The School of Communications has produced a TV show about the media's role in society, starring some of journalism's top reporters.
The show, "Grading the Media," is a panel discussion about media coverage of the 2008 presidential election and financial crisis. Staff in the Ed McMahon Communications Center and students taped the 30-minute show in high definition on Dec. 6.
The show will likely premier on Connecticut Public Television before the presidential inauguration, followed by broadcast on PBS stations nationwide, according to David Donnelly, dean of the School of Communications.
"I look at this as a pilot," said Donnelly, the show's executive producer. "We want to produce several shows per year. This is part of our strategy to gain national visibility for the School of Communications."
The show's host is Eric Burns, professional-in-residence at Quinnipiac this fall and former host of Fox News Channel's "Fox News Watch," a weekly show about how the media covers stories. These journalists served on the panel:
- Jane Hall, a regular on "Fox News Watch" and "The O'Reilly Factor" on the Fox News channel and an associate professor in the School of Communication at American University in Washington, D.C.
- Brian Ross, ABC's chief investigative correspondent
- Brian Stelter, reporter for The New York Times
"The show doesn't reflect any political bias" Donnelly said. "It's a nonpartisan discussion of these events."
The show features pretaped questions from Quinnipiac students Courtney Cooke, Michael Feldstein, Jenny Pretty, Jon Richichi, Joshua Schnitnzer and Megan Vandervoort.
The following people helped produce the show:
- Jeff Schneider, an interactive communications graduate student, produced the show
- Lou Adler, the Fred Friendly Professor of Broadcast Journalism, was the announcer
- Peter Sumby, associate director of the Ed McMahon Communications Center, directed the show and designed and built the set
- Mike Calia, director of the Ed McMahon Communications Center, was coordinating producer
- Mike Schleif, media production specialist, designed and produced the graphics and animation
- Dana Sinerate, media production specialist, coordinated computer graphics during the show and did the final mastering of the tape
- Nancy Hall, media production specialist, edited the taped roll-ins.
"The show highlighted our studio and outstanding level of technical expertise," Donnelly said. "As an added bonus, our students had the opportunity to work on a professional broadcast. This fits in with our experiential approach to learning."