By RYAN MORGENEG
The first major news operation to combine its television and print media services was CNN in 1991. The Daily Universe and KBYU followed its example by starting their merge this summer.
With the success of multi-media, the combination of print and television is becoming increasingly popular. This is something professors at BYU involved with print and television media see as a positive experience for students.
At the beginning of Summer Term, the news assignments desk moved from the KBYU newsroom on the 2nd level of the Harris Fine Arts Center to the Daily Universe newsroom on the 5th floor of the Wilkinson Center.
Another change was the addition of several broadcast news reporters to the Daily Universe print reporters. Daily, one-minute news cut-ins are filmed at the Daily Universe office and then taken to the Fine Arts Center to be shown on community cable news Channel 40 in Provo and Orem. For print journalists, an opportunity to write and broadcast radio stories over KBYU’s classical 89 radio station is becoming available.
Bill Porter, acting Communications Department chair, said, “Two years ago, we started publishing an Internet information service about political candidates. Our goal was to update this information every week.”
“Now that technology and interest have increased on the Internet, we’ve been able to begin updating our Web page every day. With the popularity of multi-media, the need for journalists with experience in writing and video production is becoming important.”
The fusion of broadcast and print journalists is not easy. Porter said critics suggest broadcast students are concerned about losing “air time” to print journalists so they can’t practice for their professions and make resume tapes. Print journalists on the other hand feel that if they spend time doing broadcast productions they will lose time honing their writing skills and preparing for a career in print journalism.
Teonei Salway, editor-in-chief for the Daily Universe, said, “The goal is to see that even though some of us are print and some are broadcast journalists, we are all news gatherers. Even if we have different ways of presenting the news, we can still work together and make use of our differences.”
Paige Holland, assistant news director for KBYU, said, “The national industry is headed in the direction of combining print and broadcast media. We want to prepare students to be able to function in a combined newsroom and give them skills that will make them that much more marketable for jobs.”
Porter said a short-term goal of the faculty involved in combining the Daily Universe and KBYU newsrooms is the mixing of news-gathering techniques.
Instead of two different story assignment desks, only one will be used to issue assignments to reporters. This will allow journalists from the Daily Universe and KBYU to combine their research on news stories.
Another goal is to get a microwave dish on top of the Wilkinson Center to allow the possibility of live broadcasts from the Daily Universe newsroom in the Wilkinson Center while a KBYU news cast is going on simultaneously on the 2nd floor of the HFAC
