For the love of it

Student broadcasting is starting to settle in to their routine (as always this week’s new MC-TV This Week is at the bottom of the post). The new workshop students are starting to do their first stories with little training and I think more than a little fear. In some ways, being thrown to the wolves, so to speak, gives the students focus and sometimes a faster appreciation for the difficulty of television news.

In last week’s post, I mention that I would be spending the weekend at the Black Earth Film Festival since I am on the board. During the panel I moderated and through other conversations with the attending filmmaker, I was reminded of an important lesson about work that not only my media students need to learn but all students need to understand. Passion is the key to work. In media it is so important, as in most other professions, to be passionate and committed to your work. I try to show my students that one thing that will make most of their work better is if they genuinely care about the finished product. I see this quite often with my workshop students. A recent case in point is the video that the students just completed for the Admissions Office. If you would like to watch it here is a link. The students were genuinely excited by the project and cared about the outcome. If only I could transplant that attitude to every student and every project.

I think of this in my own life in reference to my days as a radio disc jockey. As a part-time DJ for almost 12 years, I saw a good number of career radio people struggle to make a living wage by working a second job. They were in it because they were a little crazy and because they loved it. A friend of mine described it best as being like drug addiction. While you are in the business, you have highs and lows. Some days all you want to do is get out of it and move on. Then once you have gotten out, all you want is to get back in, to have another fix. This is so right. Those who stay in media love it, their addicted to it and can’t image doing anything else. Or after a while they go teach it to get other people hooked. I never thought of this but I am sort of pusher getting my students addicted to media, the addiction they will have all their lives. Okay maybe I am taking the analogy to far.

I can’t believe I went the entire entry without a lame attempt to weave in broadcasting lingo. So until next week, same time , same channel…. Oh, there it is.