Weathering the storm

Strategies for sustaining student media in times of crisis

By Patti Piburn and Kim Lisagor Bisheff

Abstract

Student reporters in KCPR, using remote technologies, continued producing and broadcasting live news on-air throughout the pandemic and during subsequent disruptions. This qualitative case study examines the remote strategies adopted by the station in the lockdown to determine what should remain, with two goals in mind: keeping broadcast student media going in a future crisis and better equipping journalism graduates. Semi-structured interviews with graduates who were part of the radio news team before, during and after the pandemic reveal that they acquired and refined crucial soft skills during their remote student media experience. The graduates report that their experience equipped them for a “new normal” in the workplace. They described gaining such soft skills as confidence, resilience and adaptability as well as improved organization, communication and collaboration. While in-person reporting is preferred, blending remote work, and the technologies that support it, into student media makes the organization more resilient and better prepares students for transformed newsrooms. Continue reading “Weathering the storm”

College radio perseveres, adapts to COVID-19 challenges

KZLX’s Nerdmageddon and the owner of a bar named The Pub. From left to right are The Pub’s owner, Jeff Zeller, and then the Nerdmageddon crew: Molly Hauser, Simon Clark, Corie Herzog, and Mckenzie Duval.

It’s not ‘the end of the world’

By Mason Bigler
Special to CMR

Borrowing from Matchbox 20, going to spring break in 2020 was like “waking up at the start of the end of the world” for college radio. Luckily, the world’s not over just yet.

Because of COVID-19, some college stations were abandoned for the spring semester, only on air because of automated systems. Others had to fight for their right to keep student DJs through strict rules and sanitation. As outlined below, some of those rules are still in place, while at other universities, precautions are being relaxed and the radio stations are returning closer to normal. Continue reading “College radio perseveres, adapts to COVID-19 challenges”

Training helps overcome beginning-of-semester hump

By Miriam Ascarelli, Kyle Huckins and Trisha Collopy

At Webster University in St. Louis, students at the school’s newspaper and Web site face a common challenge every year: getting new staffers up to speed and turning around the first content and print issue of WebsterJournal.com.

The students publish a back-to-school print edition and offer a new staff orientation in the same week.

“It’s a tough week for editors,” said Lawrence Baden, associate professor in Webster’s Communications and Journalism Department.
Continue reading “Training helps overcome beginning-of-semester hump”

Campus radio stations are tempting targets for purchase by outside interests

By DANIEL REIMOLD

V49N1 -- KUSF Funeral — KUSF "Funeral" observed on campus (Photo by Jennifer Waits)

In late January, at a small makeshift cemetery, a young woman dressed in black rested flowers in the grass in front of a radio station’s headstone. Near the top, the gray grave marker sported the acronym R.I.P. The identity of the deceased appeared underneath, spelled out sloppily in red paint: KUSF 90.3 FM.

Continue reading “Campus radio stations are tempting targets for purchase by outside interests”

On the auction block: College radio sales and transfers

College radio stations across the U.S. at both public and private universities have been sold, are under consideration for sale or have been transferred from student stations to non-student operation. Here is a list. Continue reading “On the auction block: College radio sales and transfers”