Multimedia Reporting

I want to focus on the educational impact that the coronavirus has had on students studying abroad as those classes have transitioned into online and been suspended. So, I want to interview a friend that was studying abroad in France and get her thoughts and experience when she first heard about the travel band and the questionable airport check once she arrived to New York. It seems that many people still don’t understand the severity of the issue, so I would like to compare her experience to how the situation is being handled in the US.

Script

Host intro: The coronavirus is a worldwide epidemic that has made its way into New York. Many rely on the public transportation system. Businesses, workers, and students have all been affected. Students at Baruch College have felt the impact as CUNY has refused to close schools. Mark Morales spoke to two CUNY students about their concerns with attending Baruch College.

AMBI1: (This is where your scene-setting natural sound will go, and it will fade down under your track.)

AMBI2: (As the nats fade down, this is where your room tone will come in. You’ll keep it at a normal volume behind all of your narration.)

TRACK: “I’m here with Megan, a senior at Baruch College. As a daily user of the MTA she feels uneasy as CUNY has refused to close schools forcing students to make difficult choices regarding their education.”

ACT: “I think the school doesn’t really provide us with the correct information right now. Then the way they are doing it right now is letting us come to school and then have our regular schedule. Well as the other schools are shut down because of the coronavirus and they try to give them online courses. I literally feel like I’m not being protected by the school, so whenever I come to school I feel so scared because I need to take public transportation to get here.”

TRACK: “The virus has caused hysteria and it shows. Jiayu shares her experience and what people she knows have gone through over the last couple of weeks.”

ACT: “My roommates and I all wear masks which is another story because now that we are in New York in other parts of the country are treating people who wear masks racially and friend of a friend, one day he was walking on the street on the upper west on Manthan and a black teenager walking towards him spit on him, which is ridiculous because he was wearing a mask.”

TRACK: “As the confirmed cases continue to grow, CUNY students hope that the CUNY Chancellor or the New York State will take the virus more seriously and be more proactive about the situation.”

Track: “For Baruch College, this is Mark Morales in New York City.

Today’s class:

Pitch Workshop

Updated due dates: 

Your scripts for your new radio stories will now be due on Thursday, April 2, our last official day of class before spring break begins. (We have no class on Tuesday April 7 because classes follow a Wednesday schedule.)

On that day when your scripts are due, instead of having a normal remote class over Zoom, I’ll be doing phone edits with everybody individually where I give you feedback on your script—make sure you don’t record your narration before this edit session, because the script will probably change and you’ll just need to do it over.

Here’s the sign-up sheet for editing times for next Thursday. It’s first come, first served. If for some reason none of these times work for you—I know some of you are in different time zones—please reply to this email so we can work something out.

The final version of the radio story will now be due April 21, the first day we will “meet” again after spring break. Please also start thinking about story ideas for your video assignment—and again, you’ll need to think creatively about video stories you can do under the circumstances.

Here are the guidelines our department has discussed for reporting during this time:

• ​Do your reporting over the phone or online.

• Conduct interviews over the phone and record them.​
• If your subject is willing and has access to a landline or a borrowed phone, ask them to record a “tape sync” for you by recording their end of the call with their Voice Memos app (or equivalent) and then sending you the file along with at least 90 seconds of room tone. Make sure they know where the phone mic is located (on iPhones, it’s on the bottom of the phone.) Make sure you record the call from your end, too, as a backup.
• To record a call from your end, there are a few options. 1. Google Voice is free to use: create a number, route it to your phone and press “4” during any call to start recording. 2. TapeACall is also a great app which lots of professionals use, but it’s not free. 3. Put the phone on speaker and record it with your audio recorder or a borrowed phone.
• Download Audio Hijack, which allows you to record the system audio from your computer for up to ten minutes. This will allow you to grab audio from press conferences, YouTube or Instagram videos, etc., depending on what you’re covering.
• Record natural sound only if it’s something you can do at home or by going for a solitary walk or bike ride outside and from a distance of greater than six feet.
• Record your narration in an improvised at-home “studio.” Aim to record in a space that absorbs sound: a room with carpeting, curtains, bedding, etc. Some tried-and-true methods that radio journalists use in a pinch is to go in their closet or simply to throw a blanket over their head. Take a look at the way some WNYC journalists are setting themselves up at home for inspiration: https://twitter.com/WNYC/status/1239896211903086592
• Download Audacity, a free program, for audio editing.

• ​Aim to find stories you can report at home. Interview people you are already in close contact with. There are also a ton of internet/social media stories right now because so much human interaction and creativity is unfolding virtually, so consider finding ways to report on this visually via screen recording tools.
•  Ask your sources to record video on their phones and send it to you. Make sure they orient their phones horizontally. This can inclue interviews you conduct over the phone or B-roll/video diaries done in the moment while your source is handing out free lunches at an NYC public school, teaching their child from home while struggling to work full-time from home, working a hospital shift, etc.
• Use the Screen Recording feature on your phones to record video from your phone screen, or select “New Screen Recording” in Quicktime to record video off your laptop screen. Use KeepVid to grab videos off of YouTube, if relevant to your story. (Make sure to attribute any videos you grab this way and make sure you only use short clips to stay on the right side of Fair Use.)
• Go out and film only if it’s filming you can do outside by going for a solitary walk or bike ride and from a distance of greater than six feet. Don’t use your wired lav mics to interview people; only use the mounted shotgun mic so you can stay far enough away. Under the circumstances, it’s okay if the audio isn’t perfect. Ask the person to speak up.

My new pitch is to speak to students who are no longer able to work during the Coronavirus epidemic. I would be able to ask them how the epidemic is affecting their daily lives and feature stories that show how Gen Z & Millennial-aged students are impacted by the virus, even if death rates are lower in this age group.The loss in income may also highlight issues students face in their day to day lives as they attempt to pay rent, tuition, and various student fees. Students are also missing out on internship offers, as many programs throughout the country are being cancelled and is another part of the adjustment process.

I want to cover how COVID-19 affects the tourism business. Since New York is one of the most famous city to travel in the world, I want to focus how people, working in tourism industry, are suffering from this ongoing issue right now.

I am going to have an interview with Airbnb host, photographer specialized in tourism snap photography (honeymoon, couple, family who travel to New York), and local guide (not sure about him yet).

I have found that some people are facing a financial issue due to the huge amount of cancellations. I want to hear their thoughts, and concerns and want to deliver these interviews by adding statistic research.

I want to focus on how remote learning due to the coronavirus is impacting the education of children with special needs. I want to talk to their parent as well as their teachers and ask how their children are adjusting to the new learning format and the challenges they may be facing because of it. My mom is a 5th-grade special education teacher, and she knows parents and other teachers who are willing to be interviewed.

Choice 1: I want to interview the people on the frontlines of the coronavirus outbreak – service workers, nurses, elder care employees and how they are reacting to and impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. How are they adjusting to continuing to work while many people have the privilege of working from home? How have their work lives shifted or been exacerbated due to the outbreak? Do they have any fears about commuting to work, being at work, etc. about contracting the virus and how do they work around these fears? Do they feel like their needs are being met and concerns are being heard by employers during this time? I am also interested in speaking with retail workers, restaurant employees, etc. who may have very real fears of being laid off and how they are responding to the uncertainty around their job; however, I don’t know if that would be considered a separate story. I have access to this story as I have nurses in my personal circle from my brief nursing school days, I am a retail worker, and I have family members and friends in the service industry.

Choice 2: I am interested in how the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting freelancers and the freelancer economy. How has the pandemic affected how they are able to do their work? How has it impacted the work available to them? How has it impacted current projects they were working on or plans they had? I have access to this story as I know a couple of freelancers who may be able to participate. I can put out a “call-out” or poll on social media to see who may be willing to be a part of this story.

For my coverage on the coronavirus pandemic, I think I want to go really local. I want to cover graduates who just lost their final semester. Graduations are being canceled. People in dorm schools are being forced to leave. Since a lot of huge things are happening in the world right now, smaller news like that is being largely ignored and although this is justified, this is still causing a lot of sadness in these groups of students. This kind of news is probably also being compounded by the fact that everyone is supposed to stay home, since there are no distractions to take away from this news. Since I am a part of the Class of 2020 at Baruch, I am going to send out a survey to see who would be interested in a zoom call or a phone call. I am also going to aim to reach out to other graduates in the NYS or Northeastern area.

1. I can do a piece on how the coronavirus is impacting small local businesses because of the lack of customers and the forced closures of stores. Many employees are either out of work or have to work from home. I also know a few that have been laid off, despite working really hard. These people work at places like cafes and department stores, which is work that you can’t do at home. I would focus on the ways they are being impacted in terms of things like supplies, finances, etc. I can try to conduct interviews over the phone.
2. I can interview people who have traditional allergies that are being treated badly because people assume that they have the coronavirus since it’s hard to tell the difference between the symptoms. I can ask them how are they being treated and how they are trying to protect themselves from developing the virus. This will give me a chance to delve deeper into some of the attitudes and thoughts people are experiencing.

Here is a link to my sample radio piece for class. The script is below too.

https://soundcloud.com/mniyah-lynn/sample-radio-assignment

Host intro: The coronavirus, causing over 100,000 cases worldwide, is the biggest story today. It started in Wuhan, China and has since spread across continents. New York has 216 cases statewide, causing businesses to run out of health supplies and students to express concerns over the response from colleges. M’Niyah Lynn, journalism student, has more on this story.

AMBI: Sound of students on 8th floor (room tone)

TRACK: On the 8th floor, in the seating area of one of CUNY’s top institutions, Baruch College, I sit down with Isabel, an undergraduate student here, that has a lot to say about the seriousness of the virus and extreme panic she has witnessed regarding the spread of COVID-19.  

AMBI: Students washing hands

TRACK: So, how has the coronavirus affected your life and how are you preparing for it?

ACT: ISABEL: Um..so, I think like the biggest effect that I’ve seen, especially is mostly on like local businesses, um..Flushing is like somewhere that I go quite frequently and I’ve noticed that there’s been a significantly like um less number of people and all the restaurants are always empty. And I think like one thing that’s really surprising is the fact that hand sanitizer is literally sold out everywhere. Um..just the other day like my friend and I, after class we went to a Walgreens, we went to a 7-Eleven, a news stand, and a deli and none of them had hand sanitizer and this was right by school, so we crossed the street to Bath & Body Works and um in my experience like they always have hand sanitizer, but then as soon as we walked in and I asked um one of the employees, they said that they ran out and that there was no hand sanitizer within a 6 mile radius basically. So, I actually went back to the store today and there was actually only one scent left and it was people were just like grabbing them off the shelf. I think just the demand for it is insane. I also went to like a deli in Queens and they were selling like a little tiny miniature bottle of Purell for $5, when it really retails for a dollar.

TRACK: With the pressure on local government to take more drastic measures to stop the spread of the coronavirus, students and some faculty have demanded that CUNY possibly close down schools and perhaps transition to online classes as a precaution. Cases around the world continue to grow and in the U.S., we are now up to about 938 total cases according to the CDC. I take it to the streets of Baruch to interview Jahlil on his way home to see if he is feeling optimistic about the future of the world.

TRACK: Are you confident that after the coronavirus dies down that the world will go back to basically how it once was, or do you think it’ll change?

ACT: JAHLIL: I believe that, I do believe that the world would go back to normal. I do, I’ve seen the economy especially booming ten times better than what  it was before the major drops. Um, I see you know uh pharmacy stores now taking extra precautions now you know, when it comes to supply and demand, you know they know not to run out of essentials like hand sanitizer, you know wipes, all the other you know health accessories. So, yeah, I do see the world uh doing better after corona dies down.

TRACK: It is unclear if online classes will become the norm for colleges beyond this point because a lot about the virus is still unknown like how long it will be around. Hopefully, CUNY will use this outbreak to better prepare for potential others in the future and Governor Cuomo will likely figure out a plan for CUNY and SUNY schools. It looks like for now, we have to be patient at a time where time doesn’t seem like it’s on our side. For Baruch College, this is M’Niyah Lynn in New York City.