Light the Wick Lights the Way to Student News

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Production and preparation for Light the Wick, an Internet based entertainment news show on campus, ensues in the TV Studio of Bliss Hall. Brian Mead, producer of Light the Wick. (Above). Photo by Liam Bouquet/The Jambar.

By Alyssa Pawluk

While there are many ways of receiving campus news, students, faculty and area residents are invited to experience a rather unorthodox way to obtain news — viewing current events through the eyes of students on YouTube in a web show entitled Light the Wick.

Light the Wick, based out of the communications department, is an Internet entertainment news show that focuses on interesting people, places and events that happen along the Wick Entertainment corridor.

Amy Crawford, director of Light the Wick, said that the show was led by a group of students in 2009 that wanted to have more experience with an informational show and on camera opportunity before the department of communications offered it in two courses, a broadcast news lab and a production lab.

“It really was pitched to [the department of communications] by students, and then we did work together with the faculty to create a course for it, and after having six or seven semesters of the course, we decided that we wanted to open it up and bring in students earlier in their careers and also try to bring in students from outside the major,” Crawford said.

The show started in 2009 and ran through 2012 before taking a year off to change some of its layouts; the show aired again last spring semester.

“We went on hiatus for an academic year because we wanted to retool the way it fit into our curriculum, and we wanted to do a couple of different things,” Crawford said. “When we were first offering it, it was a senior level course. It was pretty much something students took their last semester, but we wanted it to be something that students can take earlier in their academic career so we took away some of the prerequisites. We also opened it up so that you did not have to be a telecommunications studies major.”

The show airs on YouTube every Friday of the week during the academic semester. Crawford said that there are usually ten to thirteen episodes per semester, and the production of the show takes a couple of weeks to process.
The number of students involved in the show changes every semester; this semester, 12 students are involved. Two YSU students serve as the producers of the show each semester — Brian Mead and Dean Miller are the current producers.

Mead explained that he joined the show last academic year, starting as a news reporter before signing up as the producer.

“We pretty much put together the scripts and run how the show is going to look,” Mead said. “It was just mentioned to me that it would be a good experience and it’s a good way to work on something that’s functional when you graduate. You can get a job being a news reporter, doing something with news. That is a way the telecommunications department pushes you towards news. It’s a good experience of how to set up a news piece and the different things that make it work and look good.”

Miller said that he collaborates with Mead and other students involved producing the show every week.
“This is my second year. I’m in the upper division of it, a producer of the show. Brian and I, as producers, we basically collaborate with each other and talk about the design