Staff Photo by Randall Higgins
Anchors Casey Tolzmann and Taylor Spears wait during a commercial break for the Cleveland High School news program to resume. Students create the commercials, this one about an in-school fundraiser. The production crew adds a set and a "news desk'' onto the green background.CLEVELAND, Tenn. -- The cameras, the sound, the lighting and the teleprompter are ready.
Cleveland High School broadcasters are about to begin their daily news show, which will be streamed through the in-house computer system during second period.
But a couple of minutes before the cameras roll, there's a surprise fire drill. Everybody outside the building, please. One young man in the broadcast studio, well-trained in his job, takes a camera with him.
The familiar morning intercom announcements from the principal's office ended a week ago in favor of the new media age.
This school year, Cleveland High's journalism students moved into a pod of classrooms that also include web-design classes in a room next door to the broadcasting classes and the studio. There's constant interchange among the classrooms.
Journalism students collect content that may be used for broadcasting, the website or the student newspaper, teacher Anita Adkins said. Students can work in multiple areas and divide responsibilities, she said.
Students have press access to events, including sports. The budding journalists have writing and editing assignments and, like the broadcast classes, rotate responsibilities.
Emily Ogle, in the broadcasting I class, watched her computer screen and explained she was in the start-up class.
"The class made a feature, and I am remixing songs," she said.
Today's young people grew up with media and are less intimidated with the technology and the job itself than their elders, teacher Jon Souder said.
"A lot of times they come into the first-level classes and are a little intimidated by the overall equipment," he said. "But after the first couple of weeks, they pick up and run with it.
"You learn these things by doing, by trial and error," Souder said. "Growing up with that, this is natural. They have cameras on their phones. They are not intimidated. They are over there putting up a $4,000 camera on a tripod, and they don't think twice about it."
Contact Randall Higgins at rhiggins@timesfreepress.com or 423-314-1029.