Oct. 14, 2008 • 7 p.m.
Board room, Talley Student Center, fourth floor

CALL TO ORDER

Present: Crystal Clark, Ryland Clark, Melissa Patzwaldt, Laura Lauren, Scott Richardson, Vincent Sheehan, Bob Ashley, John Clark, Dean Phillips, Phil Zachary, John Cooper Elias, Kishea Phillips, Saja Hindi, Joe Wright, Kyle Robb, David Mason, Jay Dawkins, Bradley Wilson

Others Present: Jamie Lynn Gilbert, Martha Collins, Fred Eaker, Chris Cioffi

Not Present: Denise Gonzales Crisp

OLD BUSINESSS

1. Approval of minutes of Sept. 9, 2008. — Phil Zachary moved and Dean Phillips seconded. Approved by unanimous consent.

NEW BUSINESSS

1. Update of Grades and Full-time Status Policy — Phil Zachary moved and John Clark seconded that the policy be updated. Approved by unanimous consent.
2. Board standing rules — The Board agreed that any member absent for more than two meetings would have their position considered vacant. Any member going to be absent from a meeting needs to notify the chair, Melissa Patzwaldt. She will determine “approved” absences and when a position is considered vacant and will notify the Board.

REPORTS

1. Agromeck CLICK HERE
2. Americana CLICK HERE
3. The Nubian Message CLICK HERE
4. Technician CLICK HERE
5. Windhover CLICK HERE
6. WKNC 88.1fm CLICK HERE
7. Society for Collegiate Journalists CLICK HERE
8. Budget update CLICK HERE

During discussion of the Technician’s advertising income, Phil Zachary reminded students and staff that the budget process is a “very important part of the learning process.” He said all media are trying to figure out ways to cut spending without damaging the media. “It may not be fun, but it is such an important part of what what you’re learning.” He encouraged the business/sales staff to assess who the wudience is. Students are the least affected by this economic downturn. They have more expendable money per capita than other people.

EXECUTIVE SESSION

The Student Media Advisory Board may adjourn into executive session to discuss matters of litigation, potential litigation or personnel.

ADJOURN

REPORTS

Due by Oct. 8 at noon

AGROMECK

(submitted by John Cooper Elias, editor)

Revenue — We show 59 percent of our budgeted non-fee income as being in. That is a combination of Career Guide ad sales and some book sales. Not all of the money for current book sales has been received yet to be included in that number. We have sold 30 books as of Oct. 8. Of those, 18 were online sales, and the other 12 were sold during our marketing effort at the Parents & Families tailgate.

Personnel

• Since the last board meeting, the staff was restructured to provide more clearly defined and productive roles. Our assignments editor position was changed to photo editor with a reduced salary. We then hired two new staff members as co-assignments editors. These two individuals are responsible for all story assignments and copy editing. Their salaries are being paid with money that was reallocated from the assignments editor position. This change has helped dramatically by getting copy content in to designers in a more timely fashion, and it also allows us to have two experienced copy editors to assist in the editing process before sending pages.
• Other staff changes include the loss of three designers due to their availability. Two of those people may still be involved in some way at a later time. We also have brought on three new writers who are contributing on a regular basis and one new designer who had previous experience.

Training

• Training continues to be held with our staff meetings. The designers are all meeting in a group and the writers are all meeting in a group toreview work and collaborate on ideas.
• The mentor program appears to have paid off as many of the new designers learned the system quickly, and they are able to work on their own now. However, the new designers are still trying to do the majority of their work at times when an editor has office hours so they can consult them for help.

Coverage — The coverage in the book has been steadily improving. With the addition
of the assignments editors, we are getting an increase in feature angles
and human interest stories to add to our event coverage.

Deadlines — The staff met and exceeded our first deadline by completing and sending
100 pages in September. The next deadline is Oct. 17 when 40 pages are
due. Progress on these pages has been good and we do not expect any
problems in meeting this deadline. The staff has a self-imposed deadline
of Oct. 15 to leave extra time to tie up any loose ends at the end of the
week.

Progress toward goals

• Marketing has been the biggest goal of the staff this year. Everyone did
  an excellent job contributing to the Parents & Families Weekend
  marketing efforts. Although we hoped to sell more books at the event, we increased awareness of the book.
• Senior portraits: Our attention has turned now to marketing for senior
  portraits. We are working on getting as many people signed up for
  portraits, and then the staff will be on hand during the portrait sessions to market the book to the people who come to have their picture taken.
• Group shots: 28 groups and organizations have already scheduled a group
  picture for the book since we began advertising the opportunity a little
  over a week ago. Staff members are also attending the group shot time with
  the photographer to hand out information about the book and ways that the
  group members can order it.

AMERICANA

NO REPORT

NUBIAN MESSAGE

(Submitted by Kishea Phillips, editor)

Since the last Board meeting, the Nubian Message staff has been working to
enhance the paper by improving the layout to make the content easier to
view and read, including more photos and filling empty spaces with useful
information that students can refer back to. We are trying to incorporate
a larger variety of content, including reader submitted work and photo
stories. We are also conducting student surveys to find out what students
think of the paper so we can become a better resource.

We still have not sold any ads. There are no expenditures out of the
ordinary; everything has been kept within the budget. I am still working
to find someone to put in the business office for the paper.

There are no official significant staff changes, but I am in the process of
hiring seven staff writers and a circulation manger. The additional
writers will create a variety of views that expressed in the paper so
students will not have to read articles from the perspective of the same
12 people each week. I am also encouraging other members of the staff who do not hold writing positions to contribute content to the paper.

Our coverage is becoming broader. In the past couple of issues we have
reported on topics in which I believe more of the campus community would be
interested. Our coverage of Latino/Hispanic Heritage Month activities
has also reflected the portion of our mission that encourages education
about other cultures in addition to African-American culture. We are working to become more aware of events by communicating outside of
meetings and going beyond our own staff for source and content ideas.

The staff has been having some trouble meeting deadlines. With issue five,
I received six out of nine articles past deadline which has affected our
web presence since the goal is to post stories to the Web as soon as they are copy edited. I was told most of the delay had to do with the pressure
of mid-term exams.

We have been doing a great job with keeping student quotes in all news
stories. Now we’re working on incorporating student quotes into the
majority of our stories across sections which will give a voice to even
more students in the paper.

TECHNICIAN

(submitted by Saja Hindi, editor)

The Technician staff has done a lot of preparation for the projects we are working on for the upcoming election and we’re all really excited to get things moving.

Revenue — We’ve been struggling with revenue from ads a lot since last month and for this reason, our special election issue “Red” has been cancelled. But we are still working on producing a double truck Voter’s Guide for the mock election.

Expenditures – No expenditures out of the ordinary.

Personnel – There haven’t been any significant changes in staff. However, the News and Features sections have really been struggling with having enough writers actually contribute. Hopefully, now that the Technician class is over, they’ll be able to pull in these new writers to get started because a lot of them were hesitant to start before the class was over.

Training – We had Tyler Dukes, former editor-in-chief, come give a training for an hour and a half two weeks ago and a Sunday, and it was very effective. The editors talked to him about content, Web ideas, photos and overall coverage.

We’ve also had two Web trainings that Fred Eaker has conducted for us, so the staff can learn to use the new CP5 and both have been effective. As he said, the new Web site has a learning curve, but the staff is working to learn how to use it.

The photographers also underwent a basic photo training, which some of the senior photographers conducted.

Technician class — Of the 54 people who attended the Technician class, 17 “graduated” (31 percent). Last year, the graduation rate was 58 percent. The year before that, the graduation rate was 81 percent. To “graduate,” students had to attend all but one class.

Coverage – We held a debate between Students for McCain and Students for Obama Oct. 6, which was very successful. Political science associate professor Michael Cobb moderated the debate and two representatives from each organization were on the panel. We had about 160 people show up. MTV was also at the debate and WolfTV recorded it. We also produced an audio slideshow of the event.

Deadlines – We’ve been struggling quite a bit with deadlines because of the move up to midnight. However, the staff has been really eager to get content in earlier and make that deadline and we’ve done a lot better this pay period with it than we did during the last period. Derek is also helping out a lot in that respect.

Ethics/Legal issues – We haven’t had any major ethical/legal issues this period. We did have an issue with a photo illustration that was labeled as such but seemed too real, and the photographers will be undergoing a training on photo illustrations soon.

Corrections – We’ve had 22 corrections since the last board meeting, which is less than last time, but still too much in my opinion. A lot of it has resulted from misattributions or name spellings again. To counteract this, in addition to having the editors write out corrections for their sections, the news department is now required to list out every name and organization they source (as the copy editors already do) and double check names and titles. Then I take the list at the end of the week and go over it to make sure that all names were on the list.

Progress toward goals – The Voter’s Guide is also completed. Staff members from all sections, except Viewpoint, helped out in getting content in for that. The guide will come out the day before the mock election. That day, we also plan to e-mail every student information about the election and advertise throughout the next two days.

WINDHOVER

(submitted by Joe Wright, editors)

Once again, at this time Windhover has little to report. There have been no revenue, expenditure, or personnel changes. The call for submissions poster will be distributed Oct. 13 along with the Open Mic Night poster. Open Mic Night will be Nov. 23. The Web site is also slated to be completed Oct. 13.

One think Bradley and I have discussed is the possibility of looking at outside donor sponsors. I am researching this right now and looking at possibilities. I only say this to put the idea in your head so that it will be fresh in the future. I’m not necessarily ready to discuss it at this meeting, but it must be discussed in the near future.

WKNC

dropdown(submitted by Kyle Robb, general manager)dropdown

Revenue – Total September income for the station was $4,180.30 with $2,330.30 of that coming directly from business office sales. Business office revenue for the month is well above the goal of $1,500 per month in WKNC sales, although yearly sales are still below quota.

Personnel — Megan Carroll has been hired as our new public affairs director. Part of her duties will be as executive producer of a new N.C. State-focused talk and features show. We are hiring seven copywriters to assist Megan and others with writing scripts for DAs, PSAs and promos. Michael Perros is a new volunteer production assistant and is working to create music beds we can use for podcasts. We are interviewing a prospective student engineer. Mark Brower has been promoted to Afterhours music director. Our personnel focus has now shifted to finding a promotions director to take over for our current director, who will be graduating in December.

Coverage — Eight WKNC staff members attended the Secondhand Freespace Panel discussion in Chapel Hill on Oct. 1. The discussion centered on the local music industry. WKNC had the largest representation of any college media outlet.

WKNC was present at Shack-a-thon this year from Sept. 21-26. Unstable electricity and internet connections contributed to technical difficulties; nonetheless we were able to do live breaks from the Brickyard for the first portion of the week. However on Thursday torrential rains began, lasting through most of Friday as well, making us unable to utilize our equipment. We have yet to receive word of the total amount of money raised by WKNC or the event in general. Further weather proofing of our shack is a priority for future years.

WKNC hopes to add a staff member to the homecoming committee next year, ideally to foster better relations between homecoming events planners and WKNC promotions.

WKNC partnered with Captive Collective and Tir Na Nog to hold a voter registration rally as part of our joint Local Beer Local Band promotion.

We plan to have a presence at the Shakori Hills grassroots festival, going on from Oct. 9-12 near Pittsboro. WKNC staff members have been interviewing bands from the festival in advance and we plan to do staff call-ins and on-site recording at the festival.

Training — Of the initial 32 enrollees for our fall training class, 26 have completed the class and passed their written exams. Additionally, 15 have passed their boards tests and are now fully licensed to DJ at the station.

Awards —Caitlin Cauley, Steve McCreery and Tyler Dukes were nominated for CBI awards. We have begun giving out monthly staff awards for exemplary service to the station.

Double Barrel Benefit 6 —Planning is under way for Double Barrel Benefit 6. The planning committee met for the first time Oct. 7. On the planning agenda: securing a venue and contacting bands regarding availability. The target date for the benefit is Feb. 6-7, 2009.

Society for Collegiate Journalists

(submitted by Saja Hindi, president)

We are continuing to work on the projects we discussed at the last meeting, including the Gonzo film Showing and election-themed art show Oct. 22. We are partnering with the Union Activities Board to have the film shown and are paying for half the cost. We are also attempting to have a journalism professor come speak at the showing, introducing the film and the event’s intent. We several people who said they will be submitting art for the election-themed art show to us but have not yet done so. If all goes as planned though, it will be a really interesting art show. We’ve posted fliers around campus advertising both events and have posted applications for the art show as well.

BUSINESS OFFICE

(submitted by David Mason, manager)

Revenue —
So far this year, we are around our projections for Technician advertising
revenue. Unfortunately, the trend line is beginning to dip. WKNC
advertising sales are where they need to be for this time of year,
although we are looking to improve in that area to reach our
goal. Nubian Message sales continue to be disappointing and we look
forward to improving in that area as well. As a sales team, we are looking
to add new business, while maintaining the business relationships we have
with our current clients.

Personnel —
The business office continues to undergo major restructuring efforts. With
one veteran advertising representative leaving us, one office assistant
leaving for medical reasons, and with the hiring of five new advertising

representatives, plus one new office assistant, it has been difficult to
maintain a level of consistency in our office as of late. Things are
looking up though, as we look to set a foundation for the future and
create a clear, common vision.

Training —
Krystal Pittman, David Mason,
Phillip Smith and Amy Callahan are attending the fall 2008 SUN Conference in
Columbia, S.C. on Oct. 9 and 10. We look forward to sharing our
experiences with the rest of the sales staff at our early November
training session.

Deadlines —
With a new team of designers this semester, the road was bumpy at first,
but the design team has been getting layouts up in a timely manner and
making sure all ads are where they need to be.

Goals —
We look forward to stepping up our prospecting with our new “Prospect
Board” in the office, along with selling our special fall packages.

BUDGET UPDATE

• Technician advertising billed to date: $98,839
• Technician projections for collections: $92,908
• Technician budgeted income to date: $92,960
• Nubian Message local advertising sold to date: $0
• Agromeck local advertising sold to date: $0
• Agromeck book sales to date: 30
• WKNC local advertising sold to date: $10,119

CLICK HERE for PDF of monthly report