A #funny thing happened while watching TV...

by 9:48 AM 2 comments
So my littlest daughter was a little sick, so while she slept, I watched a little TV. Now, I'm no Saint, I enjoy watching TV, but generally I limit how much I watch and the girls watch. But I noticed something (that isn't new); and it gave me an idea.

It's now on every TV show, whether it's news, a syndicated comedy, a drama. Social media is playing a larger and larger role. Don't get me wrong, you knew that. You see the hashtags for everything from #Sochi2014 to #DIYFail. This is where my first idea came from. During my student's weekly newscast, we have put an email address on-screen a total of one time in two years to allow the audience to contact us. I already use #SwarmTV when I publish the newscast, why not get conversations started by having the watermark onscreen?

You can find the student stories at www.cbjacketjournalism.com
The second idea is to use that hashtag while the show is going on.  I was watching Mythbusters on the Discovery channel (who knew it moved to Saturday nights???) and they did a live tweet while the show was aired. It included a contest, a quiz, and a random giveaway.

This is a little more tricky for a few reasons:

1) Not all classes watch the show at the exact same time. Generally we watch during a 20-minute time period between 2nd and 3rd hour (TJ Reads/Advisement). But because it's a YouTube video, people can watch at different times.

2) Not every teacher allows students to have their devices out at all. I suppose if we make the hashtag educational, we could make this work.

3) I teach a class other than Broadcasting during the show's airing. Thus, my students wouldn't be in my room to foster the conversation, and so it might just be me.

Again, not an original one, but I'd like to try this. These are just ideas to get the show going a little more.

Recently, one of our (larger) local newspapers started promoting their newest web-venture: OWH Bottom Line, an online, streaming, "radio" broadcast from Monday-Friday, hosted on their newspaper's website. They've hired a local radio personality to host, and will use OWH staffers for expert content.

"The future of the news" is quickly approaching.

Lindquist

Author

I do a lot of things. The best thing I do is fathering (I think). I'm the ol' "Jack of all trades, Master of none." I teach aspiring journalists. I run. I play guitar(s). I also host a running podcast. Oh, and I dabble in drawing. And I dabble in authoring... children's books no less. I just dabble. Sometimes I ramble.

2 comments:

  1. I like this idea. I wonder if you could incorporate students tweets into a story if you created a hashtag around it. Maybe promote the story in advance with a hashtag and then air the tweets at the bottom during the story. Kinda like the Voice.

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    Replies
    1. I liked this idea so much, that is what we did! Thank you!

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