Dafna Lemish
CARBONDALE - Southern Illinois University-Carbondale student Nicholas Gresham has been named the national first place winner in the prestigious Broadcast Education Association’s Festival of Media Arts.
Gresham, who is a senior in the Department of Radio-TV and the sports producer of WSIU-TV’s River Region Evening Edition newscast, was honored for the nation’s best TV Sports Story.
“Nick demonstrates, once again, the uniqueness of our program,” said Dr. Dafna Lemish, Professor and Chair of the Department of Radio-TV in the College of Communication and Media Arts. The program “offers students an opportunity to experience high quality, professional, real award-winning media work while at the same time getting a substantial academic education of high value,” said Lemish.
The story, “All-Access: Saluki Practice,” provides a rare behind-the scenes view of an SIU men’s basketball team practice using state-of-the-art visual techniques, professional quality photography and compelling sound.
“We are particularly thrilled to showcase our growing interest and expertise in the area of broadcast sports, which we are currently developing,” said Lemish
Evening Edition is a student-produced local newscast that airs on WSIU-TV Monday through Thursday at 5:00 when SIU is in session.
More than 100 students work on the production, getting the opportunity to enhance their studies with hands-on experience in a working television newsroom, studio and control room facilities and with the live broadcast of Evening Edition.
River Region Evening Edition is a joint production of the SIU Department of Radio-Television, WSIU Public Broadcasting and the College of Mass Communication and Media Arts.
For more information, contact Nick Gresham
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or Greg Todd, WSIU-TV News Director
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618-453-5282.
Photo of Nick working at a Saluki basketball game broadcast by WSIU. Courtesy of WSIU television.
Greg Todd is easily finding his way around the Communications building despite having just started as the River Region Evening Edition news director on December 1. Todd is a graduate of the SIU Carbondale Radio-Television program. He is very pleased to be back at SIU.
“We did not have computers back then, but things are essentially the same- in the same locations,” said Todd. “It is nice to know people in the program already.”
Radio Television faculty member, Joey Helleny, WSIU television personality Jack Tichenor, and University Communications director Rod Seivers are all former classmates of Todd’s. It is through these ties that he first learned of the position with River Region Evening Edition.
“I have always liked the idea of teaching and I have family in the area,” said Todd. “This is an opportunity to give back to the program that I got so much from.”
Todd has had a very successful career in broadcast journalism. After gradating from SIU he started working for the ABC affiliate in Dubuque, Iowa doing the weather. He then went to the NBC affiliate in Youngstown, Ohio where he was the youngest news anchor at a top 100 station. Todd then returned to his hometown of Indianapolis to become a news anchor at the ABC affiliate and later went back to meteorology at KOMO in Seattle.
Prior to returning to Carbondale, Todd spent nine years as the managing editor and acting news director at XETV in San Diego. He also oversaw the station’s website and social media accounts.
“I was the student news director while I was at SIU,” said Todd. “I lived to work at the station. I must have gone to class sometime, but I mainly remember the great experience of the student news program.”
Todd credits the learning experience of hands on news production at SIU as the reason he was able to succeed in broadcast journalism at a young age.
“This is one of the few schools where students get real, on-air experience,” said Todd. “This gives the students a huge advantage when entering the workplace.”
Todd said he is taking time to get caught up on the River Region Evening Edition program and assessing strengths of the program, as well as areas of improvement. He will be teaching RTV 310 in the spring.
“People are so nice and welcoming here,” said Todd. “I am going to embrace the weather and appreciate the lack of traffic. I am just thrilled to be here.”
For more information at River Region Evening Edition you can visit: siutvnews.com.
Top photo: Greg Todd
Bottom photo: From the WSIU archives from the mid 70s that shows Greg Todd on the WSIU-TV News set at the desk, on the far left. Joey Helleny, RTV faculty, is standing at the weather map in the middle.
WSIU will soon benefit from a digital overhaul of its TV production facilities, thanks to a $749,000 Public Television Digital Transition Grant from the Rural Utilities Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
“This grant is critical to WSIU’s future,” says Greg Petrowich, Executive Director of WSIU Public Broadcasting. “With so many citizens watching us for free, over-the-air, we must maintain the highest quality in our digital signal.”
The funds will enable WSIU to replace failing analog equipment in its television production facilities with new digital studio cameras and lenses, camera pedestals, teleprompters, and camera control units. New digital switching, routing, and monitoring equipment will complete the upgrade, which could begin as early as the fall of 2011.
Providing locally-relevant programming to the region is a critical component of WSIU’s public service mission, which is why the stations devote more than 190 hours per year to local productions, including Scholastic Hi-Q, the River Region Evening Edition, alt.news 26:46, election programming, and the weekly public affairs magazine series WSIU InFocus. Updating the TV production area will ensure that WSIU can produce local programming that meets today’s technical standards, which in turn will improve overall quality.
“Throughout rural Southern Illinois, our viewers depend on WSIU for programs that address issues of local importance,” says Petrowich. “This long-overdue modernization of our television production facilities will enable us to continue to produce locally-relevant content that meets the needs of the communities we serve.”
An added benefit of the digital renovation is the opportunity for students in the SIUC College of Mass Communication and Media Arts to gain professional experience with cutting-edge equipment they will likely be using in their careers after graduation.
“We’re thrilled to receive this USDA grant,” says Gary Kolb, Dean of the College of Mass Communication and Media Arts. “It will allow us to introduce truly state of the art equipment into our production workflow at WSIU, which will benefit the stations, faculty, staff, and students. WSIU continues to be an integral part of our academic programs in the College and what benefits them directly impacts the education we deliver in our classrooms, as well as our research projects.”
Master of Arts
Master of Science
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My name is Zubedah Nanfuka, I am from Uganda and I am an M.S. student in Professional Media and Media Management with a concentration in video documentary production.
I would say that my passion would be to use video documentary to basically inspire anyone in their rights, be it political activists or humanitarian agencies to basically foster social change in whichever way that they can.
Yes, I do have a final project and it's actually a video documentary I filmed in Uganada. Northern Uganda to be exact, and it basically focuses on former GOU soldiers who were kidnapped by a rebel group and how they are now back in the community and their integration process and what the community is doing to help them.
I'll have to say that the best class I have taken is the "Media Management" class and that is a core class in the M.S. program. I liked it specifically because it simulated a media environment and we worked in a team, which is a very real concept in the media world. We had to create projects from scratch and pitch them to possible funders, so I liked that about it. It really stimulated me intellectually and I learned more from it.
I took part in a special project, which doubles both as a class requirement where we had to create a video documentary as a group of 9 students about lead poisoning in Herculaneum, Missouri. It aired on WSIU, and i liked that we actually got to talk to the people who live in the mining town and find out what their concerns were about living in an area that is constantly polluted by lead.
The other opportunity that I got to volunteer with was the River Region Evening Edition here at SIUC. It's a student-run newscast. We had a summer camp in 2009, and we had a group of 15 high school students and they got to try out different camera work options including producing and filming their own news that was actually aired on WSIU.
I learned a lot in my program. I have no regrets in the choice I've made in terms of a school and also the kind of program that I'm doing right now because of the things that I'm taking away but also how applicable that the knowledge that I've learned is going to be in my future career.
Yes, I do have a graduate assistantship in the Director of Graduate Studies' office. This office basically helps in advisement of graduate students here in the college of Mass Communication and Media Arts. It's not just an administrative job or assistantship. It also exposes me in terms of being experience in working in a multi-cultural environment which are the students who come from all over the world.
My name is Lauren Selmon Roberts. Originally I am from Norman, Oklahoma and I am an M.F.A. candidate in Media Arts.
My background is in broadcast news. Now in the Master of Fine Arts program I really love combining the news world with the world of fine art.
My thesis project is a full-length documentary that was shot in Liberia, West Africa. It tells the story of one woman who saved the lives of over 250 kids during Liberia's war.
I initially found the M.F.A. program in a film school book and what drew my eye to it was that the M.F.A. program specifically has a three-year assistantship program for its students.
So when you compare it to similar programs across the country, it's very affordable.
One of the favorite classes that I've taken is a digital documentary class with professor Angela Aguayo.
In that class, it was really incredible because each student in the matter of a semester put their own documentary together and at the end of the semester we had a public screening where we invited the public to come and check out our work.
Because of my background in news, when I came to SIU I really wanted to stay involved with news and some on-camera work. So I got involved with River Region Evening Edition and did some volunteer reporting.
I also was the host for Scholastic Hi-Q, which is a game show that we have on campus here for high school students
Also, I was involved with the Big Muddy Film Festival. Two years, I served on the selection committee to see which films got into the festival.
For my assistantship, I helped out with documentary classes and some news courses.
It was really interesting to be a teacher, it was my first time doing that.
I had a fantastic time mentoring students through the creative sides of their news projects and their documentaries.
A few highlights of publicly showing my work: I showed one of my photo series' at the Mixed Roots Film and Literary Festival in Los Angeles, I presented some of my writing here on campus at the Global Media Research Center Conference, some research that I had done about the coverage that Africa receives here in the West.
In the future, I still want to combine my background in news with my newfound knowledge of fine art.
I'm going to be looking for some news jobs and some jobs that are more focused on long format work ... just sending my application out and seeing what doors open.
If you want to really learn how to think outside the box in experimental ways, alternative ways, ways that you don't think you've ever thought about before, I think this Masters of Fine Arts program will be a good fit for you because the professors here, at least for me taught me how to see things with a new lens, and by having my work critiqued by a diverse group of people day in and day out, it really teaches you to see what you make in a whole new way.
Boys Are…Girls Are...: Gender Equity in Children's Media
PREMIERES: Fri, March 11, 7:30-8pm
Repeats:
On WSIU HD 8.1, 16.1: 3/13, 12:30pm; 3/18, 5pm
On WSIU World 8.2, 16.2: 3/12, 4pm; 3/13, 4pm; 3/14, 8pm
Rating: TV-G
SHORT DESCRIPTION:
River Region Evening Edition News Director Rachel Gartner moderates a discussion on gender equity in children's media with David Kleeman, President of the American Center for Children and Media; Professor Dafna Lemish, Chair of the SIUC Radio-Television Department; and Assistant Professor Sarah Lewison of the SIUC Radio-Television Department.
LONG DESCRIPTION:
Studies of children's earliest cognitive development as human beings show that the electronic media they use for learning, entertainment, and sharing information will heavily influence just about every aspect of their lives, including how they identify themselves as boys and girls.
An event, "Boys Are…Girlss Are: Gender Equity in Children's Media," held at SIU Carbondale and sponsored by the Department of Radio-Television, the SIUC Global Media Research Center, WSIU Public Broadcasting, and SIUC Women's Studies, brought together internationally recognized experts in the field of children's media for presentations on the latest research in their field and screenings of television programs for children from around the world.
Presenters at “Boys Are…GGirls Are,†which coincided with International Women's Day (March 8), took part this week in a roundtable discussion about gender equity in children's media for this special.
Hosted by River Region Evening Edition News Director Rachel Gartner, the panel included David Kleeman, President of the American Center for Children and Media; Professor Dafna Lemish, chair of the SIUC Department of Radio-Television; and Assistant Professor Sarah Lewison, also of the SIUC Radio-Television Department.
RT students won several awards in the 2011 BEA competitions:
Also ....
RT student Carol Burns is a recipient of the IRTS Fellowship Program for this coming summer! She will be a 2011 Broadcast Sales Associate, June 5 – August 6, 2011.
Radio-Television students Stephanie Fryer and Ashley Sweet were among the SIU award winners at the 2010 Illinois Broadcasters' Association Student Silver Dome Awards.
Fryer was the producer for the second place winner in the Best TV newscast entry. Sweet won second in the Best TV Weathercast category.
Students earned two first-place awards, three second-place awards, and two third-place awards. In addition, the River Region Evening Edition news team earned second-place for Best Television Newscast for its May 3, 2010, broadcast. Three recent graduates of the department’s media industry sequence swept the Best Sales Presentation category, while two other students won awards for best promotional campaign.
The Department of Radio-Television is in the College of Mass Communication and Media Arts.
“We are thrilled that our students once again demonstrated their creativity by winning these awards from the Illinois Broadcasters Association,” Dean Gary P. Kolb said. “Our continued success in this competitive venue speaks to the high quality of our students and professors here at SIUC.”
The Student Silver Dome Awards is open to all IBA member colleges and universities. Students received the awards at the annual IBA-U Academics Day at Illinois State University on Oct. 8.
“We are very proud of our students' accomplishments,” said Dafna Lemish, chair of the Department of Radio-Television. “These awards demonstrate that our students excel in a wide variety of media related areas and that our faculty are dedicated to teaching them how to apply their newly acquired skills and knowledge in real-world professional situations.
“There is a wide world of media industries out there with many job opportunities that will benefit from this kind of education and training that our students are getting here,” Lemish said. “This year's IBA Awards reflect the long-tradition of excellence in the Department of Radio-TV and will continue to motivate us to continue investing in providing our students with the best education possible.”
James Wall, a senior lecturer in radio-television, said the five sales and promotional winning entries were the result of a semester-long project in two of his classes -- electronic media sales and electronic media promotion.
“Many former students have used their projects from these classes to obtain jobs. To me, that is the ultimate final examination,” Wall said.
A panel of professional broadcasters from Wisconsin judged the students’ entries, Wall said.
“Perhaps one reason for the strong showing in these categories is that Southern Illinois University Carbondale is unique, in that Radio-Television is one of the very few programs in the nation that offer a business-oriented sales and management sequence within the media industries,” Wall said.
The River Region Evening News Team that finished second in the state consists of producer Stephanie R. Fryer, a senior from Urbana; director Christopher F. Mata, a senior from Wheeling; anchor Hilary M. LeHew, a senior from Atwood; anchor Michael Radostits, a May 2010 graduate from New Lenox; weathercaster Garrett R. Ford, a senior from Centralia; and sports anchor Bret S. Beherns, a May 2010 graduate from Mahomet.
In addition to the River Region Evening News newscast finishing second, two students earned individual awards. Beherns was first in the Best TV News Pack category for a story about an indecent exposure case outside a local school, and Ashley D. Sweet, a senior in radio-television from Decatur, was second in the Best TV Weathercast category.
“It’s always nice for the students’ work to be recognized by the professional community,” said Joey Helleny, a senior lecturer. “It also puts their work in front of some potential future employers.
“The IBA supports our program not only through these awards, but also through seminars, internships, a scholarship, and support of our summer TV news camp for high school students,” he said.
The 2010 individual IBA Student Silver Dome Award recipients from SIUC are:
Illinois
Breese: Charles Venhaus, May 2010 graduate, radio-television. Third-place, Best Promotional Campaign.
Decatur: Ashley D. Sweet, senior, radio-television. Second-place, Best TV Weathercast.
Downers Grove: Brendan Sheehy, senior, radio-television. Second-place, Best Sales Presentation.
Herrin: Krista Mason King, May 2010 graduate, radio-television. Third-place, Best Sales Presentation.
Mahomet: Brett S. Beherns, May 2010 graduate, radio-television. First-place, Best TV News Pack.
Missouri
St. Louis: David M. Goldberg, senior, radio-television. Second-place, Best Promotional Campaign.
Ohio
North Royalton: Marina Medic, May 2010 graduate, radio-television. First-place, Best Sales Presentation.
My name is Lauren Selmon Roberts. Originally I am from Norman, Oklahoma and I am an M.F.A. candidate in Media Arts.
My background is in broadcast news. Now in the Master of Fine Arts program I really love combining the news world with the world of fine art.
My thesis project is a full-length documentary that was shot in Liberia, West Africa. It tells the story of one woman who saved the lives of over 250 kids during Liberia's war.
I initially found the M.F.A. program in a film school book and what drew my eye to it was that the M.F.A. program specifically has a three-year assistantship program for its students.
So when you compare it to similar programs across the country, it's very affordable.
One of the favorite classes that I've taken is a digital documentary class with professor Angela Aguayo.
In that class, it was really incredible because each student in the matter of a semester put their own documentary together and at the end of the semester we had a public screening where we invited the public to come and check out our work.
Because of my background in news, when I came to SIU I really wanted to stay involved with news and some on-camera work. So I got involved with River Region Evening Edition and did some volunteer reporting.
I also was the host for Scholastic Hi-Q, which is a game show that we have on campus here for high school students
Also, I was involved with the Big Muddy Film Festival. Two years, I served on the selection committee to see which films got into the festival.
For my assistantship, I helped out with documentary classes and some news courses.
It was really interesting to be a teacher, it was my first time doing that.
I had a fantastic time mentoring students through the creative sides of their news projects and their documentaries.
A few highlights of publicly showing my work: I showed one of my photo series' at the Mixed Roots Film and Literary Festival in Los Angeles, I presented some of my writing here on campus at the Global Media Research Center Conference, some research that I had done about the coverage that Africa receives here in the West.
In the future, I still want to combine my background in news with my newfound knowledge of fine art.
I'm going to be looking for some news jobs and some jobs that are more focused on long format work ... just sending my application out and seeing what doors open.
If you want to really learn how to think outside the box in experimental ways, alternative ways, ways that you don't think you've ever thought about before, I think this Masters of Fine Arts program will be a good fit for you because the professors here, at least for me taught me how to see things with a new lens, and by having my work critiqued by a diverse group of people day in and day out, it really teaches you to see what you make in a whole new way.
SIU Foundation