Videos and broadcast stories are generally my favorite kind of media to make — I find it cool to have my face associated with a story in a super direct way, and present an educational and journalistic story in a more "entertainment" oriented way. Most people will tell you they're rather watch a video than read a 12 point font 1,500 word story.
Over the years, I've produced some specific broadcasts I'm pretty proud of. Below, I've compiled a timeline of the broadcasts so you can see each of them and the improvements and progress made between each video.
Referendum Story
Video is one of my favorite ways to tell stories as a student journalist: to watch my first ever broadcast story, which I’m fairly proud of, watch this video. See how it compares to the more recent stories below.
The story itself is regarding a local referendum to rebuild schools in Mount Prospect, my hometown. Me and Mason, a friend of mine, spent Election Day at the polls, not interviewing folks on whether they were voting for Kamala Harris or Donald Trump, but whether or not they voted “yes” or “no” on the referendum and their reasoning.
Arlington Heights' Protest
This is one of my favorite broadcast stories — the day before this protest occurred, my friend Jack and I were both on a multimedia field trip which consisted of different breakout lessons and lectures with experts.
Jack and I attended a breakout session on protest coverage with Chicago Sun Times reporter Violet Miller – here, we learned that literally the next day, “Hands Off” protests would be happening nationwide. Jack was unable to come to our local one, so I messaged my friend Vincent on admittedly really short notice. Together, we biked over to the protest.
No Kings + ICE Manhunt
This broadcast story was created for my school's video journalism program, Knight TV. Annually, my school journalism program goes to the National Student Journalism Convention hosted by the Journalism Education Association (JEA) and National Scholastic Press Association (NSPA). I had entered the "News Broadcast" category for both the JEA and NSPA awards respectively. I let time get the best of me, and I found myself a week off from the submission deadline with literally nothing. That weekend, me and some friends went to the local "No Kings" protest and covered it.
A day or two later, I was sitting in a Driver's Ed lesson when one of my friends texted me a picture of unmarked SUVs outside his house, and the helicopter floating overhead scanning the neighborhood. It was clearly Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity, so I immediately started texting people I knew in the area asking if they knew what was going on, or had seen any agents in the neighborhood. As soon as I got home, I hurried over to the scene of what was later called a "manhunt" and got some interviews and B-roll. I tied it in with the "No Kings" protest, and out of the sheer luck of the timing of these two events, wound up with a pretty good story.
Flock Camera Deep-Dive
This one was spurred by a YouTube video I watched - I'd hear there was some controversy in my hometown of Mount Prospect earlier in the year, so when I saw a YouTube video explaining these cameras I was curious. Ultimately, because of what happened in Mount Prospect, I was poised to give a unique view on these cameras. This is my favorite broadcast story I've done - it's done in a less rigid, standardized story and has a little more of a YouTube journalistic feel - new media.