The Baylor Lariat Partners with City of Waco to Expand News Broadcasts
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Media contact: Terry Goodrich, (254) 710-3321
WACO, Texas (Oct. 13, 2016) – The Lariat, Baylor’s student newspaper, is now broadcasting across the greater Waco area.
This semester, Lariat TV News (LTVN) formed a partnership with Waco’s local college cable channel, allowing anyone in the greater Waco area with a cable subscription to access the Lariat’s broadcast content.
“While the Lariat’s website is accessible to everyone, it’s not normally a destination news site for most Wacoans,” said Paul Carr, director of student publications and lecturer in the department of journalism, public relations and new media. “Being on television in 73,000 homes creates the potential for more local residents to learn about things at Baylor and around Waco from the perspective of college students.”
This is the first semester that LTVN’s broadcast stories have been available on television, and broadcast news is still a recent addition to the Lariat.
“I remember coming to orientation at Baylor as a freshman and asking about the broadcasting program, and I was told we didn’t have one,” said Jacquelyn Kellar, a junior journalism/public relations major.
Now, Kellar is the broadcasting managing editor at the Lariat and is in charge of three broadcast reporters and one unpaid intern who work to produce broadcast stories.
LTVN was born three years ago, when Carr reached out to Larry Holze, director of municipal information for the City of Waco. Carr had heard about the college cable channel and noticed there was no Baylor content on it. It took some time to get on the channel, Carr said, because the Lariat didn’t have any broadcast reporters at the time.
In the fall of 2013, the Lariat hired two broadcast reporters and LTVN was created. LTVN broadcasts were only available via the Lariat’s website until this semester’s partnership with the City of Waco put individual broadcast stories by the Lariat on the college cable channel.
The local college cable channel is shared between Baylor, McLennan Community College and Texas State Technical College. It is available on Channel 18 for anyone in the greater Waco area, while on-campus viewers can find it on Channel 121.9.
“The channel helps educate and inform Waco citizens about the opportunities students and local residents have to engage in happenings at the colleges and develop a better understanding of the huge impact the students and faculty have on our community,” Holze said.
The college cable channel shows LTVN broadcast stories seven days a week from 5 to 7 a.m., 9 to 11 a.m., 3 to 5 p.m., 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. and 10 to 11 p.m. Broadcasts are still available online, both at the Lariat’s website and on Vimeo.
LTVN produces four to six individual broadcast stories each week, but Kellar expects this number to increase.
“The Lariat has now committed itself to broadening the spectrum of reporting, including a broadcast journalism department that was built from the ground up,” Kellar said.
The development of broadcast at the Lariat does not merely impact how students and the Waco community receive university news. It also creates new opportunities for journalism students to expand their skill sets and add to their portfolios.
“Most universities have separate newspaper and television operations,” Carr said. “It is rare to have it combined in one newsroom. The advantage this gives our students is the opportunity to learn skills in a multimedia, multi-platform news organization that will equip them to work anywhere in print, television and digital news operations.”
As news websites and digital news sources replace traditional printed newspapers, the student staff of the Baylor Lariat are being recognized as setting the national standard, Carr said.
“The national recognition of Baylor student media in recent years has been unprecedented,” Carr said. “In one five-year span, we grew from three national awards in 2009 to 73 national awards in 2014. In the last three years, all our student publication areas earned a combined 200 national and international awards.”
by Kalli Damschen, student newswriter, (254) 710-6805
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