineers provide on-air
support and schedule a one-hour editing lab each week. Due to the need for technical
proficiency, students involved in the pilot are assigned this role. The instructor trains the first
assistant producer who is responsible for choosing segments from those submitted on time,
scripting the show, and providing on-air commentary. Engineers and assistant producers train
the next scheduled student.
Feature Writing students conduct live interviews while students enrolled in the remaining
seven communications courses produce field reports. Nine to 13 field reports are submitted
weekly and six to seven are included in the broadcast, allowing the assistant producer to make
gatekeeping decisions. The reports cover events or issues, gain approval prior to the show, quote
three sources, meet minimum audio quality requirements and meet a weekly deadline. The
college provides digital audio recorders; students edit segments in labs using Garage Band and
email an MP3 file and 150-word descriptive blurb to a dedicated email address. A restricted
Google Sites website provides detailed instructions, a running list of approved story ideas, and
tutorials on such digital recorders, Garage Band, editing, introducing quotes, and choosing
sources. Each instructor reviews requirements, grades submissions using a common grading
rubric, and provides feedback.
Preliminary Outcomes
Thirty-nine field reports have been submitted, three engineers and three assistant
producers have cycled through and two interviews were broadcast. Newsworthy reports on rave
drugs, student voting intentions and student response to a residence hall door lock system have
aired. Field reporters explain the impact of timeliness, relevance and credibility:
When deciding on a story to do for this project, it is important to think about the audience
and their interest in the story. If the audience will not be interested in some event, either
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