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Spring 1999, Vol. 61, No. 3

CNN student bureau established

By Lynn Mena

This spring Augsburg College became the first school in Minnesota to establish a CNN student news bureau. The bureau is part of a nationwide program launched by CNN last fall, offering high school and college students an opportunity to broadcast their work on CNN.

"This was an opportunity we really needed to take advantage of," said Deborah Redmond, assistant professor of speech/communication and theatre arts and a teaching advisor for the bureau. She said the program not only permits students to acquire hands-on news-gathering experience, but it also establishes a partnership with Paragon Cable.

"The partnership with Paragon allows us to use their editing equipment and occasionally their camera people," Redmond said. "It also establishes internship opportunities with Paragon."

Already Augsburg students have received airtime for their work. "We received notification from Alan Duke at CNN in Atlanta, saying he needed to know immediately if we could contribute to a town meeting," Redmond said. "They needed footage of interviews with high school students on issues regarding the Littleton [Colo.,] tragedy."

The students accepted the assignment and sent out a news crew to compile a collection of videotaped interviews with students at an Eagan high school. CNN used several clips of the interviews - along with clips from other student bureaus across the country - during their telecast of "CNN Town Meeting: Listening After Littleton" April 29 in Champagne, Ill.

"The experience was exciting," Augsburg junior Jennifer Rensenbrink said, who participated on the Littleton project. "The television format brings together images and words and adds a deeper layer of meaning to a story."

The formation of the bureau was the result of an initial contact made between CNN and Augsburg board chair Kathryn Tunheim during the Peace Prize Forum in February. Ultimately, Redmond would like to see the bureau evolve into an actual student organization and receive funding and campus building space.

Associate English Professor Cass Dalglish, another teaching advisor for the bureau, echoed this sentiment. "The program is just marvelous," Dalglish said. "[The bureau] stands students in a competitive group, allowing them to talk directly with professionals on a daily basis by e-mail and the phone. Students will come away with portfolio materials that will be irreplaceable in the job market."