Live segments to be aired on Spectrum News
St. Bonaventure University’s Jandoli School of Communication will be offering students interested in broadcast journalism the opportunity showcase their SBU-TV newscasts throughout the local area.
SBU-TV currently streams live on Facebook every Friday at 10 a.m., in addition to being available on the group’s YouTube page. Anna Bulszewicz, the faculty adviser for SBU-TV and lecturer in the Jandoli school, said that, in addition to the new broadcast regions, SBU-TV will add a short news update to their Facebook and YouTube pages each Wednesday.
The upcoming extension of the program allows students the exciting opportunity to feature their broadcasts to a much larger audience.
“Everyone is now going to see us on their TV screens, so I’m actually really excited for that to happen,” said Yoselin Person, a senior journalism major.
Person said she sees the expansion as a great opportunity for incoming students, as well as current members of the SBU-TV team.
The newscast, starting last Sunday, is being broadcasted across several counties in western New York including Allegany, Cattaraugus and Chautauqua counties on Spectrum (Channel 6). It’s shown on Wednesdays at 7 p.m., Thursdays at 3 p.m. and Sundays at 7 p.m.
In addition to the counties surrounding St. Bonaventure, the Buffalo metro area is airing SBU-TV to viewers on LCTV (Channel 1301) on Mondays at 9:30 p.m., Thursdays at 6:30 p.m. and Sundays at 1:30 p.m.
The SBU-TV news team records their broadcasts live for their Facebook page. The tradition of recording live began when Bulszewicz became the faculty adviser. She said that prior to arriving as a lecturer, SBU-TV was pre-recorded so that any errors could be edited out.
“When I got here, I immediately knew after working in the industry that we needed to be live,” said Bulszewicz.
“We don’t have the chance to go back and re-record and fix our mistakes,” said Person. “That gives us a little bit of a taste of how it’s actually going to be. It’s great practice that we’re actually going live.”
Bulszewicz said she postponed the initial Spectrum connection St. Bonaventure had until SBU-TV could figure out an effective way for students to record live. Now, the connection has resurged. The live broadcasts, once recorded, will be sent to Spectrum without editing.
“This is great exposure for our students, the Jandoli school and St. Bonaventure,” said Aaron Chimbel, dean of the Jandoli school. “SBU-TV will now be seen across the region, reaching more than a million potential viewers. This pushes our students to be better because their work now reaches well beyond campus.”
“The live element is pressure in general because the production students are turning up the audio live, and everything’s in action in real time,” said Bulszewicz. “This semester, I would say we’ve heard rumblings that there’s more pressure on [the students], but I’ve also heard from some of our students that have graduated recently that they wish they had more pressure because it would have better prepared them for the actuality of deadline in a newsroom.”
Giving the students involved in SBU-TV the opportunity to produce in front of such a large audience was an effort to give the students the freedom to operate on a professional level.
“The majority of the people that I work with down there could get a job tomorrow. That’s how professional they are and that’s how they treat this,” said Bulszewicz. “We act as if we’re already in the functioning real world in a broadcast newsroom.”
“While this won’t directly change the content that’s produced, it will put our students on the same level as professional journalists in the second largest city in the state,” said Chimbel. “I am excited that our students will now have their work more widely shared. This is a big step for the Jandoli school, one that dramatically increases our reach and is a great platform for our students.”
“While this won’t directly change the content that’s produced, it will put our students on the same level as professional journalists in the second largest city in the state,” said Chimbel. “I am excited that our students will now have their work more widely shared. This is a big step for the Jandoli School, one that dramatically increases our reach and is a great platform for our students.”
By Meghan Hall and Julia Schneider, News Assignment Editor and Staff Writer
Hallml18@bonaventure.edu
schneije18@bonaventure.edu
