MINUTES

Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2009 • 7 p.m.
Brown room, Talley Student Center, fourth floor

CALL TO ORDER

Present: Al McArthur, Kelley Brackett, Lindsey Warhurst, Dean Phillips, John Clark, Louise Bannon, Denise Gonzales Crisp, Bryant Robbins, Demi Olubanwo, Ty Johnson, Helen Dear, Mike Alston, Laura Frey, Jim Ceresnak, Bradley Wilson, Jamie Lynn Gilbert, Krystal Pittman, Martha Collins, Fred Eaker, Kelli Rogers

Absent: Bob Ashley, Meagan Gay

NEW BUSINESSS

1. Election of Board officers
   • The Board elected Al McArthur as the chair
   • The Board elected Mike Alston as the vice chair
2. Update on fee increase proposal
   • Bradley gave the Board an e-mail from Associate Vice Chancellor Evelyn Reiman from Sept. 11 that said, “Due to the size of the student media fund balance and the University’s need to contain costs as much as possible, our request for a student media fee increase has been denied.”
   • Student Body President Jim Ceresnak said, “This is wrong.” He said the Fee Committee will pass along recommendations to the chancellor. “The process will move forward as in any other year.” Ceresnak said the fee for the renovation of Talley Student Center was going to be $83. He said the Student Media would have an opportunity to make its case regarding the fee as will the Union Activities Board. He said there would be a campus-wide referendum in October. If the Talley fee doesn’t pass, “The door’s wide open. It’s all dependent on the student center fee which amounts to 63 percent of the possible $102 of the 6.5 percent cap allowed on fees. He said the Atrium adjacent to D.H. Hill Library would also be renovated using the fee.
   • Bradley reminded the Board that professional staff, unless things change, could not be used for the process as, administratively, this fee has been denied.
   • Student Senate President Kelli Rogers said the next Fee Committee meeting was Monday at 10:30 a.m.
3. Update on recruitment and retention efforts
   • Jamie Lynn Gibert said New Student Orientation was successful. The biggest problem was lack of contact of recruits by the editors during post-orientation efforts. Editors only contacted 79 percent of all potential staff members. CALS students represented our largest set of recruits despite being under-represented on staff.
4. Review of Corrections Policy
   • The Technician Web site for corrections had not been updated since Aug. 20. Fred said it did not appear to be a technical problem.
   • Ty said earlier today he updated the site with all corrections from Aug. 20 – Sept. 15. He said that putting up corrections was “one last thing on the staff’s mind.” Last year he noted that the editor delegated the responsibility to the Viewpoint editor. He said the updates would become part of the nightly routine, not just an afterthought.
   • Gilbert asked if there was a corrections page for the Nubian Message. Demi said no. He also said he was meeting with Fred regarding the Nubian Message Web site Sept. 16 and could add a page for corrections.
5. Review of policy regarding non-local content in the Technician
   • The Board reviewed the policy regarding non-local content. Bradley said violations of this policy had been a problem this summer but seemed to decrease this fall. In past focus groups and campus surveys students reported that they did not turn to the Technician for world and nation news. Given the opportunity for “more,” they always want more. But when asked whether they’d have the Technician report on more campus news or have world/nation news that they say they get online or from television, they said they’d rather have more campus news. The advisory board will re-visit this at the October meeting.
6. Problems with Technician story on Mary Beth Kurz
   • Ty published a story on the Technician Web site Aug. 28, “Legal Services Vice Chancellor Asked to Resign.” In an e-mail regarding the story to the Board on Sept. 1, he said, “I received a tip from a reliable source that Vice Chancellor for Legal Affairs MaryBeth Kurz, who is retiring, was pressured into leaving the University for reasons involving the Mary Easley controversy.”
   • Ty said that Aug. 28 he did not make any effort to contact Kurz, senior counsel David Drooz, who became the acting vice chancellor, the chancellor, who is the only person who could fire Kurz or accept her resignation. Ty said he did call Keith Nichols, the University spokesperson, but did not get an answer around 11 p.m. Sunday after the story had been up for 48 hours.
   • Ty said in his e-mail, “Saturday came and went and no other outlets reported anything similar to what I heard.” Two other news outlets picked it up from the Technician Web site (which had 266 hits by Monday morning), an ABC affiliate and an NBC affiliate, attributing the Technician as the source. They eventually also took their stories down.
   • Ty took the story down Sunday night after he received a 5:10 p.m. e-mail and phone call from Keith Nichols saying, “the story was false.” The podcast also containing the unsubstantiated story was produced but not posted online and never aired on WKNC.
   • Ty said he has, as of the Board meeting, not been able to contact, Kurz, has revisited the issue with Keith Nichols, met with the chancellor today and has received one e-mail from Drooz regarding the issue.
   • John Clark said, “This is bad. This is really bad. How did this happen? Ty said obviously this was a mistake. I’m aware it’s a big mistake. It goes to our credibility and our integrity. Ty said no one was consulted in the publication of the story.
   • Dean Phillips asked Ty, “What do you believe is the truth? Do you believe your source?” Ty said he did. Ty said he visited with the chancellor today who said that Kurz resigned because of exhaustion related to the Easley case.
   • Dean Phillips asked Ty what he would do differently next time. Ty said he would sit on the tip a little bit longer. Phillips said the competition might get the story.
   • John Clark said this is definitely a teachable moment for all students involved. The staff needs to know what’s going on and what happened. All this is happening in the middle of this kind of sensitive issue.
   • Denise Gonzales Crisp said she certainly understands the desire to get stuff out there but that during such times it is the “time to be more careful.”
   • Dean Phillips said all this was happening at a time when the University had not been acting ethically. It all fits the narrative taking place on campus. How do we learn from this?
   • Mike Alston asked, “If it all happened again, how long do you wait? What do you do?
   • Louise Bannon said “It’s definitely a teachable moment.” She added that people are fired for this. I would let someone go for this. It’s back to credibility, something that has to be capitalized on.
   • Ty said he acknowledged that our credibility is still hurt. “I remind writers about the use of sources all the time.” He also acknowledged that there was no check on the publication of this story. No section editors read it, no copy editors checked it and the managing editor did not read it before publication. He said we would be implementing a “draft” system so that only a few top editors could publish stuff live on the Web without someone else approving it.
   • Mike Alston asked that the perception of the rest of the staff was. Ty said he didn’t think the rest of the staff has heard about it. The editorial leadership was told about it. Louise asked if they would be told. Phillips said they need to be told. John Clark said, “Absolutely.”
   • John Clark asked, “If this was one of your writers, what would you do?” Ty said they’d be fired. Bradley noted that earlier in the day he’d met with Demi who said the same thing.
   • Mike Alston asked Ty, “Should you have known not to do that? Did you have preparation and training?” Ty said, “No.” I knew policy. I knew ethics. The only way I could be prepared for this is to make a mistake.”
   • Bryant asked if the staff planned a follow-up story. Ty said a story was in the works.
   • John Clark said it’s important always to ask, “Who is your source? How do they know? What is their motivation?”
   • Laura Frey made a two-part motion:
     1. Ty formally apologize to Chancellor Jim Woodward in writing and in person as well as to David Drooz and MaryBeth Kurz and Keith Nichols before the next Board meeting.
     2. That Ty develop a training for the entire staff that includes all the steps that should have been taken. This training will be completed before the next Board meeting.
   • Bradley said he would work with Ty to develop the training including proper assessment materials.
   • The Board approved this motion with one dissention by Al McArthur.
   • John Clark said the staff needed to keep pushing to get this kind of story but get it “fast and right.”
7. Evaluation system for student leaders
   • Last spring, the Board asked that an evaluation system be developed for senior staff members. A draft of a system will be given to the Board during the advisory board committee meetings in October. During that time, three groups, the Technician/Nubian Message advisory board, the Agromeck/Windhover advisory board and the WKNC/Wolf TV advisory board will meet to discuss the best method of evaluation and current progress for each media outlet.

REPORTS

• Agromeck
  • Bryant said the staff was working to meet deadline Friday. They have Parents & Families Weekend coming up as an opportunity to sell books, publicize the book and get seniors to sign up for free books.
  • The staff would be mailing out You’re in the Book postcards Monday, Sept. 21 with all people in the book through this deadline.
  • The Career Center Job & Internship Guide produced by the yearbook staff was successful this year, if not monetarily, in terms of producing a quality product and building a positive, working relationship with the Career Center.
• Nubian Message
  • Demi said he would be meeting with Fred Sept. 16 to get the Web site updated. It has not been updated since May 1. He would also add a corrections page.
• Technician
  • Ty said the staff had been experimenting with a Twitter for football including a live blog for sporting events. They have 20 or so followers. He said they hadn’t been able to publicize it yet.
  • Mike asked Ty when Ty planned to fill all the vacant positions on staff. Ty said he posted the open positions with a Sept. 18 deadline. He said he would review the resumes and cover letters with Bradley the following week.
  • Mike asked what the general feel was about recruitment on staff. “We (WKNC) have too many people. How can you get people in the door?” Gilbert said, “By being awesome. Make sure there’s personal contact.” Bryant said he sent a personal e-mail to all prospects. Ty said he sent a form e-mail to all prospects and another e-mail to people who replied. Mike said there are apparently still a lot of people that haven’t heard from Ty.
  • Louise said each person on the staff is an ambassador for the program.
• Windhover
  • Helen said she has interviews with seven designers and others this week to finalize staff. She plans to visit Thompson Hall and the Crafts Center to look for a place for a reception.
• WKNC 88.1fm
  • Mike said he, Gilbert and Wilson met with Michael Giancola, director of the Center of Student Leadership, Ethics and Public Service, Terri White, associate general counsel, and Lisa Zapata, associate vice chancellor for Student Affairs, regarding the use by WKNC of an outside attorney in FCC-related matters. White said that we’d need to draft a letter for approval by the North Carolina attorney general’s office to use outside legal advice but since the University has no one with such expertise on staff, this was probably necessary.
  • Mike reported on the WKNC local music CD with cover art by Ryan Cummings. A local record label paid for the initial mastering of 1,000 copies that included 17 songs by local bands who performed in exchange for the opportunity to record. They’re almost sold out of the records and several venues with concerts related to the CD have also sold out. Proceeds go to visit the Visual Arts Exchange.
• Society for Collegiate Journalists
  • Susannah Brinkley is president. SCJ members will be painting the tunnel at 10 p.m. Sept. 16 in recognition of Constitution Day which is Thursday.
• Business office update
  • Bradley reported that some of the concern over the fund balance (reserve) that Student Media has come from our “excess.” We maintain 25 percent of our operational expenses or about $227,000 this year in emergency reserve for a crisis (economic or other). We also maintain about $150,000 in reserve to be used for technology upgrades. As we spend that money, we put monies back in to that reserve. So, we maintain about $377,000 in reserve. We have, in excess of that, abut $96,000. Due to increases in administrative costs, etc. we will be forced to either cut services or use up that reserve over the next several years. We cannot use reserve monies for operational costs.
• Technology update

EXECUTIVE SESSION

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

ADJOURN

REPORTS

Agromeck

Submitted by Bryant Robbins, editor

Revenue: As of Sept. 3 we have not sold any books.

Personnel: We had four members from last year’s staff return this year. Michele Chandler returned from photo editor and is now the managing editor, we also had two designers and one writer return to staff.

During the summer orientation sessions, Cates crawl, and open house we made contact with 56 students, of those 56 we had six of them join staff, three as writers and three as designers.

At the end of the spring semester Bradley and I sat down and came up with the structure for this years editorial staff. Last May we hired Michele and managing editor, Susannah Brinkley was hired as design editor, and Peggy Boone was hired as photo editor. We also budgeted to have a copy editor who would have the sole job of copy editing all the material on every page before deadline. There were two people who have expressed interest in the position but we have not decided who will fill it.

During our summer conference in New Orleans we came up with the idea of hiring a person who would be unpaid and would be in charge of marketing this year to remove some of the work load of marketing the book off the editors. This person would be considered an intern for the Agromeck and is required to have a minimum of six office hours a week. The position was posted on walls around Witherspoon, on E-Pack, and emailed to Sara Concini in CHASS and to Brendalee McCarthy in the College of Management. Ronilyn Osborne, who also works in the business office was hired as the intern.

Training: On Aug. 30 we held a training for all of our staff. There were seven of the staff members in attendance. The training ran from 2 p.m. until about 5 p.m. We did exercises as an entire staff and also broke up into writers and designers and did hands on activities that would benefit their role as a staff member. John Elias, last year’s editor, came to the training and help with the writers in their break-out session.

Susannah has collaborated with the Technician design editor and they are planning another training later this month.

This summer Michele Chandler and I went to the annual yearbook workshop in New Orleans put on by College Media Consultants. I took part in a mini-course called training your staff, where we got some of the ideas for the training held on Aug. 30. The main course I took was titled Good ideas to make a great book, which was a very helpful class in coming up with ways of finding coverage and ideas of the types of things covered in a good book. Michele took the Getting into Adobe InDesign and the Photography courses.

At the workshop we came up with a micro deadline plan which would help us get pages done on a weekly basis. We also worked on adding to our marketing plan and incorporating online tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and our new Web site as key features in our marketing campaign. We discussed the way we determined how to go about giving out the free book to seniors this year and came up with two ideas. The first would give seniors a free book if they have their senior portrait taken. The second way we came up with is to give seniors a book if they participate in Parents and Families weekend and stop by the Agromeck table at the Parents and Families event.

Coverage: We are working hard this year to come up with more ways to find coverage of events to differentiate this years book from previous years. We have put time into coming up with story ideas that have not been covered before.

Deadlines: We met our first deadline of 84 pages on Aug. 13. That deadline consisted of all the spring and summer pages up to the first week of school. We are in progress towards our next deadline on Sept. 18 of 32 pages. The staff has been working hard on completing pages and we will not have any problem meeting this deadline. In our first deadline we counted 467 sources in our index which is about 5.56 sources per pages

Deadline	Date	Pages due	Pages sent	% submitted	# sources	Avg sources/page
1	Aug. 17	84	84	100	467	5.56
2	Sept. 18	32
3	Oct. 16	32
4	Nov. 20	40
5	Dec. 11	16
6	Feb. 19	44
7	March 12	10
8	March 26	30
	April 21	DELIVERY

Technician

Submitted by Ty Johnson, editor

Budget: It’s been a difficult process to get a finalized budget with the revisions that have come down from the state government. Bradley has worked hard to make sure that we’re staying up-to-date with our budget to make sure it is as efficient as possible. I have not been given a final version of the budget, but have spoken to Bradley when issues have come up and he’s consulted it to answer questions.

Personnel: The beginning of the year brought a lot of new faces to the team and several of them have quickly begun to contribute regularly. The editors and deputy editors hired over the summer have gotten situated and now instead of worrying about day-to-day production are able to plan further ahead. Content has been better as a result of the planning, as well as more accurate reporting.

Training: The implementation of a new mentor program should begin to pay dividends this semester as we have assigned all new staff members to veteran staff members in other sections to be mentors to the new additions. Hopefully this will allow new employees an opportunity to discuss matters about work without necessarily coming to their section editor. Photo has also taken its new photographers very seriously and scheduled intensive trainings to get them situated with equipment and to learn the basics of photojournalism. WolfTV also had a two-hour training session with its new members.

Technology: The editors have finally gotten the hang of College Publisher, and we’re in the process of finalizing ideas for online editors. There are at least two applicants for the job and we’re working to find a way to utilize them in an effort to diversify content and make technicianonline.com a tool instead of a chore.

Coverage: In news, the development of informal beats has led to a varied amount of content during the first weeks of the semester. We’ve focused on areas where a lot of times coverage has been lacking in the past like Greek Life and Transportation and as reporters have gotten more involved with the beats, the content has improved. Sports has had issues with covering all of the events going on, so the sports editor has delegated the bulk of football coverage to a deputy to free her up to focus more on long-term goals. Features has had a good variety of content, largely due to the new deputy editors handling each section. The deputies are excited and are really taking ownership of their sub-sections and it has really shown in their content.

Deadlines: Making deadline has been difficult for the staff, especially without a news editor and since preparing news has fallen to me, I’m usually unable to help out other sections when things get dicey. I’m training a deputy to take news off of my hands some nights of the week, which would solve the problem if it was only with news. All of the sections have struggled to make deadline at different points, so Bradley, Ana and I created a production schedule that is more realistic for our staff and also reflects how the typical production day goes. It is posted around the office and spells out specific deadlines for sections. This process is something we picked up at the Herald-Sun, where we found they have a schedule to consult that lets them know when things aren’t looking good.

Ethics/Legal issues: The biggest issue we’ve had came with a story published online that had unsubstantiated sources in it. Bradley and I discussed the matter and decided it was a violation of not only our Code of Ethics, but also of the checks and balances in place for the story to be published. We determined the story was a case where I ran with a tip before it had been substantiated, and we are still investigating the story.

Also there has been some issue with publishing corrections online. Between technical issues and not being prompt, we have found ourselves behind in online corrections, but College Media has told us the updates they’ve performed are now complete so there shouldn’t be too many more issues with it.

Management Seminar for College News Editors
The University of Georgia • Athens, Ga.
 July 26-31, 2009

When I arrived in Athens, I was sure I wouldn’t learn much from my peers. As news editors from across the country, they were likely experiencing the same issues I had during the summer with retention, recruitment, ethics, coverage issues and online transitions, so to expect them to teach me seemed much like a blind-leading-the blind idea.

But on my return flight to Raleigh, I realized while the problems I had were strikingly similar to those my new friends from other parts of the nation, the way they approached the issues, even when failing, gave me perspective on how to decide what the best course of action was for Technician.

Online: My staff has been struggling to understand College Publisher’s limitations since before I began my editorial work last year, but it was apparent that my peers at other campus newspapers were experiencing the exact same issues.

While a transition to a new content management system had been a hot topic among my staff, I saw through other Web sites during our editor presentations that there are a variety of ways to make CP more user friendly changing our CMS wasn’t the only way to get content to readers better.

Many of the Web sites used polls and interactive slide shows similar to Technician, but every Web site had its own special gimmick that set it apart from the rest. Though CP5 limits aspects of Web page design, I saw visually appealing sites that were very inviting and others that were very boring. Seeing the spectrum of success and failure of home pages showed me that while CP was the backbone for all of the Web sites, much could be altered to make it more specific to each paper’s needs.

Some sites had applications online for students interested in joining the staff. I’ve spoken with Fred about doing something similar to make it easier for those interested in joining Technician to find information. An online application may not be the answer, but certainly having more information online couldn’t be bad.

Having more pages and better organization of content was something else I noticed about other sites, as Technician is very basic in its navigation. Taking better care of our content (removing older stories and creating online packages) was something our site was lacking in comparison to others. Other sites also made great use of social networking tools and had Twitter and Facebook links on their homepage to encourage readers to find different avenues to connect with their news.

Social networking was also a huge deal with our speakers, as seminars led by CNN reporters, Atlanta-Journal Constitution editors and others all found a way to mention their experiments with Twitter. Their frequent mention of Twitter brought about my newest idea for sports coverage, where Twitter can be used as a live blog that Wolpack fans can follow. Beyond just scoring plays, stats and trends can be pointed out as fans follow and Tweet @ncsutechnician.

This would also allow followers to tweet questions and ideas for coverage at our reporters directly, giving us a direct hint as to what our readers would like to see.
Certain questions would be posed to the appropriate people, and the answers would be presented in our print edition as a special alt-copy feature. This would allow fans to become reporters and get their questions answered in similar fashion to Star-News’ MyReporter.com.

This would also be utilized for other special events, like Board of Trustees and Board of Governors meetings, as well as in advance of big interviews with campus authorities.

Print: The focus of the conference still placed a lot of emphasis on print-journalism, but mostly on presenting information in unorthodox ways. There were many seminars on alternative format stories to allow readers to get information without investing so much time into reading a long story.

We were given many examples of ways to illustrate stories, including a list of stories that typically begged for visualizations.

I have a .PDF presentation that details how to form alt-copy, and I will be sharing this during one of our first trainings to help editors and reporters find new ways to present information.

Networking: One of the more surprising things I took from this conference was a network of peers to bounce ideas off of. With new technology that we are all utilizing, I’ve been in close contact with about 20 different editors from across the nation SINCE the conference more than two weeks ago.

As the beginning of the semester approaches for us all, we have been sharing in struggles, solutions and anecdotes as our staffs return and we prepare for the long production season. More specifically, I’ve been in contact with editors from around North Carolina and made plans to meet and discuss issues together. The editors from UNC-W, East Carolina, Appalachian State and even UNC-CH have discussed visiting each other at our respective campuses to see how different papers across the state work and to learn from one another.

Conclusion: I did not learn what I thought I would learn from the conference, but only because I went into it with very low expectations. The lessons in coverage, ethics and reaching readers were far more advanced than I had imagined. Also the opportunity to speak directly with editors from major newspapers and news networks has given me a greater appreciation for journalism, and gave me great contacts as I pursue a career in journalism beyond my college years.

Nubian Message

Submitted by Demi Olubanwo, editor

Revenue: Krystal sent me an e-mail with an ad for the Parents and Families Association Family of the Year Essay Contest which ran in the Sept. 2 issue. I am drawing up letters to send to businesses soliciting ads for the Nubian Message. Such businesses include the housing facilities and restaurants around campus. Krystal also presented the idea of having student organizations hand out the Nubian in exchange for ads. It isn’t going to bring in revenue but will increase the readership of the Nubian. I have spoken with several organizations who are interested in the idea.

Personnel: As of now, I have 17 members who said they would be returning to work with the Nubian Message from last year. Of the 17, I have 13 who have been active with the first two issues. I have seven new staff members from our recruitment efforts and I will be making sure that their hiring paperwork is filled out at our meeting on Friday.

Technology: The only issue that we have with technology is that the Web site has not been updated since the last issue published last semester (since May 1). This is because the webmaster from last year just recently let me know that she would not be returning. I was supposed to meet with Fred last Friday to learn how to update the Web site so I can teach a new webmaster, but I was down with the flu and wasn’t able to make the meeting. I will be sure to schedule the a meeting before the next issue and make sure that the Web site is up and running.

Coverage: Every week, I send out an e-mail to the staff letting them know what is going on on campus and the various events issues that we need to cover. I have tried to keep the coverage broad and include as diverse events as possible

Deadlines: With the first issue, I had a major problem with the writers turning in their articles on time. All the writers were late turning in their articles and because of this, I had to do the copyediting myself because I didn’t have the time frame to send the articles to the copy editors. After the first issue was published, I sent an e-mail out to the staff expressing how unacceptable it was not turning in articles on time and I expressly told them that I was willing to let them go if they didn’t stick to the deadlines. The e-mail seemed to work because with the second issue, I got almost all of the content in on time. To avoid the stress of finding articles at the last minute, I Dick Reavis suggested I have “Icebox Articles” — timeless articles which could be run at any point in time. So far I have three articles in my icebox.

Windhover

Submitted by Helen Dear, editor

Windhover’s most recent activity has been focused on three things: developing the Web site, recruitment, and preliminary planning for the book.

I have been working with Fred Eaker since mid-July to get the Windhover Web site (www.ncsu.edu/windhover) up and running. The Web site displays photos of past books, receptions, and Open Mic Nights. It also houses information about Windhover’s purpose and presence on campus, as well as how to submit (literary, visual, or audio) to Windhover. The goal is to direct our audience to the website, have them submit work digitally, then post the submissions on the site. This way, Windhover would reach a greater audience and more work could be shown than in just one 96-page publication. Originally, we had a “click to submit” button that would take the user directly to a WordPress site where they could upload their work. However, technical difficulties and spam prevented us from keeping this button. For now, the way to submit to Windhover shown on the Web site is to e-mail editor@windhover.ncsu.edu. We have already received several literary submissions this way, which will be posted on the Web site by the end of next week.

Incoming students showed interested in Windhover at New Student Orientation this summer and at the Student Media Open House on Aug. 17. About 15 students indicated that they would like to be on a Windhover Review Committee (to review literary, visual or audio submissions). These review committees will meet later in the semester to review submissions. Another review committee, composed of experts in their respective fields (faculty, graduate, and undergraduate levels), will also meet to review submissions.

Next week I will be meeting with prospective junior and senior designers. The final Windhover team will be as follows:

1 Editor: Helen Dear
1 Literary and Audio Editor: Joe Wright
1 Senior Designer: TBA, a senior in graphic design
2 Junior Designers: TBA, two juniors in graphic design
2 Literary review committees (committee A: any students; committee B: expert students & faculty)
2 Visual review committees (committee A: any students; committee B: expert students & faculty)
2 Audio review committees (committee A: any students; committee B: expert students & faculty)

Windhover’s calendar is tentatively planned out for the 2009-2010 year, with all necessary deadlines observed. My goals for the next month are to finalize my staff and publicize the Web site/submission format more (by designing postcards to be scattered around campus hotspots).

WKNC

Submitted by Mike Alston, general manager

Overall, it has been a very productive summer for WKNC.

Revenue: Non-fee income as of Sept. 1: $5,211.05

• Tir Na Nog — $2,650
• Regular donor announcements — $1,435.10
• Promotions — $400
• Recording Fees — $30.00
• Live Nation — $400.00
• Sports — $295.95 (carry-over from FY0809)

Sponsorship sales: $1,367.50

• July — $517.50
• August — $850.00

Sponsorship sales for July and August represent about 8 percent of the total income we expect for the fiscal year. We expect to make up the difference in September and October, which are typically big months for sponsorship sales.

Upon the Independent Weekly’s release of “Best of the Triangle” reader poll winners, WKNC management and the business office compiled a list of winners and finalists. Jamie and I drafted a letter reaching out to these businesses for sponsorship opportunities. So far we have received some feedback and have secured sponsorship from one business (The Borough). Frequent contact between WKNC management and the business office will help to ensure the success of this campaign.

Expenditures: We have made no expenditures out of the ordinary since the last board meeting.

Personnel

• Caitlin Cauley was hired as personnel director.
• The position of promotions assistant received overwhelming interest (7 applicants) and was thus expanded, creating a new promotions hierarchy. The promotions director (Kieran Moreira) delegates some tasks to the primary promotions assistant (Melissa Poston), whose duties total 5 hours per week. She now coordinates additional promotional efforts with the deputy promotions assistant for on-campus affairs (Audrey Bradyhouse) and the deputy promotions assistant for off-campus affairs (Garrett Warren). The deputy promotions assistants are required to commit 2.5 hours per week but are in essence a brain trust for exposing WKNC to new, more varied audiences. The new-look promotions team had their first meeting Sept. 7 and looks to have a very productive year.
• The positions of audio resources manager, creative services manager, and chainsaw music director have been opened up and will be filled soon.
• There are an ungodly number of people on staff (about 100 active members and another 20 inactive members doing study abroad, co-op, or just not on air this semester).

Training

• We offered our usual summer training class, which was filled. Fifteen completed the class and 12 are currently active staff members, with an on-air shift or other regular responsibility.
• Yes, the training was effective – one of the class members is audio resources manager and, as stated prior, many are active staff members.
• Jamie, Tommy Anderson, and myself (with guest appearances from our daytime and afterhours music directors and our creative services manager) conducted the class. Several DJs contributed to the in-studio portion of the training.
• The fall training class is underway and should be completed before fall break.

Technology: Recently our AVAIR machine fried; our AV server is not working; there have been hiccups along the summer with the AVAIR machine & system. It is certainly time to upgrade both software and hardware. We are moving forward in that direction.

Coverage

• “The China Hour” and “The Rockabilly Hour” are two new shows that have been added to our programming. “The Rockabilly Hour” is a music show and “The China Hour” is music and talk.
• “Eye on the Triangle” is a public affairs talk show that has been added to programming and is being headed up by public affairs director Saja Hindi. Thus far, guests to the show have included Chancellor Woodward; Provost Arden; Sarah Schroth, the senior curator at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University; Student Body President Jim Ceresnak; Durham Mayor Bill Bell; and others. Audio from past shows is available on the WKNC blog.
• “The Chopping Block” is a hip-hop talk show that has been added to programming.
• We plan to be at Habitat for Humanity’s shack-a-thon again this year.
• On Sept. 25, Oct. 30 and Nov. 20, WKNC, in partnership with the Union Activities Board, Student Government and the Inter-Residence Council, will be hosting on-campus concerts on Harris Field, as part of a series called “Fridays on the Lawn.” This is costing WKNC no money.

Other items

• WKNC was named a finalist for Best Radio Station in the Triangle in Independent Weekly’s annual poll. DJ Kelly Reid was a finalist for Best DJ.
• “88.1 Seconds of Technician” from April 27 was named a finalist for Best Newscast from the College Broadcasters, Inc. The newscast was voiced and produced by Saja Hindi and Derek Medlin.
• Robert Earle earned third place for Commercial, Promotion and Public Announcement from the Society for Collegiate Journalists for his “Industrial Revolution” show promo. “88.1 Seconds of Technician” swept the Broadcast News category, earning first, second and third place for M. Tyler Dukes, Kyle Robb and Laura White respectively.
• Jamie filed our biennial ownership report before its Aug. 1 deadline. The FCC-required report includes details on the station owners, which is considered to be the Board of Trustees.
• As with the “Fridays on the Lawn” series, WKNC found another creative way to promote local music. Early this summer we partnered with Terpsikhore Records and Flying Tiger Sound Studios, both Raleigh-based organizations, to put together a local music compilation. Flying Tiger recorded 17 bands for free over a two-month period, and Terpsikhore paid for the album to get mastered and to get 1,000 copies pressed. WKNC served as primary media sponsor of the compilation, which drew good publicity from area blogs, Independent Weekly, Technician, Duke’s The Chronicle and Daily Tar Heel, among other local media outlets. The release show for the album was on 8/29/09 at the Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro, and we sold out the 675-person venue. WKNC is hosting a follow-up show at the Pour House Music Hall in Raleigh on Oct. 3. Proceeds from the effort, above what was required for Terpsikhore to break even, are going to the Visual Art Exchange in Raleigh. This is costing WKNC no money.

Society for Collegiate Journalists

• SCJ held its first meeting Aug. 18 to discuss plans for the fall semester. New member recruitment is a priority and an information session for all of Student Media was held Aug. 26.
• Applications were received Sept. 4 from Tim O’Brien and Brent Kitchen, both Student Media photographers. Interviews for the new applicants will be held Sept. 11 at 4:15 p.m. in the Student Media conference area. Inductions are scheduled for Sept. 25.
  Dreier Carr recently stepped down as vice president and elections to fill the vacancy also will be held Sept. 11. Nominees are May Chung, Luis Zapata and Megan Myers.
• Other fall events planned include painting the preamble of the Constitution at the entrance to the Free Expression to celebrate Constitution Day Sept. 17 and setting up free expression boards on the Brickyard during National Freedom of Speech Week Oct. 19 – 25.

Business office

Submitted by Laura Frey

Week	Prospects	Meetings	Contacts	Sales
1	3	2	21	$7,295.70
2	4	1	19	$6,985.55
3	3	2	27	$13,501.24

Introduction: Since May the business office has been adjusting to the split of business office manager into two positions. As the summer ended tasks were divided appropriately, between myself and Charlie Weinfeld, to make sure that the business office would run smoothly for the upcoming academic year. We have felt the stress of the recession in our office with the decline in sales but are doing our best to push our sales staff to reach out to as many local clients since that is the market we are most able to control.

Training: The first weekend after school started (Aug. 22-23) we held a two-day training session for our sales staff. All of the representatives were in attendance and were informed about our new rate cards and some additional updates throughout the office. We were lucky that Phillip Zachary, former member of the board of directors, was able to take some time to explain some good sales tips as well as share with us the Marketing Bridge Analysis. The staff really enjoyed his presentation because he made it very easy for us to follow along as well as relevant to Student Media. He provided us with a book that he uses with his staff, which was also educational. Ty Johnson, Bryant Robbins, and Mike Alston also came to speak to the staff to introduce themselves and share some goals they had for the business office.

Mark McLawhorn, former Technician editor, led our design team training Aug. 26. He showed them some new techniques and gave them a booklet of different advertisement designs for them to review. Their training was beneficial because it really made the staff start to think outside of the box for designing which will hopefully lead to creative new ad designs. Our business office assistants were all also refreshed on how to handle clients over the phone and were informed of their daily duties.

Sales: Our sales so far are not nearly as high as they were last year at this time. The main decrease in sales has come from our on-campus and national advertisers. Although these cuts were anticipated, it was hard to tell how much we would really be impacted. It has shown that in the first three weeks of classes we are behind by $10,901.51 in national sales and $13,384.79 in on-campus sales compared to last year. On a positive note, we have nearly doubled our local sales from last years $6,930.54 to this years $12,076.17. This is a good sign because the only market that we seem to have some sort of control over is the local clientele. We are able to send our sales representatives out into their territories and approach potential new clients as well as bring in sales from our former clients.

We have created a list of all of the Independent Weekly nominees and sent out a congratulatory letter to them that also suggests that they would be great to advertise with Student Media. The sales staff is following up with the clients within their territory to move forward and increase sales from this list. Although sales haven’t been as high as we all would like, we have a 100% collection rate since the beginning of summer. We do have a young staff in the Business Office so as long as we keep them motivated and encourage them we will continue to improve our local sales.

Budget update

As of Sept. 11, 2009

• Technician advertising billed: $55,216.45
• Technician projections for collections: $51,351.30
• Technician budgeted income to date: $53,276.05
• Technician actual expenditures to date: $17.128
• Nubian Message local advertising sold to date: $120
• Agromeck local advertising sold to date: $0
• Agromeck total advertising sold to date: $0
• Agromeck book sales to date: 0
• WKNC non-fee income to date: $6,415

CLICK HERE for PDF of 2009-2010 budget

Technology

Submitted by Fred Eaker

Technician:

• On Sept. 1, a total of 6,755 visits due to the article, “Disliked design scrapped—Fowler, Lowe decide to ditch unpopular jersey design” by Kate Shefte. The article accounts for 12 percent of total page views (11,612) from August to present.
• Twitter followers: 183 (primary), 27 (sports)
• Facebook Page fans: 197
• RSS subscribers: 64 (30-day average)
• E-mail edition: delivered 60 percent of the time to 1,636 subscribers
• 88.1 Seconds of Technician: produced 60 percent of the time with an average of five subscribers

WKNC:

• Hear Here content generated 2,111 page views (7.74 percent) for the blog.Twitter and Facebook remain among the top referrers to wknc.org, generating more than 5 percent of visits.
• Twitter followers: 823
• Facebook Page fans: 964
• RSS subscribers: 83 (30-day average)

Agromeck:

• Agromeck’s Web site was migrated to WordPress by Tim O’Brien. “You’re in the Book” consistently generates 12 percent of pageviews.
• Twitter followers: 32

Windhover

• Web site was migrated to WordPress. Due to Web security, space and staffing issues, submissions will continue to be accepted through email while the editor, Helen Dear, will upload them to the Web site.

Nubian Message:

• Web site was migrated to WordPress. No training has occurred and no new content has been posted since May 1.

CLICK HERE for an updated technology plan that reflects maintenance purchases to be made for WKNC, along with an initial projection of computer hardware purchases into 2011.