The fifth day of News Reporter Academy shifted its focus to news writing and professional communication as students received their first story assignment.
The day started with an introduction to public relations with Best Buy’s Communications team led by Chris Havens, Bianca Jones and Katie Huggins. They walked students through handling real-life PR situations and answered career questions.
The students met with the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Minnesota Center for Prevention team to learn about health equity and get their story assignments. The stories for News Reporter and TV Camp are focused on physical activity. Students asked questions, researched and worked out their angles. Next week, they will work with professionals who are writing coaches and volunteers to complete their first news article.
The day ended with a well deserved trip to Izzy’s for some ice cream. Students have one more week left in News Reporter Academy at the College of Arts and Sciences.
Here are the student reflections for Friday, July 12:
Josiah Lemm – Blaine High School
Today I learned about public relations from multiple members of Best Buy’s public relations team. I was fascinated by the scenarios presented and enjoyed thinking about what I would do in the situations. It showed me another facet of media that I’m interested in pursuing further and inspired me to look at multiple sides to understand why companies do what they do when they have problems with public relations alongside the many different things public relations teams have to consider when putting together a response to a company crisis.
Later in the day, we got our assignments that we will be writing an article on for the Pioneer Press and Star Tribune. I was assigned the story on House of Dance, and I can’t wait to do some more research on the hip hop school.
Tristan Xiong – Great River School
This week of News Reporter Academy was really exciting! I really enjoyed learning from all the speakers.
Now that we have our stories, my head is thinking of all these different ways to tell the story, especially to connect health equity and hoop dancing.
But, I am ready for the challenge, and I am excited to learn more about hoop dancing and Native American culture.
