JFresh App- Meg Omecene

The JFreshman Newsroom should be an interactive, real-time, unbiased news program. 

My local news station simply has an anchor reading the headlines, the meteorologist read the weather, and the sports broadcaster read the scores, an anchor read the traffic, and then a broadcaster reads a fluff piece. 

That one-sided lecture is what needs to change about news. Our JFreshman Newsroom should be a live broadcast linked to the Ohio website. People can tweet in questions for guests with a specific hashtag. For example, if the anchor is interviewing a football player, someone could tweet in his or her questions via #JFreshfootball. By making news interactive, students will be more apt to watch the program since the viewer feels that he or she has control over what is being conveyed.
Similarly, through the use of the twitter feed, it is easier to establish which stories viewers care about most. That way, if, for example, the sports stories are not receiving much feedback, they can be eliminated for a news segment. 
After the broadcast is completed, stories will be archived with a comments section in which viewers can leave feedback.

Through social media outlets such as Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare, it is easy to track the subjects which Ohio University students find most relevant. Therefore, the six most-posted about subjects from around the Athens area will each get its own four and a half minute segments, giving ample time for the story to be developed. Currently, the quick mentions and headlines that many stories are given create misconceptions. My generation likes to be informed, and informed quickly. We will not waste time with just headlines; we want to be able to know enough about a subject to form an opinion about something and speak intelligently about it. In a forty-word summary of the story, the ability to think critically about current events is lost.
A challenge that must be overcome in the JFreshman Newsroom is media bias. Something that irks my peers and me is when we can spot bias in our news outlets. Therefore, if a political story is being covered, the segment should allow for two political bases to work together to create a broadcast without bias. 

I was deeply involved in journalism in high school. I was on the staff of my school’s newspaper for two years and was the editor for two years. As editor, I became skilled at using Microsoft Publisher for the layout of the paper. As a senior, I worked at Pittsburgh’s NPR station, WYEP/ Essential Public Radio. There, I became skilled at interviewing in real-world situations. After gathering audio clips, I formatted stories using Adobe Audition. I am also skilled in Photoshop and have had some experience using Final Cut. 

Thank you very much for your time and consideration with my application.