Thomas Miller | Jan. 21, 2011
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| Photo by Thomas Miller |
| WIUX programming manager Andrew Olanoff talks with two students about their interest in hosting an old-school hip hop radio show. WIUX is looking for students who have a variety of media interests. |
And news staff, producers and writers, too.
During their call out meeting Tuesday at Woodburn Hall, members of WIUX, the student-run campus radio station, talked to students about opportunities at the station, many of which don’t involve broadcasting. Chief among those is blogging.
“Although we are primarily on air, we started the blog over a year ago,” said program director and journalism junior Andrew Olanoff. “We had all these reviews and we were like ‘why don’t we put these online?’”
Since then, the blog has expanded to include news posts, feature stories and expanded album reviews. Under the direction of Olanoff and public relations director Katherine Coplen, the blog has grown into a key part of WIUX.
“A lot of people aren’t comfortable about radio,” said Coplen, a senior. “It’s a great outlet for people to see their work in print.”
Working at a radio station to see your work in print may seem odd, but with the growth of the WIUX blog, the station has had the opportunity to try new things, specifically in the area of news and sports coverage.
News directors Liz Leslie, a journalism graduate student, and A.D. Quig, journalism junior, are in charge of two one-hour on air news programs, but thanks to the blog, are now working to hire beat reporters.
“It lets people work across platforms,” Leslie said.
The two directors talked about the benefits of using the blog as a platform to expand radio stories into multimedia packages. They are seeking photojournalists and videographers to help expand their news stories.
“We don’t want to discriminate against people who don’t like radio,” Quig said.
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| Photo by Thomas Miller |
| WIUX news director A.D. Quig explains how the news committee functions. The WIUX blog is part of the news committee. |
Each director took turns telling the crowd of students about their individual committees and, frequently, the stories they told were about the career benefits of working at WIUX.
For general manager and senior Ryan Patena, the new opportunities such as the blog will help give students a competitive edge in the professional world.
“Radio is a medium that’s becoming less mainstream,” said Patena, referencing the fact that many students stream music online or get it elsewhere. “We want to give students an experience that prepares them for the outside world. Blogs are very popular right now. We want video content for our site, we want reviews, we want to be more than a radio station.”
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