Student Media Annual Report2007-2008

By Bradley Wilson, coordinator of Student Media advising

Summary
Programs:

• We have worked this year to increase our online presence through solidifying the “88.1 Second of Technician” podcast and radio broadcast, creating an online site to sell photos and selling yearbooks solely online.
• The new Student Media Board of Directors, including professionals and academics in addition to elected and appointed students, functioned well this year with leaders from the local journalism community as well as members of our academic community and students.

Compact Plan:

• The number of sources used per Technician article increased to above 3.00 consistently for the first time in the spring of 2008.
• The Technician met deadline 78 percent of the time in the fall semester and 76 percent of the time in the spring semester. Meeting deadline fell to an all-time low early in the spring.
• Technician income was down (from a budgeted $417,157 to $384,485 actually billed) due to a less-than-aggressive sales staff and a declining economy. WKNC income was up.
• The Nubian Message failed to come out one time this year but made improvements in the quality of the design and editing of the product. Nubian Message income was down.
• The Agromeck came out in the spring semester (April 16), making it the first spring delivery book in decades. However, sales continued to decline despite aggressive marketing and sales through the NCSU Bookstore. The Agromeck and Career Center Guide realized $35,000 in advertising income.

Diversity:

• Our work with the Nubian Message Advisory Board and assessment through the annual Technician Time Out for Diversity study show that our efforts in covering this diverse campus are on track in terms of race and gender. However, we do fall short when it comes to coverage of engineering and the sciences on campus.

Staff:

• The 2007 Agromeck (Brandon Wright, editor) received a Silver Crown from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association and was a finalist for the Associated Collegiate Press Pacemaker. The 2007 Windhover (Lauren Gould, editor) received a Gold Crown from CSPA and a Pacemaker (its 11 th ) from ACP.
• Tyler Dukes was our nominee for the national journalist of the year through the Society for Collegiate Journalists. As the 2006-2007 editor of the Technician , and now a graduating senior, Tyler excelled. His work on the science and tech section of the paper this year made it, by far, the best page in the paper each week.
• Fred Eaker joined our professional staff this year as our systems administrator. He has already completely created a new Web site for advertisers to book advertising online. His positive, can-do attitude makes him a welcome addition to the staff. He has also taken the leadership in hiring a student Web team to assist all of the media.
• Bradley Wilson received the Elizabeth B. Dickey Distinguished Service Award from the Southern Interscholastic Press Association. He also received a Presidential Citation for his work with the College Media Advisers.
• Recommendations and concerns for the future .
• We have begun working with Wolf TV to integrate video into our online presence. This probably will not happen before 2009 due to lack of staffing resources, but it will become an integral part of the Student Media.
• Student staff members need to have a continued emphasis on retention of staff members.
• The biggest problem for the staff continues to be lack of sufficient professional staff and lack of competitive salaries within the professional staff.
• Problems with the University’s collections procedure put us six months behind in assessing progress toward collecting >90-day past due accounts. We need closer oversight of student payroll to spot problems in advance.

I. Programs

Producing leaders for the state, nation and the world

Our student staff members produced more than 155 editions of the Technician and 22 (of the 23 planned) editions of the Nubian Message , kept a 25,000-watt radio station on the air 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, produced a spring delivery yearbook and a literary and arts magazine. The skills needed to maintain this $800,000 operation help produce leaders in print, online and on-air media. The skills they learn in managing people, budgets and customers will help them in any profession and will help them be educated consumers of the mass media as well.

Specifically, the creation of a Corrections Policy this year is an example of how the students are taking a leadership role not only from within their own media and on campus, but within the greater media community. The creation of this one-page policy involved consultation with a wide variety of media outlets, print, online and broadcast as well as numerous other college media outlets. While other college media outlets have corrections policies, and this was a first for the NCSU Student Media, this one takes into consideration online updates and, as such, is a contemporary policy. Staff members, particularly for the Technician , this year, have been conscious of the need to produce corrections/clarifications in a timely fashion, including working with the reporter who published the story with the potential error, contacting the sources involved, discussing the situation with the senior staff members involved and taking whatever actions are necessary.

Led by a newly reformed Board of Directors, the NCSU Student Media received much national acclaim this year for the yearbook and the literary magazine specifically. As one of the Board members said toward the end of the year, as high-quality as these publications are, now we need to find ways to get them in the hands of more students.

Student Media Board of Directors

• At-large : Selby Lo, Alicia Davis, Melissa Patzwaldt
• Appointed students :
  • Peyton Holland is a senior majoring in business management and served as chair of the board
  • Laura Laurene
  • Vincent Sheehan
• Professional members
  • Bob Ashley, editor of the Durham Herald-Sun
  • Dean Phillips, lecturer in the NCSU Department of Communications and president of deanWORKS
  • John Clark is the general manager of WRAL.com at Capitol Broadcasting Company in Raleigh, N.C.
  • Sherry O’Neal, director of communications for the NCSU College of Design
  • Phil Zachary is president and chief operating officer of Raleigh-based Curtis Media Group, owners of more than 24 radio stations across North Carolina
• Other: Bobby Mills, student body president
• Student leaders
  • Technician editor – Josh Harrell
  • Nubian Message editor — Al McArthur
  • Agromeck editor — Mary Beth Hamrick
  • WKNC general manager — Steve McCreery
  • Windhover co-editors – Joe Wright, Hannah Richardson

Professional staff

• Bradley Wilson — coordinator of Student Media advising
• Jamie Lynn Gilbert — WKNC adviser, assistant coordinator
• Krystal Pittman — business office manager
• Martha Collins — SCJ adviser, office manager
• Fred Eaker — systems administrator
• Lee Williams — fall semester graduate student/writing coach
• Heath Gardner — fall/spring semesters graduate student/writing coach

Academic progress

We analyzed the grades and status of the current students on payroll and working as volunteers. As we’ve been watching the potential impact of a grade policy, here’s how Student Media came out.

• In the fall, we had 276 students in our student records, including volunteers. It took Jamie about seven hours to check grades using the online Student Information System. It took us both another five hours to analyze the data. In the spring, we had 81 students remaining in our records and it took Jamie three hours to analyze the data.
• In the fall, there were 81 people (29%) with greater than a 3.500 GPA for the semester, up from 61 people last fall (also 29%). In the spring, there were 24 people with a 3.500 or greater (29%).
• In the fall, there were 22 people with a 4.000 GPA for the semester (up from 8 last fall) and of them 13 have an overall GPA of 4.00. In the spring, five people had a 4.000 semester GPA and one of them had a 4.00 cumulative.
• In the fall, there were 172 people (62%) with greater than a 3.000 GPA fulfilling one of the requirements for the Society for Collegiate Journalists (61% last year). In the spring, there were 39 people with greater than a 3.000 GPA.
• There were 26 people (9 percent) with below a 2.000 for the semester (23 last fall), in the fall. In the spring, there were nine people with below a 2.000 for the semester. All of these will require work plans at the very least in accordance with Student Media policy.
• In the fall, there were seven people with below a 2.000 cumulative (down from 14 last fall). In the spring, there were two people with below a 2.00 GPA. All of these will require work plans at the very least in accordance with Student Media policy.

Of the student leaders who are specifically targeted by the campus-wide policy:

• None had below a 2.5 for the semester or cumulative in the spring. In the fall, two student leaders were put on a work plan because their semester GPA was below a 2.5.

Two of our student leaders had a 4.000 for the semester and one had a 4.00 cumulative. Both work for WKNC.

Fall 2007	Cumulative	Semester	Number people
Average	3.13	3.13
Low	0.79	0.17
High	4.00	4.00
Agromeck	3.06	3.08	15
Nubian Message	3.00	3.16	22
Technician	3.21	3.14	142
WKNC	3.00	3.07	86

Spring 2008	Cumulative	Semester	Number people
Average	2.998	2.997	81
Low	1.472	0.000
High	4.000	4.000
Agromeck	3.039	2.933	7
Nubian Message	3.448	3.409	2
Technician	2.991	2.928	28
WKNC	2.969	3.012	40

Finances

Income/(Loss)

Agromeck • ($36,116)

Nubian Message • $3,218

Technician • ($51,673)

Windhover • $2,074

WKNC • $13,179

General Administration • ($18,544)

Gross loss • $122,695

[This is the total amount to be taken out of reserve, depleting approximately 25 percent of our reserve.]

Planned use of reserve

WKNC HD Ibiquity contract • $15,000

AdPro • $19,833

Operating costs • $38,632

Net income/loss • $49,230

[This is our “unplanned” loss.]

• Lack of income was the primary problem this year. The Technician shortfall will result in about a large deficit for that media alone partly due to lack of collections (at the 78 percent mark by mid-May) and partly due to lack of sales (at $277,899 by mid-May compared to $417,000 originally budgeted). We billed $354,000 for the Technician.
• WKNC, however, exceeded expectations with an initial budget for non-fee income of $29,000, thanks to leadership by Jamie Gilbert and Steve McCreery, WKNC had brought in more than $37,000 by mid-May.
• Agromeck ‘s income also did not meet expectations due to lack of book sales. Despite aggressive marketing efforts, we pre-sold only 90 copies of the book and sold a few others in the NCSU Bookstore.
• Nubian Message also did not meet its income projections and failed to be published one time this year. The Nubian Message Web site was not updated in the spring semester.
• The deficit spending is somewhat due to Technician overexpenditure in payroll. As of mid-May, Technician had approximately $113,000 budgeted for payroll but had already spent approximately $128,000. Tighter controls need to be put on Technician payroll and payroll needs to be more responsive to lack-of-income.

Training

Highlights

• Current student leaders, alumni and professionals from the community taught 20 regular monthly training sessions in the spring semester for the Technician.
  • Chip Alexander, sports editor, Raleigh News & Observer
  • John Clark, general manager, WRAL.com
  • Annabelle Myers, assistant athletics director for media relations
  • Andy Bechtel, assistant professor, UNC-Chapel Hill
  • Dick Reavis, assistant professor, NCSU
  • Ryan Criag, WRAL
  • Alumni: Austin Dowd, Austin Johnson, Patrick Clarke, Tanner Kroeger, Joe Overby
• WKNC training included a fall and spring class required of all new staff members. WKNC had no regular training for returning staff members.
• The Nubian Message and Technician both had advisory boards this year that met once per semester with outside professionals, other faculty/staff and students giving the publications feedback.
• Other than what training occurred at their weekly staff meetings and at the advisory board meetings the Nubian Message and the Agromeck did not have any training this academic year.

Conclusions/Recommendations

• Training must be instituted as part of the routine and supported by the senior student management . We need to find ways to motivate people to attend training. Attendance was a repeated problem. 20 evaluations specifically mentioned that more people needed to attend.
• Hands-on training is more well well-received as comments from the evaluations indicate: “More hands-on.” “More practice writing leads.” “More interaction.” “More hands-on and scenario training.” “(We should have) gone out and used flash in a training setting.” “(We) could set up different different stations with different lighting situations and let everyone rotate to each station to get hand-on experience.” “More time spent on actual writing mechanics rather than ideas.” “More hands-on stuff.” “(I want) actual outdoor training.”
• Training should involve a specific publication including evaluation of recent work . “More applicable to the group.” “More specific advice for Technician designs could have been given.” “More critiques of our own papers and designs, areas of improvement, suggestions.”
• Editors, at the end of the training, need to review with the students in attendance and set specific tasks for how what they learned will be applied . Writing down these specific tasks should be part of the training. “We need further discussion of how to develop these ideas.”
• Students should be given material to help them prepare for the training, about a week before the training, even if that’s as simple as discussing it at the staff meeting preceding the training.
• Explain to outside professionals, before the training, what the goals are . Make sure they apply training to this staff, this year.
• Scheduling is critical : Two hours is about the right length for training. Sunday afternoon, while ideal for students, is not particularly ideal for the trainers. Distributing the semester training calendar at the beginning of the semester helps people plan their schedules.

II. Compact Plan

Recruitment and Retention

• 273 students expressed interest in at least one medium during the recruitment period (up from 230 in 2006)
• Recruited 200 incoming freshmen
• Recruited an additional 73 students outside the nine Orientation sessions and Convocation (who may or may not be freshmen)
• Overall, 481 contacts were made with 273 students
• Students are expressing interest in more than one medium
• Average media selected per person = 1.76
• Despite this, only two students joined more than one medium
• 28 of those individuals who expressed an interest attended at least one Technician or WKNC training class
• 44 of those individuals who expressed an interest joined the staff (16 percent, consistent with 2006)
• 37 of those individuals who expressed an interest were retained (14 percent, consistent with 2006)
• The number of students contacted by an editor/general manager within 48 hours rose to 83 percent (up from 58 percent in 2006)

Conclusions/Recommendations

• Media fare better at recruitment (at least during Orientation) when they have a representative present, as evident by the success of Windhover and design recruitment efforts when the Windhover editor and design editor were present.
• The most successful Orientation sessions were the early sessions when enthusiasm on behalf of the Student Media staff was higher. We need to ensure we have motivated staff members recruiting at all Orientation sessions. The burden should not be on the same staff members (i.e. the editor).
• Editors this year did a much better job of contacting potential recruits by e-mail than last year. However, response was low. The message recruits receive needs to include the date and time of a first meeting, details of how to get involved and things they can do during the summer (listen to WKNC online, read technicianonline.com, etc.). The message needs to be clear, specific and consistent.
• While editors did a good job of following through right after Orientation, there was not as much follow through to get people actually on staff or to attend class. Attending class tended to be a successful predictor of retention on staff and success on staff. (80 percent of the people who graduated from the Technician class remained on staff.)
• Efforts outside Orientation, including Open House, Cates Crawl, Friday Fest and Convocation proved nearly as successful as Orientation. However, they were late in the recruitment season and not as productive for the Technician although other media may benefit significantly.

Coverage

• The number of sources used per Technician article increased to above 3.00 consistently for the first time in the spring of 2008.
• The number of Agromeck sources was down. (2004: 1,491 sources indexed; 2005: 3,307; 2006: 2,907; 2007: 1,379)

Timeliness and planning

• The Technician met deadline 78 percent of the time in the fall semester and 76 percent of the time in the spring semester. Meeting deadline fell to an all-time low early in the spring.
• The Nubian Message failed to come out one time this year but made improvements in the quality of the design and editing of the product. Nubian Message income was down.
• The Agromeck came out in the spring semester (April 16), making it the first spring delivery book in decades. However, sales continued to decline despite aggressive marketing and sales through the NCSU Bookstore. The Agromeck and Career Center Guide realized $35,000 in advertising income.

III. Diversity

The fifth Time Out for Diversity study was designed to make Technician staff aware of the diversity (of ages, majors, classifications, gender and race) of the sources used in news/feature, opinion and sports coverage. A profile of the staff obtained from the Time Out pre-analysis completed by each staff member found that the staff is

• 50% male (48% last year, 64% prior year)
• 19% seniors (29% last year, 42% prior year), 22% juniors, (32% last year, 36% prior year)
• 86% white (90% last year, 81% prior year) with 1% African-Americans on staff
• 44% “liberal”

Race

1. Caucasian source percentages are close to matching the population – 74.7 percent of the student population and 75.8 percent of sources used by the paper in 2007, according to our selection.
2. Except for Asian and Black racial categories, the order of percentages on our staff mirrors the sources they find. Asian and Black are reversed – Asians are our second-largest racial group on staff, but the third-largest group sourced. Black students are our third-largest group on staff but the second-largest in terms of sourcing and student population.

Recommendation :

• We need to recruit a more racially diverse staff. The percentage of Caucasians on staff has increased.
• Reporters continue to use a wide variety of sources.

Gender

1. The number of male sources is consistently declining, as number of female sources rise, coming close to mirroring the actual campus population numbers (males had previously been overrepresented by more than 10 percent.) This coincides with our group of females on staff getting consistently larger.

Recommendation :

• Reporters need to continue to use more female sources.

Classification

1. We have a young staff this year.   Representation of seniors on staff over the course of our study has gone from 29 to 19 percent, while the perentage of sophomores has risen from 17 to 32 percent.
2. Percentage of faculty sources has remained more or less constant, but non-faculty staff sources have gone up, which inevitably means student sources have gone down.

Recommendation :

• Reporters need to use more student sources.
• Reporters need to use more freshmen and sophomores as sources.
• Reporters need to use more faculty and less staff as sources. Jon Barnwell and Tom Stafford are consistently over-quoted.

College

1. CHASS continues to be highly overrepresented. 26 percent of our sources are affiliated with CHASS, a college which only makes up 14 percent of the population. 54 percent of our staff comes from CHASS.
2. The number of engineering sources has increased, putting them more in line with population (23 percent sourced, up from 19 percent, against an actual population of 24.6 percent). This probably resulted from increased science and tech coverage. CALS is still underrepresented.
3. The ability to determine the major or college affiliation of the source dropped from almost 90 percent last year to just over 50 percent this year indicating we are doing a poor job of identifying our sources.

Recommendation:

• Writers/editors need to include name, classification and major for all sources.
• Reporters need to use fewer students, faculty and staff in CHASS as sources.
• Reporters need to continue to use CALS student, faculty and staff more as sources.

Sources

The average number of sources per story is increasing slightly, having reached a low in the summer of 2007 and a high in the spring of 2008 with the same leadership staff.

• Spring 2005 — 2.70
• Summer 2005 — 2.95
• Fall 2005 — 2.71
• Spring 2006 — 2.53
• April 2006 — 2.86
• Summer 2006 — 2.84
• Fall 2006 — 3.29
• Spring 2007 — 2.84
• Summer 2007 — 2.25
• Fall 2007 — 3.03
• Spring 2008 — 3.31

Recommendation : Reporters need to strive to use at least three sources per story.

IV. Staff

Professional staff

Fred Eaker joined our professional staff this year as our systems administrator. He has already completely created a new Web site for advertisers to book advertising online. His positive, can-do attitude makes him a welcome addition to the staff. He has also taken the leadership in hiring a student Web team to assist all of the media.

Awards

2007 Agromeck , Brandon Wright, editor

• CSPA Silver Crown
• Best of Show at fall ACP/CMA convention
• 11 Gold Circle Awards from CSPA
• First Place for Index: Mark Fenimore & Brandon Wright
• First Place for Caption Writing: Matt O’ Bryant, Austin Dowd & Chris Sanchez, “Take Back the Night”
• Second Place for Caption Writing: Brandon Wright, “Hook, Line & Sinker”
• Second Place for Opening/Closing: Mark Fenimore & Brandon Wright
• Second Place for Student Life: Mark Fenimore, Josh Hines & Austin Dowd, “Krispy Kreme”
• Second Place for Informational Graphic: Mark Fenimore, “Behind the Dance”
• Second Place for Sports Feature Writing: John Cooper Elias, “Deraney”
• Third Place in Sidebar or Mini-mag Writing: Mark Fenimore, “Sushi”
• Certificate of Merit for People Spread: Mark Fenimore & Mary Beth Hamrick, “Laundry”
• Certificate of Merit for Sports Action Photo: Danny Boemermann, “No Losers”
• Certificate of Merit in Headline Writing: Mary Beth Hamrick

2006 Agromeck , Josh Bassett, editor

• Best of Collegiate Design, fifth place, yearbook individuals spread
• Josh Bassett, designer (Agromeck yearbook)

2007 Windhover , Lauren Gould, editor

• CSPA Gold Crown
• 11th Pacemaker from ACP
• 2nd place, Best of Show at fall ACP/CMA convention

2006 Windhover, Britt Hayes, editor

•  Best of Collegiate Design, first place, magazine cover · Britt Hayes, Carolin Harris and Caroline Okun.

2007-2008 Technician , Josh Harrell, editor

• Grant recipients : Susannah Brinkley, Luis Zapata; renewals : Saja Hindi, Helen Dear
• From the Society for Collegiate Journalists
  • First place for overall excellence, newspapers published more frequently than weekly
  • Saja Hindi, honorable mention, news stories, “SG Overspends Budget by Thousands”
  • Tyler Dukes, honorable mention, feature writing, “Breaking Down the Other White Meat”
  • Clark Leonard, first place, sports news, “Games to Air on FM Radio After Switch”
  • Clark Leonard, honorable mention, sports features, “O’Brien Looks Forward” and “Rising Salaries a Concern”
  • Kathryn Graf, second place, graphic illustration, “Hatred or Harassment?”
  • Kathryn Graf, third place, inside page design, soft news, “Hatred or Harassment”
  • Saja Hindi, WKNC-FM,  first place, broadcast news, “88.1 Seconds of Technician”

2006-2007 Technician , Tyler Dukes, editor

• ACP 1 st place in national design competition, Katie Graf
• ACP honorable mention in national photo competition, Matt More
• Best of Collegiate Design, third place, feature page · staff

2006-2007 WKNC, Brian Ware, general manager

• Best Station Promotion in the College Broadcasters national competition for promotion of the WKNC Double-Barrell Benefit
• Second place Best of Show Award for “88.1 Seconds of Technician” by Brian Ware, Tyler Dukes, Rob Bradley and Pete Ellis
• Voted best radio station by the Independent , earning a top slot for the fourth straight year. Sam McGuire, on the air as Bigfatsac, was a finalist for best radio DJ.

Staff Awards

• Bradley Wilson received the Elizabeth B. Dickey Distinguished Service Award from the Southern Interscholastic Press Association. He also received a Presidential Citation for his work with the College Media Advisers.

Presentations by staff

Bradley Wilson

• Journalism Education Association/National Scholastic Press Association national convention, Anaheim, Calif., April 17-20, 2008. Taught session “Win!” on winning photo competitions and a session on creating ethical case studies.
• First North Carolina College Media Association convention in Chapel Hill. Taught session on managing student photojournalists. Assisted with management of conference. Named chair of steering committee to create bylaws for new association.
• Southern Interscholastic Press Association, University of South Carolina, Columbia, S.C., March 19 – April 2, taught classes in photography
• Association of Texas Photography Instructors, Feb. 14-17, 2008, Arlington, Texas, managed statewide conference with students Rob Fisher and Stephen Bateman
• Associated Collegiate Press/College Media Advisers national convention, Washington, D.C., Oct. 25-28, 2007, taught day-long, pre-conference hand-on class on Adobe Photoshop, coordinated on-site photography competition and judging and presented research paper, “Three is a Magic Number,” a methodological study as a measure of evaluating objective stories.
• Tenth Annual High School Media Workshop, North Carolina A&T State University, Oct. 11, 2007, taught “Latest Trends in Yearbook Design” and “Yearbook Content and Coverage”
• Fourth Annual Northwest North Carolina Scholastic Journalism Day instructor, Appalachian State University, Sept. 27, 2007, taught classes on Photoshop and yearbook coverage; delivered closing address on using quality photos
• Washington Journalism Education Association summer workshop instructor in advisers sequence (Advanced Publication Advising) and student sequence, Central Washington University, Ellensburg, Wash., July 29-Aug. 3
• Ball State University summer workshop, Muncie, Ind., July 16-20, instructor, digital photography for advisers

Jamie Lynn Gilbert

• Competitive Paper: “Sex v. profanity: An analysis of indecency fines from 2000-2005.” Chicago, IL: National Communication Association, November 2007.
• Scholarly presentation with Christine M. Stover, Michael Parsons and Corey Hagood of WXOU at Oakland University). “Consolidation, kickbacks and criminal charges: A payola primer.” Las Vegas, NV: Broadcast Education Association Annual Convention, April 2008.
• Presentation with WKNC DJ Melissa Poston. “Working the Web: College radio in cyberspace.” Washington, DC: Associated Collegiate Press/College Media Advisers/College Broadcasters Inc National College Media Convention, October 2007.