The Center for Student Media is a hub for students who dwell on the rush of recording, shooting and reporting campus life. Its unit, located on the second floor of Student Union East, houses the Spinnaker, Osprey Radio and Osprey TV. Here’s a chance to get a look at some of the fast-paced media junkies.
Usually it’s hands-on, but in this case, it’s voice-on
Aryn Mooney, news director for Osprey Radio, may seem like a whole crew packaged in one little body. Her job involves keeping in the loop with all the news on campus, updates on meetings, advertising, recording, editing, writing the radio newsletter, making slides and updating the Osprey Radio website regularly. Overwhelmed yet?
Mooney, a UNF public relations senior, juggles classes and all her duties of working for Osprey Radio with brilliant precision. How, you ask?
“I have three e-mails I check just about every day, all day,” Mooney said. “There can be updates about the university at any time; I update news online even from home. It’s my responsibility to be on the ball with that constantly.”
After shadowing Mooney for a day by recording last week’s news updates and making slides, I had a hands-on experience with part of Mooney’s responsibilities. It was exciting just sitting in the studio with all the mics and so tempting to play around with the sound board — a big no-no at the radio. Then came the giggles and pauses while Mooney helped me record my first show.
“I mess up all the time,” she laughed. “You just keep going, redo it if you don’t like it. We can always edit.”
Osprey Radio uses Adobe Soundbooth as its editing software, and the whole staff is trained to use it. This magical software eliminated all of my mistakes in the recording and made the final product sound much more professional. Mooney added a layer of soundtrack, and the recording was uploaded online.
“A lot of the professional radio shows are pre-recorded these days, it’s kind of sad,” Mooney said. “We still try to do live concerts and shows here at our station.”
Mooney’s weekly news shows run for a minute at the top of the hour on ospreyradio.com and Osprey TV channel 82.
The Local Community Radio Act will now enable community groups, churches and schools across the country to establish new non-commercial, low-power FM radio stations in their cities and towns.
“We’re hoping to go on the FM station fairly soon,” said Nadine Robertson, Osprey Radio station manager. “And we’ve already paid money to iTunes for an Osprey Radio app.”
So far, this mixed-genre station seems to get a good amount of sponsorship and support.
“I get about 20 to 30 albums from different artists to listen to in a week alone,” said Andrew Landis, the station’s music director. “And I gotta say, I love my job.”
The radio gives away a lot of free stuff, including concert and movie screening tickets. They also offer free recording and editing services to students for projects, Mooney said.
Having interned with Children’s Home Society, an organization geared toward foster care and adoption, Mooney dedicates a lot of her time to volunteering. She worked with several nonprofit organizations, including Wolfson’s Children’s Hospital.
“I love volunteering and fundraising,” she said. “But that as a job can be tricky because it doesn’t pay well. I’d pursue nonprofit work as a job if I can be a board member.”
Mooney and her co-workers work together to run Osprey Radio. The laid-back atmosphere makes their ever-busy jobs rather enjoyable.
“We’re all really family,” Robertson said.
She’s the king of the editing room
You walk into Katrianna King’s little editing room at Osprey TV, and you’ll see two computer screens and a camera on her desk. A big TV hangs on top of the screens showing many camera inputs. Her wall fashions a white board scribbled with things to do and finally, a Will Smith poster that reads, “My husband!”
King, the editor for Osprey TV and communication senior, is a four-year veteran to the TV hub. She juggles two more jobs as senior editor at Collabcreation film and a digital technologies customer specialist at Best Buy.
“I remember touring UNF four years ago and finding OTV most interesting,” King said. “I came in and was hired as station manager.”
Back in the day, the OTV office lacked outlets, lights and even air vents. The upgrade in equipment makes working here fast paced and professional, King said. She showed me a picture of the 2007-08 crew for OTV consisting of only six students, reminiscing of the big changes OTV saw over the years.
“We are requesting more new stuff to complete the studio,” Justin Lerman, station manager for OTV said. “I’d say we’re about 75 percent done.”
King edits all features, advertisements, introductions before all shows and bumpers needed in the news shows. She works with Alyssa Spirato, news director for OTV, who scripts and anchors the news shows.
“It gets pretty busy in here,” Spirato said while running through the office with a camera in her hand.
Following her into the control room I found an array of switchboards, lights and buttons.
“This is where we send our shows and movies we play on air. We can air just about anything, even porn,” Lerman said while King laughed and, to my shock, nodded.
All the shows are found on ospreytv.com and channel 80.
King seems very attached to OTV as a whole. She’s seen the ups and downs, hired and fired multiple people, and most importantly, helped manifest the growth of this powerful medium at UNF. She graduates at the end of the semester.
“I want to pursue editing in the future. My biggest dream would be working for Saturday Night Live,” King said. “Although I’m almost positive I’ll cry when I leave this place.”
The Spinnaker is the third piece to the CSM pie. Check out Henna Bakshi’s blog entry about working as a staff writer here.
