OC hosts broadcasting conference

Photo by Abby Bellow

Communication students will hone their broadcasting skills and hear from professionals at the South Central Broadcasting Society 2014 Regional Conference, held at Oklahoma Christian University.

Oklahoma Christian and Oklahoma State University will host the event on Friday and Saturday.

The conference offers students studying in communication the opportunity to hear from broadcasting professionals, learn more about areas of broadcast journalism and receive awards for entries submitted to the SCBS Competition.

Junior Sierra Cleverdon, news producer for Eagle Angle said students will learn how to improve their broadcasting skills.

“You have workshops, you have a lot of lectures,” Cleverdon said. “Some of the ones that are going to be there are going to be over… developing skills for the next media, TV ethics, how to write, social media…things over how to do things better, new techniques that we can use.”

Larry Jurney, chair of the Department of Communication, said students from Oklahoma are not the only ones attending.

“We have students coming from Nebraska and from Texas and from Oklahoma, from Arkansas, from Kansas,” Jurney said. “It’s a regional convention, so students come from several states, from several different colleges.”

Although Oklahoma Christian students travel annually to attend the event, this is the first time in almost a decade that Oklahoma Christian is hosting it.

According to Jurney, the conference will focus on the convergence of print and broadcast news media and will feature an Oklahoma Christian alumna as the main speaker.  Megan Harris, the executive producer at WFAA in Dallas, Texas is the keynote speaker.

“Harris] is going to be demonstrating what the changes we’ve already experienced and…in the future, what they mean and what they don’t mean,” Jurney said.

Harris will educate students on the new techniques used by journalists and the importance of maintaining traditional skills, according to Jurney.

“She will demonstrate to them that the storytelling skills that we teach in broadcast news for example, or in print news, that those skills haven’t changed,” Jurney said. “What has really changed has been the distribution and has been the acquisition equipment. Because, when you go out to record a story, you now have so many ways of doing it.”

Senior Nehemiah Knox, technical director for Eagle Angle, said that the broad range of content at conferences gives students more versatile abilities.

“It makes you a well-rounded person,” Knox said. “Going to these conferences helps me to understand what I need to do, especially here at school when I’m in situations that I would think I would not have been in.”

According to Knox, conferences are a good opportunity to develop new skills that can help in jobs after graduation.

“Going to conferences like these allows you to get the skills that you need, so that, even if you don’t get the job you want, you still have the skills that you need and the abilities to do the job that needs to be done,” Knox said. “So, you can get to the point where you have to go out and do what you want to do.”

Cleverdon says Oklahoma Christian students will not only attend the conference, but will also work to make the event run smoothly.

“We’ll be helping man the booths,” Cleverdon said. “We’ll be helping organize the tables for the awards and stuff so that way when they go up there to present the awards they’ll all be organized.”

According to Cleverdon, Eagle Media students are improving and promoting their many faucets of broadcasting this year.

“We’re working on promoting our radio…involving other people outside of the department,” Cleverdon said. “We are starting an entertainment show again. We’re working on promotions and improving what we have right now, so we’re trying to just make improvements.”

Knox is hopeful for the success of Eagle Angle and all Eagle Media productions this year.

“Eagle Media is constantly changing,” Knox said. “We’re actually going to have a presence at the school. We’re targeting certain things. We need to be teachable. We need to be held accountable, responsible. We need to be able to be relevant as well. We’re going to produce actual content and not settle. And then, all of that, coming together to produce a professional organization run by students. We’re going to go out and shoot for the stars.”

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