Only as strong as its weakest link...

After a week’s hiatus, which will be followed by another week’s hiatus, I have returned for another peak into the broadcast booth. This week will be kind of a hodge podge of thoughts and events.
Last semester marked a milestone for student radio, 50 years at MC. The student radio station signed on in March of 1961. There is a nice pictorial trip down memory lane on the WMCR website from an alumni reunion a few year ago. Take a look. We will be celebrating with a reception on the Saturday of Homecoming, Oct. 22nd from 11:30 to 1. I hope many alums will come by the Tartan Room in the Stockdale Center to have a refreshment and reminisce about radio. I hope to record many of the reminiscences for a special 50th anniversary countdown show highlighting the 5 decades of music played by MC radio.
On the TV side, my student in my Multi-Media Production course began to work in the TV studio this week. A couple of students remarked to me, as they usually do, that this looks easy as a viewer but it really is very hard from the other side. This is a common misconception with people about TV that I am glad student eventually get. To the viewer it looks effortless, point the camera, record stuff, play the tape and talk to the camera. In reality it is a complicated effort that rises and fall by how well each member of the team does their job and functions in the group. Unlike radio, which a great deal of time is a one person job on the air, television is a massive group effort requiring each person down the line to know there job and to do that job well. I think this is an invaluable lesson for student to learn not only if they are going into broadcasting but for any profession. What you do is not the most important it takes everyone working together to put the show on the air. A very important lesson that after this last week we all can take a lesson from.
With fall break beginning at the end of today and no classes on Monday and Tuesday, we will not have a newscast next week. So I will see you in the blogosphere in two weeks. I made it all the way through a blog with no broadcasting clichés. You didn’t think I could do it, did you.