Fast Times At Convergence High
I just returned from a fantastic trip back to my hometown in Mount Airy, Maryland. My good friend, Dale Corn, was putting on a benefit concert at our alma mater, Linganore High School.The school will be torn down come summertime, and all the students will be housed in a brand-new building for a few years, before an even newer Linganore will open on the existing property. It's all due to the tremendous growth in the suburbs of central Maryland, and the fact that Linganore is about to fall to pieces.
So, I donned the tuxedo and helped emcee Dale's show, which played to hundreds of music lovers and supporters of one of my favorite causes, the Linganore High School Band Boosters.
Anyway--this is where the "convergence" conversation continues on this blog page.
I got a chance to speak with my high school journalism teacher, Natalie Evans, at the show, and she told me about the new opportunities her classes will have in the new buildings, including a television production studio, and classes she will teach.
This is a great opportunitiy--one I really wish I had when I was in high school!
But--and this is the good stuff--Natalie also told me her students are already posting their stories from the school's paper on a related website, and she was using a digital audio recorder to get sound from the show to post next to the article.
This, my friends, is convergence!
Take a look for yourself!
http://my.highschooljournalism.org/md/frederick/lhs/
I was floored, excited, and proud, all at the same time!
Flashback to last week, as I spoke to a group of broadcast journalism students at UNC-Pembroke, and discussed with them some programs we hope to start very soon, where we can showcase their work on scnow.com, and even on News13. I stressed to them the importance of convergence, and how Media General continues to focus vast resources to this endeavor.
The students seemed to understand, and they also seemed interested and perplexed about the prospects of user-generated content ("What's Now at scnow"), and I explained that this, too, played a huge part in the future of television news. In fact, I explained it is the present in most television stations.
One young man raised his hand and asked, "Well, if that's the case, then what good are our degrees then?"
That's a whole different topic, but I'll wrap this up by saying this: Natalie Evans is already preparing tomorrow's college students for what we are preparing our news staff for now, and that is commendable and amazing, and something to be proud of.
So, here's to the old Linganore High School, here's to Natalie Evans and her students, and here's to my good buddy Dale, who put on one whale of a show!
Posted by on 01/28 at 10:01 AM
I personally love convergence! I love how I can get the text alerts, go online, read the paper, and watch the TV ALL TO GET THE SAME STORY! I hear ya Rust-man. It’s a crazy convergencentennial ride, and it’s the future, so let’s teach our future that now! Personally, I watch the FOX show at 10 every night as I work late on the weekdays I miss the six. Why don’t you do much reporting? I miss the good old days when it used to be Rusty Ray in the field! You should anchor the weekends with Patricia Burkett. Between you, Patricia, and the gorgeous Melissa Hoeman...that would be a broadcast that would compete with CNN!
Quick question because you seem to be the most honest person on the whole show...is Florence eventually going to be left for dead? I heard there’s a new station going in at the Beach. Won’t both stations try to compete with that, and just abandon the good ol’ Pee Dee? I heard there’s only a few reporters left.