Gleeful news conference

The PR students put together a news conference on Thursday for the Broadcast J students.  It was so much fun – for us PRs.  If you don’t know about Broadcast J all I have to say is be very afraid.  No, I’m kidding.  It actually sounds like a really fun class, but it’s intense.  The students have very strict deadlines to meet, and both Journalism and Media Production students are thrust out of their comfort zones and have to swap jobs very once in awhile.

Needless to say, there was a huge difference between the PRs’ experience at the press conference and the Broadcast J students’ experience.

First, I want to extend my kudos to Melanie for creating an excellent assignment.  At the beginning she was so excited about the day of the press conference, but I had my doubts.  Melanie, I’m sorry I doubted you.  I thought it would be a lot more nerve racking then it actually was.  But I digress; the assignment was actually super fun.  In our group we created and put together a media kit.  We did it all.  We wrote the content, took the pictures, and created the design and concept for the media kit itself.  We had a lot of fun.  We ate candy and listened to music and literally did arts and crafts all day Tuesday.

Then came the day of the conference.  After meeting at school bright and early at 8 a.m. to get ready, our news conference started at 11 a.m.  I admit I was nervous, but once we started playing the soundtrack from the first season of Glee and every one in the room was dancing and having a good time all the anxiousness went away.  I even did an interview with Kiran Dillion, and I think I did a great job.  I stuck to my group’s key messages and had a lot of information to provide.

So while the PRs were tickled pink that it was all over, the Broadcast J students went about doing their thing.  From what I hear it was hell.  Most of the shooters and editors this week were Journalism students, and well some of them are more apt with shooting and editing than others.  To be fair they don’t get a lot of chance to practice with final cut pro.  There was some crying and sadly a lot of assignments that weren’t handed in on time.  So while the PRs were hugging and eating candy, the poor Broadcast J students were quietly crying in their edits suites.  Sometimes us PRs cry too.  But the thing to remember is that CreComm hurls the worst at us, and hopefully when we get out of school and into the real world it really won’t be as bad – at least that’s what I tell myself.