Glennis Woosley of Nixa, Missouri, rose with the sun, wielding a video camera to capture the experiences of the other early risers condemned to Spit List — the notorious Sunday morning punishment for students who committed infractions during the week.
Woosley tried videography her freshman year at high school but said she disliked it. Then she came to the Medill-Northwestern Journalism Institute, where instructor Carlin McCarthy’s lecture on video journalism encouraged her to try again, sparking a new passion for the medium that resulted in the Spit List project.
Through lectures and projects, cherubs explored forms of journalism they may have had little or no experience with, such as audio, broadcast, videography and photography.
“I’ve always been exclusively a print journalist,” said Leo Beirne of New York. He said he listens to podcasts every day before school, but “there’s no class at my school for audio.”
After guest instructor Lindsay Kratochwill delivered a lecture and ran a workshop on podcasting and audio, Beirne recorded people on the streets of Evanston.
While Cara Huang had taken an elective in film photography at her school in Los Angeles, she said learning about techniques such as the rule of thirds during McCarthy’s lecture, inspired her to check out a camera and photograph Evanston’s Fourth of July parade.
“I think the program gave me a big change in perspective on photojournalism,” Huang said. “I now look more at people and details around me.”
Cherubs said their experiences with different mediums expanded their understanding of what journalism can be.
“The process of going through this program helped me realize that I can be a journalist that caters to those who don’t like print-form news,” Woosley said. “I can make it more accessible.”
