By Lisseth Hernandez
The Ditch Weekly is an up and coming print newspaper run, edited, and distributed by teenagers that hope to capture the voices of the youth of Montauk on Long Island’s East End, whether at sports events, local fundraisers, or any other local news. Harry Karousos. head of sales, and Billy Stern, publisher and editor, went into detail with the Greene Team about what it meant for them to start such an ambitious project and the coming success of it as they’ve opened up for advertisements often ranging from real estate to other shops after a feature story about the paper ran in the New York Times last September. I saw this article and found it interesting but I never expected this opportunity. I also had the pleasure to interview the pair with Greene Team member Hennie England, since our group was assigned the article about the Ditch Weekly. We got even more insight to the profit and entrepreneurial aspects of the weekly that were not covered in the initial pep talk. Very fun experience and I know that will be an entertaining piece.
Today was also the big day of the Greene Team news segment where we fully ran our own news broadcast. I will geek out here and say that before this program, while I found merit in writing, I was primarily interested in graphic design and show tech because of my background in both design and tech from my stage crew days. All the tech I used while broadcasting was pretty familiar and it gave me the chance to play around with it, I’d worked with Broadway graphics programs but this was new and without the waiting for a script cue as much as for people and expressions to come in place of that. I loved every second of it and it started a theme for me personally today — more on that later. Regardless of graphics, audio, mics, and other animations were so cool to see at a bigger scale and it gave me insight as to how much journalism in the broadcasting-scape is ultimately a performance and a time to have fun and work with your gut. This is completely ignoring the fact I also ran the weather initially which I will admit was enjoyable but maybe not the biggest highlight. I love talking and like to think I bring personality to a weather segment like I had to today, but it’s not my first choice. Not to say I did not enjoy it. I loved this too. Being able to bring some fun onto the set is interesting and lets me practice the sort of charisma I should carry to any event where my face is plastered to a camera. It’s something I realize I can lean on, which in of itself is interesting but it’s never given me the rush or kept me on my toes like tech always has. Overall, this experience was a rush in both these experiences but simultaneously made me realize I can have that tech rush if I want to pursue broadcasting and such. Maybe I ‘ll eat my sandwiches like Phil would want to laugh out loud.
After this eventful time, we headed off to rush lunch and change into our swanky, swaggy, and luxurious Greene Team shirts and got on the Seawolf bus to News-12 headquarters where the hour-long bus drive sent us all to sleep. When we finally arrived, we were all left shocked at how big the place was. The News12 headquarters initially were much smaller, and a highlight of this trip was how local news had gotten bigger for LI, and every member of staff noted this with pride. We had the pleasure of speaking to video multimedia editors, graphic designers and getting a rundown of what working at News12 can often look like. I again geeked out from all the tech I saw around. Technology is one of my favorite parts of my time in high school, and seeing how familiar this was to not only the TV studios but also the real deal from anchor desk to editing to graphics to lights. Broadcasting is its own performance and show, and that in of itself was so inspiring to witness. We ended off the day sleeping early. Overall it was crazy wicked awesome.
