Multimedia Reporting Fall 2022

For my radio story I plan on interviewing a fellow Baruch student I met during the club fair. Dorian was interested in the radio/podcasting club at Baruch and in our brief conversation, he explained how he is an aspiring producer. Who, with a couple of close friends, hopes to start a record label in the future.

I think Dorian is a great example of the other talents present at Baruch despite it being a business school. Telling his story, finding out the difficulties of going into that profession as young as he is and how he plans on taking this journey would make for an interesting story.

I plan on using his samples in the background and the different environments he works in to create rich sound bites.If I’m able to I hope to include interview bits from his fellow producers who are also making the label to add other layers to the story.

Caffe Napoli at San Gennaro Festival

https://medium.com/@varshacsamlall/caffe-napoli-celebrates-50-years-at-the-san-gennaro-festival-in-little-italy-lower-manhattan-b8c3bd4069a1

by Chandi Samlall

For now, I plan on reporting on the uptick of spam/scam text messages. Recently, there has been a surge of fake texts where the end goal of the scammer is to get the victim to invest in something. Historically scam calls have disproportionately affected those who are older.

For audio, I can have the bustling of the school as a background noise. Then while the interviewee is explaining what texts they got or what they responded I can have the tapping and sounds of a mobile keyboards.

I would like to ask the interviewee’s questions about the scams they have received. Such as was the scammer pretending to be a reliable company/person, or was a new identity.

Since this is just the draft pitch, I really want to find ways to make this into more of a “story” which I have never done before. In order to do this, I plan on mixing in statistics and information from existing reports about these scams and what they result in.

For my radio assignment I plan to interview a couple of MTA workers and talk to them about the crime that happens frequent on MTA subways. I want to find out what the workers themselves feel about the issue and get their thoughts because I’m sure under company policy they probably have to respond a certain way but being put into these kinds of situations must be difficult and they always vary so I believe there isn’t only one way to respond to these crimes and I’m sure they have varying views on the subject as well. I also plan to voice over stats during the interview however I’m not sure where to insert it yet.

2022 marks the first year that the College of Staten Island will be competing in Division II sports. These divisions are based on the school size (number of students), the competition, and the funding that their athletic programs receive. Moving up from D3 to D2 is a big deal – something that not many colleges can accomplish, whether it be lack of funding or lack of talent.

No doubt, though, the new competition will be even tougher. I plan to focus on CSI’s baseball team who is currently practicing for their Spring season. They are competing in scrimmage games, which allow the players to get a feel for not only the competition, but the stakes of being a D2 team.

I plan to get soundbites from the players on the team and the coach, the AMBI coming from the sounds of the ball being hit, the crowd cheering (or booing), and the overall chatter that happens before or during the game. Hopefully, I will also be able to get some clips of spectators yelling at the umpire or the coaches to add a little humor.

If possible, rather than focusing solely on their baseball team, I might also look for students who compete in other sports to see how this change has affected them. More specifically students who have been there for 2+ years because then they would have had the experience of competing while the school was still D3. I would be able to gain a little insight as to whether or not the competition has changed. But, for now, I believe I will get the most sound rich quality from actually going to a baseball game.

The 2021-22 school year was the City University of New York Athletic Conference’s (CUNYAC) first athletic season back from the one and a half year Covid-19 pandemic hiatus. Two years’ worth of new collegiate athletes were entering while old athletes returned after missing a couple of seasons. The CUNYAC sports scene completely changed, entire team rosters were different, some schools even had entire freshmen-based teams. At Baruch College, athletes needed to learn or even relearn how to balance school, sports, work, and life. Being a collegiate athlete means more than just showing up to practice, with it comes enormous pressure to keep up with studies, maintain strength and conditioning for the season, and lastly find some personal time to wind down. 

This school year, the majority of Baruch courses have changed back to in-person or hybrid. Some students entered their second or third year never having been on campus until this year. With these recent changes comes the need to adapt, altering previous study habits, as well as prioritization of mental health. The quick changes in less than two years can make it exceedingly difficult for students to adjust without feeling overwhelmed.

I should not have any issues interviewing athletes since it would be easily accessible on campus. For this project, I hope to speak with student-athletes from a variety of sports (swimming, basketball, volleyball, etc.) about their work-life balance and how they navigated any mental health issues they may have had. I would like to interview athletes of different class standings (freshman, seniors, etc.) to observe any differences in habits or changes in mentality. I anticipate getting audio of athletes in their sports environment which would provide diverse natural background sounds based on the individual interviewed.

https://medium.com/@rick45614

https://medium.com/@ava.xie1/is-eating-alone-as-scary-as-it-seems-517eb18f2f14