{"id":17937,"date":"2009-09-02T14:15:46","date_gmt":"2009-09-02T21:15:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stage.headlessnauedu-b6hgdzckfdgxgzhe.westus-01.azurewebsites.net\/?p=17937"},"modified":"2015-08-17T14:56:12","modified_gmt":"2015-08-17T21:56:12","slug":"student-produced-news-fills-big-gap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/student-produced-news-fills-big-gap\/","title":{"rendered":"Student-produced news fills big gap"},"content":{"rendered":"

A news station is brewing in Flagstaff, and if the dedication and passion of its student crew is any indication, it may grow to fill the hole that Channel 2 left behind when its doors closed over a year ago.<\/p>\n

Formerly\u00a0NAU Live!,<\/em>\u00a0a campus news station,\u00a0NAZ Today<\/em>\u00a0debuted in September 2008 with the intent of covering the local news of northern Arizona, not just campus news.<\/p>\n

With two semesters of four shows a week under his belt at\u00a0NAZ Today<\/em>,\u00a0Patrick Walker<\/strong>, an electronic media and film major in the School of Communication, is feeling upbeat about the show’s progress.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe broke new ground from being just campus news to having the community begin to recognize us for local stories like our Taylor Fire coverage,\u201d Walker said \u201cOriginally, we thought it would be just a little local news and the rest would be feed from the wire, but we have almost eliminated the feed completely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recently, Walker had the opportunity to cover the First Family\u2019s visit to the Grand Canyon and to experience firsthand what it was like to be one of the first reporters covering a national story.<\/p>\n

Walker, accompanied by\u00a0Brandon Neuman<\/strong>, lecturer for the School of Communication and adviser to\u00a0NAZ Today<\/em>, arrived at the Tusayan airport around 7 a.m. Aug. 16. At 7:30 a.m., they were loaded onto a bus and taken the short distance out to the tarmac. There they waited.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was unbelievable to be 150 feet from Air Force One. You see the pictures and it doesn\u2019t do it any justice. It\u2019s so powerful, it\u2019s a symbol. It\u2019s just incredible, no matter what your politics are,\u201d Walker said.<\/p>\n

But it was a lot of work too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n\n

\"NAZ<\/a>
Brandon Neuman and Patrick Walker inside the office of NAZ Today<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

\u201cI shot all of the\u00a0video footage<\/a>\u00a0while Brandon shot the stills. I was editing in the Tusayan airport and uploading it to our server. We were the first ones in the country to put the shots up, besides the\u00a0Republic,<\/em>\u00a0and we were within seconds of them,\u201d Walker said.<\/p>\n

Walker and Neuman stayed to get footage of the president\u2019s plane taking off around 1 p.m., and Walker continued to edit his video footage on a laptop in the car on the ride home.<\/p>\n

In addition to Neuman,\u00a0NAZ Today<\/em>\u00a0students receive guidance from instructor\u00a0Charlie Hicks<\/strong>, former Channel 2 broadcaster\u00a0Jan Pitre<\/strong>\u00a0Dixon<\/strong>\u00a0and meteorologist\u00a0Lee Born<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone who advises us here at NAU has \u2018been there and done it.\u2019\u201d Walker noted. \u201cWe learn how it\u2019s not all theory\u2014it\u2019s all relevant. There is no better environment than this to learn in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walker wears many hats at\u00a0NAZ Today<\/em>\u00a0including that of news director for
\n30-40 students. One of his goals is to keep raising the bar on the quality of the news at\u00a0NAZ Today<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnnually, we tour an affiliate station in Phoenix and we try to emulate how they do things and then personalize that to our capabilities. We\u2019re also branching out\u2014our web site is gaining momentum and there is more content. We\u2019ve got a lot of things on our plate,\u201d Walker said. \u201cNow we have more community interest which has led to a bigger stress on quality and content, so the students have to step up, the standards are higher. We want to keep the quality and take it slowly as we continue to grow. \u201c<\/p>\n

NAZ Today<\/em>\u00a0airs Monday through Thursday at 6 p.m. on NPG Cable channel 4 or at 10 p.m. on Dish Network channel 9411 (Universityhouse) and NPG Cable 4. Or go to\u00a0naztoday.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A news station is brewing in Flagstaff, and if the dedication and passion of its student crew is any indication, it may grow to fill the hole that Channel 2 left behind when its doors closed over a year ago. Formerly\u00a0NAU Live!,\u00a0a campus news station,\u00a0NAZ Today\u00a0debuted in September 2008 with the intent of covering the…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":17938,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-community"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}