And we’re back…

Dana Rosengard here, the new Assistant Dean for Career Development. I arrived on campus September 14th and hope to spark this blog bag up with the help of two student assistants. Please stand by for new and hopefully regular posts here to keep you in-the-know about life on campus. Wishing you the best from Hamden—

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Alumnus gives advice to interviewing class

Fabio LoNero (Broadcast Journalism, 2006) was just three days away from tackling his newest promotion at WTNH-TV in New Haven, Conn.  But he was willing to share his excitement and trepidations with students in the Art of Journalistic Interviewing class Oct. 1, 2013.

(left to right): Micah Bailey, Nya Thompson, Abby Uzamere, Fabio LoNero, Taylor Popielarz, Stephanie Alwardt, Sarah Faidell (in rear): Dan Burdick

LoNero was promoted from the producer of the 5 p.m. Monday-Friday newscasts to Executive Producer of Good Morning Connecticut, the daily three-hour newscast.  This will mean LoNero has to make the 40-minute drive from his Newington home early enough to reach the New Haven studio by 2:30 a.m.But he’s not complaining.  Although the goal of the morning newscasts is to provide viewers with what’s new, now and next, he said he hopes to air stories that will “give real value for people to watch.”  He said this is part of the philosophy behind the station’s “We’ve Got Your Back” slogan.

LoNero told students that beginners in TV news have to be willing to sacrifice, which in his case was working the overnight shift when he started at WTNH-TV seven years ago.  It meant missing out on weekend fun because he had to be in by 1 a.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.  But he has no regrets and he said he is happy he stayed at the same station since graduation.  “They invested in me, training me, moving me up so I didn’t necessarily feel like I needed to leave there,” LoNero said.

Getting the job straight out of school involved a bit of luck.  LoNero said he ran into a WTNH-TV employee taking a graduate course at Quinnipiac and because she remembered Fabio from his internship, she advised him to apply for a job that had just become available.

“When you go to an internship, treat it like a job.  If you want to learn something, make sure you speak up.  Don’t just sit there stay quiet, “ he said.  “During times when it’s slow, go up to people at say ‘hey, can you teach me this?’ or ask the internship coordinator ‘when can I get to do this?’”

His advice was to do more than fill out the weekly internship report for school.  “I knew that I wanted to work in this business one day,” he said.  Because there are only four TV stations in Connecticut and he wanted to stay near his family, he realized the number of jobs was scarce and connections would be critical.  His advice is to be memorable.  “Memorable is the key word here because if management remembers you and they liked you, you have a shot at getting one of those part-time A.P. (assistant producer) positions,” he said.

Turnover is so frequent in TV newsrooms so LoNero said his first part-time job turned into a full-time job after only six months, reminding students “that could be you.”

Like many broadcast journalism students, LoNero wanted to be a reporter and anchor.  But his experience at Q30 convinced him that his talent was really producing newscasts.  “At the end of the day, when I’m in the control room, what I’m putting out is something I spent seven-and-a-half hours putting together all day.  That’s the rewarding part.  I get to say what it’s going to look like,” he said.

LoNero also credits Q30 for honing his writing skills.  “Basically at Q30 it was all about the writing.  In this business, in TV, it’s more crucial because you have one shot to get your message out,” he said.  “So you have one shot to be very clear and concise about what you want to say, so writing is important.  Q30 helped with the writing. If you want to be marketable, if you want to be good, writing is important,” LoNero advised.

“If you want to be in TV, focus on the writing.  It doesn’t matter if you want to be in front of the camera or behind the camera,” he added.  “Writing is the key.  That’s the one thing that makes TV news what it is.  It’s the writing,” he said.

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Journal of Communication Management publishes article by Professor Laskin

Alexander V. Laskin, associate professor and director of graduate studies in public relations, published a peer-reviewed article “Public relations scales: Advancing the Excellence theory” in the Journal of Communication Management, Vol. 16 (4). This conceptual article revises one of the dominant theoretical paradigms in public relations scholarship and proposes modifications to measuring and evaluating the practice of public relations.

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Learning about the future of news at Consumer Electronics Show

by Alexander Laskin
Associate Professor of Public Relations

This week I am attending CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas as a guest of IRTS (International Radio and Television Society Foundation). For day one, IRTS organized a great event where academics who study and teach social media could meet with leaders of the profession. The topic of the conversation was “The art of reaching consumers in the digital age” but since many of the professors as well as speakers were from the journalism field, the conversation kept returning to the future of news organizations. And I have to admit that after today I do not see a happy future for today’s news organizations in any shape or form – not in print, not on TV, not even online – despite some professionals and academics cheerful comments. So, here is my quick one-sentence summary of each speaker’s presentations and then, at the end, my conclusion.

First, Jack Myers, Chairman of Media Advisory Group, talked about the convergence of brain, heart, and gut and the new generation that embraces this convergence – they do not want just to know they want to feel as well.

Then, David Poltrack, head of research at CBS, tried to persuade us how great networks are adapting to the changes in media consumption – DVRs, video on demand, streaming TV shows – he had plenty of data available, but it sounded more like explaining why the numbers in TV viewership are going down rather than explaining why the numbers of total viewership are going up.

Rob Barnett of My Damn Channel focused on branded entertainment versus commercial-paid model of interruption marketing and proposed that advertisers do not need to rely on networks.

Michael Terpin, founder and CEO of SocialRadius, talked about different types of social media and how brands can use them instead of doing any outreach to the traditional media.

Michael Zimbalist who is in charge of research for the New York Times Company tried to defend the “old” media proposing that it can become interactive and occupy various surfaces: instead of paper New York Times can be on a mirror in your bathroom answering your questions about the day ahead.

Dave Morgan, founder and CEO of Simulmedia, concluded the day by saying that news organizations thrived in a scarce distribution environment – with 2-3 newspapers and 2-3 TV stations, there was hardly any competition and advertisers had to pay them no matter what. Today, however, distribution is not scarce but plentiful; instead, attention is scarce. He did not believe newspapers could adapt and survive, but broadcast networks would thrive in this entertainment. I was not sure why he made that claim.

So, what did I think at the end? Journalism is in trouble! None of the speakers could explain what the added value of a journalist is. New York Times stock dropped from almost $50 to under $10 in the last 10 years and I think it is still overvalued. When Michael Zimbalist talked about the successes New York Times had playing with convergence and online distribution – he talked about the things, such as Infographics, slide shows, and so on, that college students do for fun and for free and post them to Facebook. And New York Times had teams of 10-20 people (all getting salaries and maybe even benefits!) working on those.

Journalists are also in close and symbiotic relationships with their sources – they depend on each other. So, there is not much of “controlling the government” function left any more. Again, regular people can do a way better job than professional journalists.

Another answer suggested by David Poltrack was that content is king. People will have to watch CBS in some way to see the good shows. But how long before content creators go directly to YouTube? How long before they make a website where they would release a new episode of their show once a week instead of selling it to CBS? How long before they decide they want 100% control over the show and revenues? Why do you need networks if more and more people are watching the shows on their computers, tablets, and cell phones?

Finally, news. Dave Morgan said that networks and local news stations are essential for that. In fact, the success of networks is attributed to the fact that they delivered news faster than newspapers. But are they still the fastest? Jack Myers in his speech said he had been able to call the election results before any of the networks did by just following Twitter. When something happens I see the information on Twitter and Tumblr and YouTube before I see it on networks. In fact, I often see networks showing the same footage I already saw on YouTube or Twitter earlier. I’d rather believe that in 10 years people will be able to zoom in on Benghazi from space to see what is happening there live(!) using Google maps and then switching to live feeds from cell phones of people located there than they would turn on CBS news to learn about the events in Benghazi at 6pm. And for local news Dave Morgan himself said that a passionate parent can do a better job posting about the little league baseball game than a local newspaper. How about local restaurants? Or road constructions? Or any other topics? In 10 years, when current University and high school students who do everything with a smartphone in their hands turn into adults, they are not going to drop their devices – they will continue taking pictures and videos of the world around them, posting them, tagging them, commenting on them and especially things they are passionate about.

And I think the coverage they would produce, would satisfy brain, gut, and heart as the first speaker, Jack Myers, demanded for the next generation.

So, then, what is the added value of journalism? What does it produce for the society that people should pay for?

A few notes: Huge thanks to all the speakers – your experience and knowledge of the industry was eye-opening. It is of course possible that I misunderstood and/or misinterpreted what the speakers were saying – if this was case, I am sorry about that. Huge thanks to IRTS for this unique opportunity. I know I can serve my students better now when my mind was expanded. Looking forward to Day Two tomorrow (or actually already today)…

[Cross-posted to Investor Relations]

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QU Professors’ Documentary to Air on CPTV

The documentary “Aeromedical,” which was made by School of Communications Professor Rebecca Abbott and Tim Malloy, a former television journalist who is now an assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, will be broadcast on CPTV at 8:30 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 9; at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 11; and at 11 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 14.

The 28-minute documentary is about the life-and-death struggle that takes place every week in the skies above Europe on Aeromedical evacuation missions, and about the storied history of these life-saving flights.   Abbott and Malloy filmed Aeromedical between June and December of 2011 with help from recent SOC-FVI graduate Bradley O’Connor. Location shoots took place in June and November of 2011 at Bagram Air Force Base and Gazni in Afghanistan; at Ramstein AFB and Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany; and Andrews AFB in Virginia. Archival film of the history of aeromedical evacuation was made available by the National Archives and Records Administration.

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