I conducted an interview with my mentor, Russell Brown, about various topics and issues relating to my research and to the news and media industry.
1. How did you get to where you are in your career?
- I got in to broadcast radio my freshman year in college when a friend of mine, who had a sports radio talk show on the college radio station, asked me to guest host with him. Knowing nothing about it, I came on just to talk sports but immediately fell in love with the process of storytelling and worked my way up at the Ga Southern University radio station to Program Director by my senior year and knew it was what I wanted to do as a career.
2. If you can pinpoint the single biggest change in the industry since you began, what would it be?
- The sudden boom of social media and smartphones simultaneously along with the economic downturn of 2009 funneling the number of media jobs to very few, changed the various avenues of media from print, television and radio into one area of concentration. In today’s broadcast media job market, you have to be able to do all three well since newspapers now have video departments, radio stations are writing online articles and TV stations are as well. Also, the boom of social media and mobile devices seemingly overnight a decade ago had a similar impact on the broadcast industry as the introduction of CNN and 24 hour news.
3. How has that change impacted your role personally?
- Personality wise, it has not changed who I am and my style of telling stories on air. It has, however, changed the avenues I use to tell stories. When I came out of college I only focused on using radio to tell stories and the news, but I now know how powerful social media and the web is so I have had to learn how to translate the stories I tell on air to the web.
4. How has the internet age changed the content that you and the station produces?
- It must be FAST! Now that we live in an instant gratification world, the news and stories we tell must get in the hands of our audience as quick as possible. But they also must be accurate!
5. What effects has the internet and technology had on your audience?
- It has made them more open to getting false information. Fake news sites are real, and some “journalists” will inaccurately tell a story or withhold the truth. But since Facebook is now listed as the third most trusted news source for Americans behind Fox News and CNN, anybody can be a “journalist” and can spread false news either by mistake or design.
6. Do you think innovation will happen continuously or will technology, as it is now, be a fad?
- In the past ten years we have seen the boom of Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram and other digital platforms for storytelling while mediums like radio and print (which have been around for decades) are still as popular as ever. There will always be new mediums, but for the traditional ones the word to know is “evolution.” We must, as traditional journalists, adapt and evolve with new technology or be left behind
7. How has the internet age changed your perception of the news?
- It has made more skeptical of everything I read.
8. Is radio dying or thriving because of the internet?
- Thriving. Radio in its traditional form of listening over the AM or FM frequencies will always be popular if people still must drive their cars. And with the capabilities to stream over an app or website, a station’s reach is limitless
9. How do you keep up with the constantly changing technological world in the news industry?
- As long as I keep my focus on telling compelling stories accurately and about the topics our audience cares about, the rest takes of itself. There are always people that want stories told through various mediums, so if I am open to all of them and do not simply focus all of my attention on radio, the story can reach everyone through their preferred medium.
10. What are the biggest pros and cons of incorporating technology into the news industry?
-PROS --- It expands our reach by an infinite amount, it brings younger people in to the industry that otherwise would not simply for radio, print or TV, and it always us to put a face and an of the air personality to the voice you hear on the radio
-CONS --- It spreads a news dept thin to try to cover all basis, it leaves traditional journalists behind that can not keep up, it allows for anyone to become a journalists through a social media account leaving trained journalists without work
1. How did you get to where you are in your career?
- I got in to broadcast radio my freshman year in college when a friend of mine, who had a sports radio talk show on the college radio station, asked me to guest host with him. Knowing nothing about it, I came on just to talk sports but immediately fell in love with the process of storytelling and worked my way up at the Ga Southern University radio station to Program Director by my senior year and knew it was what I wanted to do as a career.
2. If you can pinpoint the single biggest change in the industry since you began, what would it be?
- The sudden boom of social media and smartphones simultaneously along with the economic downturn of 2009 funneling the number of media jobs to very few, changed the various avenues of media from print, television and radio into one area of concentration. In today’s broadcast media job market, you have to be able to do all three well since newspapers now have video departments, radio stations are writing online articles and TV stations are as well. Also, the boom of social media and mobile devices seemingly overnight a decade ago had a similar impact on the broadcast industry as the introduction of CNN and 24 hour news.
3. How has that change impacted your role personally?
- Personality wise, it has not changed who I am and my style of telling stories on air. It has, however, changed the avenues I use to tell stories. When I came out of college I only focused on using radio to tell stories and the news, but I now know how powerful social media and the web is so I have had to learn how to translate the stories I tell on air to the web.
4. How has the internet age changed the content that you and the station produces?
- It must be FAST! Now that we live in an instant gratification world, the news and stories we tell must get in the hands of our audience as quick as possible. But they also must be accurate!
5. What effects has the internet and technology had on your audience?
- It has made them more open to getting false information. Fake news sites are real, and some “journalists” will inaccurately tell a story or withhold the truth. But since Facebook is now listed as the third most trusted news source for Americans behind Fox News and CNN, anybody can be a “journalist” and can spread false news either by mistake or design.
6. Do you think innovation will happen continuously or will technology, as it is now, be a fad?
- In the past ten years we have seen the boom of Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram and other digital platforms for storytelling while mediums like radio and print (which have been around for decades) are still as popular as ever. There will always be new mediums, but for the traditional ones the word to know is “evolution.” We must, as traditional journalists, adapt and evolve with new technology or be left behind
7. How has the internet age changed your perception of the news?
- It has made more skeptical of everything I read.
8. Is radio dying or thriving because of the internet?
- Thriving. Radio in its traditional form of listening over the AM or FM frequencies will always be popular if people still must drive their cars. And with the capabilities to stream over an app or website, a station’s reach is limitless
9. How do you keep up with the constantly changing technological world in the news industry?
- As long as I keep my focus on telling compelling stories accurately and about the topics our audience cares about, the rest takes of itself. There are always people that want stories told through various mediums, so if I am open to all of them and do not simply focus all of my attention on radio, the story can reach everyone through their preferred medium.
10. What are the biggest pros and cons of incorporating technology into the news industry?
-PROS --- It expands our reach by an infinite amount, it brings younger people in to the industry that otherwise would not simply for radio, print or TV, and it always us to put a face and an of the air personality to the voice you hear on the radio
-CONS --- It spreads a news dept thin to try to cover all basis, it leaves traditional journalists behind that can not keep up, it allows for anyone to become a journalists through a social media account leaving trained journalists without work