Working with the pros

I've written about the student run broadcasts our school does here and here. It's been a really fun experience. This group of students is a blast to work with!

Recently I made contact with the Kevin Janison, the weatherman from our local Channel 3 news station. I invited him to visit our school to see what these students were doing and to answer questions about his job. He agreed and also set up the opportunity for us to tour the Channel 3 news station and watch a live broadcast. When I announced this to my TBN crew they became so excited and that was all they would talk about for days!

Kevin came out on a Wednesday afternoon. My crew gave him a short tour of our studio, describing each of their jobs. We even did a "live" broadcast so he could see us in action. We then met with another group of students. These students belong to two clubs on campus, the Roving Reporters and Concept of the Week, that provide content for our broadcasts. He spent a good 30 minutes answering a bunch of questions about his career and what it's like to work at the news studio. He also gave the TBN crew some really useful tips to make our broadcast even better.

Kevin Janison answering some hard questions

He videotaped a short segment and aired it during his weather forecast that night on TV. Here's the clip, taken from the Channel 3 website.


The next Friday students and their parents met at the station. Kevin gave us a tour of the station, including the control room. He allowed the students time to play with the green screen pretending to tell the weather.

It's hard to know where to point!

We got to watch a live broadcast of the 6 o'clock news. Kevin surprised us by having all of the students come on air at the end of his weather segment.

Squeezing in for the camera

After the broadcast he took us to the control room where we got to see all of the equipment and ask questions about how everything worked. It was amazing to see all of their professional equipment!

Do you think my principal will let us upgrade our equipment?

We then went back to the studio and students were able to take pictures with Kevin at the anchor desk. The whole night was an amazing experience! Everyone was so polite and patient with all of the students - it was probably the largest turn out they've had of any group.

The TBN crew

All of the students and teachers

Here is the video from the news broadcast. The anchor first mentions the students at about the 6:12 mark (that's 6:12 towards the end of the video). The students are at the end of the weather segment and appear at about 3:22 saying, "Back to you, Marie!"

We wish to extend a big thank you to Channel 3, especially to Kevin Janison, for allowing us to visit and learn about professional broadcasting!