Savannah Smith of San Carlos, California, said she has “always been really envious” of students who have broadcast opportunities at their high schools. At cherubs, she jumped at the opportunity to utilize Medill’s multimedia facilities.
“I was really amazed,” Smith said. “The equipment itself is just past anything I could ever imagine.”
For cherubs like Smith, sitting behind the desk in the McCormick Foundation Center’s television studio was the first time they had ever experimented in broadcast journalism.
MFC is home to Medill’s newly renovated broadcast studio, which features a wide variety of technology. As part of Broadcast Lab, a three-part class about the basics of video journalism, and Sunday’s Broadcast Club led by instructor Carlin McCarthy, Cherubs were able to explore and record in the studio.
Will Hansen of Missoula, Montana, said he never had access to any broadcast equipment prior to cherubs. He remembers his first experience in the Medill studio as “very overwhelming at first.”
“There’s lots of different lights and screens. But once Carlin started to explain what everything did and what everything was used for, it definitely got really exciting,” Hansen said.
He added that the opportunities available in the MFC studio allowed him to break out of his comfort zone and explore a new form of journalism.
“It really expanded my view of journalism from just being exclusively print media to more of a multimedia art form, which I think is a very valuable perspective,” Hansen said.
