By Parker Dorsey

Staff Writer

April 14, 2018

 

The 18th annual Tom Bigler Journalism Conference was hosted by the Wilkes University Communication Studies Department on Friday.

 

The conference hosted students from several high schools around northeastern Pennsylvania, with several of the schools in attendance being Blue Ridge, Hazleton and Delaware Valley. There were several guest speakers including WBRE lead investigative reporter Andy Mehalshick, Times Leader Executive Editor Joe Soprano and representatives from other media outlets. The keynote speaker was New York Times reporter Kenneth P. Vogel.

 

For the students in attendance, a lot of fun came from the hands-on workshops that were available for them to engage with. Three of the workshops were the TV studio, radio station and public relations agency.

 

The Wilkes Now TV studio had a workshop where students were split up into groups. They manned equipment in both the production studio and the on-air set.

 

"This was my first one [at Bigler], so I just got to experience it," said Dan Mattern, chief engineer for the TV studio. "It was to give the students some exposure to the TV studio and control room, getting a feel for communications in the TV department and see if it's something they would like to get into."

 

WCLH 90.7 FM had a workshop in both the radio broadcast and production studios. The groups were split into subgroups, and one went into the production room to record station ids with Production Director John-Michael Rey. The other went into the broadcast studio, where they got on the air with several e-staff members, and they talked about their experience at the conference.

 

"I think it's interesting to see students' faces light up when you explain to them what it takes behind the scenes at a radio station to get musical or audio content to them," said Kristen Rock, the WCLH station manager.

 

Zebra Communications had a workshop in the Karambelas computer lab. Groups were given a short presentation on the practice of public relations and how it works in conjunction with the media, as well as common techniques for providing the media information.

 

Dr. Robert Bruno, Zebra Communications adviser, said, "The most common tool is a press kit and the materials within it. It's a common technique and I think that the workshop was just to demonstrate it is an easy thing to do and it is something everybody can learn."

 

The consensus among students was that the workshops were enjoyable and informative.

 

"As they were walking out some of them were saying how they learned something, and that's the real takeaway. If they learned something, that's awesome," said Bruno.

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