Journalism Professor Honored With Media Award
KEENE, N.H. 4/29/04 - Mark Timney, assistant professor of journalism at Keene State College, has been honored by the Broadcast Educators Association (BEA) for an instructional video he produced for release with several mass media textbooks.
Timney, who is in his third year of teaching at KSC, produced, scripted, edited, and photographed the video which won the “Best of Competition” award in the BEA’s annual Festival of Media Arts. The video, entitled “Inside the Mass Media: Television Tour,” was designed to provide students with an idea of the day-to-day operation of a television station.
Timney came up with the idea to produce the video while taking students on tours of local media outlets. “It was difficult for students to get much out of the tours,” Timney said. “It was sometimes hard for them to hear the tour guide and they could only talk with a few of the working professionals. So, I thought it would be better if I videotaped a tour for them to watch.”
Timney thought such a tape might also be useful for other mass media and journalism instructors. He then contacted McGraw-Hill Higher Education, one of the largest textbook publishing companies, with the idea of creating a series of media tour tapes. McGraw-Hill was excited by the idea and contracted for Timney to produce 6 videos.
The tapes, which are part of McGraw-Hill’s “Inside the Mass Media” series of videos, include a tour of Keene’s WKNE radio, Vibe magazine, a national music magazine, The Record, a large New Jersey newspaper, WSEE TV-35, a mid-market television station in Erie, Penn., Ogilvy Public Relations, one of the largest PR companies in the world, and a video discussing the impact of the Internet upon these media outlets.
Producing the videos was very time consuming for Timney. Over the period of a year and a half he traveled around the country to visit the five media outlets. Then, after writing scripts, he spent more than 40 hours editing each tape.
“Feedback about the tapes has been very positive,” Timney said. “It’s a great way for students to see how media companies really work. Plus, the second half of the tape consists of interviews with the media professionals at these outlets. This allows students to hear what the ‘pros’ think about issues facing their industry.”
Timney received his best of competition award at the BEA’s conference in Las Vegas, Nevada in mid April. All of the videos will be distributed with several McGraw-Hill mass communication textbooks. Timney said two more videos would likely be part of the series, one dealing with the book publishing and the other about the movie industry.
