If there鈥檚 one thing 麻豆原创 student Lillian Hern谩ndez Caraballo knows about journalism, it鈥檚 that you can鈥檛 miss a deadline. Her dedication to meeting an important deadline helped her land a coveted spot in the NPR News鈥� national training program, NextGenRadio.
麻豆原创鈥檚 Nicholson School of Communication and Media and W麻豆原创-TV partnered with Central Florida鈥檚 WMFE 90.7FM to bring the program to Orlando from April 29-May 3. Four of the six students selected to participate in Orlando鈥檚 鈥渂oot camp鈥� were from 麻豆原创: journalism majors Hern谩ndez Caraballo and Monica Sealey;聽interdisciplinary studies major Rhyan Grant; and聽English major Emily Lang. The other two students were from Valencia College and Full Sail University.
NextGenRadio is a week-long 鈥減op-up鈥� digital journalism training experience. It is designed to give competitively selected participants interested in podcasting, audio storytelling, radio reporting and visual journalism the skills and opportunity to find and produce their own multimedia story. Each selected participant is paired with a professional journalist, and together they find, report and produce a non-narrated story as well as use stills and video to fill out their story.
The theme of the week鈥檚 stories was immigration, specifically 鈥淔irst Days in America.鈥�
鈥淲e are fanning out around Central Florida to locate, capture and tell the stories of immigrants who have arrived here and are making a new life.鈥� 鈥�Rick Brunson ’84, associate instructor in the Nicholson School
Rick Brunson ’84, associate instructor in the Nicholson School, represented the university in the partnership and is mentoring one of the students.
鈥淲e are fanning out around Central Florida to locate, capture and tell the stories of immigrants who have arrived here and are making a new life,鈥� he says. 鈥淭he training is highly structured with tutorials in audio reporting, web production, social media production, photography, video and more. Our stories will be richly layered, textured and multimedia in nature.鈥�
Hern谩ndez Carabello, a junior, recounts that she had been in a car crash that left her unable to walk during the NextGenRadio application process. When she found out she was a finalist, she had a very short window of time to submit her story proposal.
鈥淭he program is intense and I knew the deadline had to be met 鈥� these are professionals. I had to step it up.鈥� 鈥� Lillian Hern谩ndez Carabello, journalism student
鈥淭here I was, no car (just got wrecked), no way to walk or hardly move, no way to get up, put the work into it and get my story. But I wanted it,鈥� Hern谩ndez Carabello says. 鈥淚 hired a driver and went in my wheelchair and crutches and hobbled around downtown Orlando for hours until I found my story. I was outside a closed Starbucks leaching on their WiFi on my dying laptop trying to submit my pitch in on time. It was due at 11:59 p.m., I got it in at 11:41. The program is intense and I knew the deadline had to be met 鈥� these are professionals. I had to step it up. And, I guess, accident or not, that is the major challenge of the program, as well as its reward. Learning to be professional, timely, and focused enough to fit into the team and produce a story of the caliber of NPR.鈥�
The stories are available to view and hear at聽. They will also air daily May 13-17 on WMFE 90.7FM at 6:44 a.m. and 8:44 a.m.
鈥淚鈥檓 pleased and proud to be part of it鈥攁nd more to see our students part of it,鈥� says Brunson.
