The first session that I attended during Medaille Media Day was “Putting it in Writing: A Career in Print Journalism.” I chose this session for the simple reason that I love writing, and could more than see myself with a career in print journalism. I was really excited that I was being given the opportunity to talk to professionals who had once been where I am now: trying to figure out where I’m going to end up after I graduate from college.

I have been writing for the Perspective for two years now. This year, I am the Assistant News Editor, and I love it. I have always really enjoyed writing, and I feel like I found a really great niche with the newspaper at Medaille. If it wasn’t for Lisa Murphy I probably would not have declared as a Media/Communications major, but she encouraged me to take an active role in the production in the paper, and told me that she thought I had what it takes. So I took her advice. (And I’m glad.)

We met with two guest speakers in the first session: Brian Meyer, from the Buffalo News, and Roger Puchalski, from Polish-American News. Both men had interesting stories and advice to share with us, and they answered every question with enthusiasm and intelligence. Meyer encouraged to know a little bit about a lot of things, and stressed the importance of being curious. He also made mention of the significance of internships and gaining real world experience throughout college. Puchalski was a student of Medaille College , as well as a former faculty member and department chair. He recalled the first desktop publishing system of the school, and reflected on the tremendous growth that the school has seen since his days here. One of the things that he spoke about was how the strength of a student’s writing skills will really make them more marketable in the communication industry.

The two also tackled some serious questions, concerning what to do when someone refuses an interview and how to maintain a relationship with a public figure who may have positive and negative publicity. What struck me as surprising was a statement that Meyer said – that a week does not go by when someone isn’t furious at him. It was interesting but also very true to consider that “if you don’t have enemies, you’re doing something wrong.”

The second session that I attended as a part of Medaille Media Day was “Getting the Word Out – Public Relations.” I chose to go to this session strictly out of curiosity. As a freshman, I came to Medaille as an Undeclared major. At the end of last year, I declared as a Media/Communications major. For this reason, I have yet to take a lot of the required media courses. I have not taken any courses that concentrate specifically on Public Relations, so I wanted to find out a little more about the concentration.

In this session, we met with the Senior Vice President of Public Relations at Travers Collins & Company, Dick Shaner. We also met with two of his colleagues, Betsy Murrett, Senior Account Manager, and Jeff Bucki, Assistant Account Manager. The entire session was a learning experience for me, since I have little to no experience whatsoever in Public Relations. It was very interesting though, to learn about what type of jobs this kind of company can be hired to do. Event planning and advertising is something that I could be very interested in. For example, Murrett informed us that one of her clients is University at Buffalo . I didn’t know that UB could hire a company to get their name out… but now I do. She also explained that depending on your position, you could be spending a lot of time in or out of the office working.

What I think must be most difficult for companies like Travers Collins, is dealing with crisis situations. One of the examples that Shaner chose to inform us about was that when the “bike path rapist” was identified, the company that he worked for came to Travers Collins and said, “help… what do we do?” Obviously, they did not want negative press. That’s where Travers Collins comes in. It has to be tough to smooth over those kinds of events with the media. What Bucki stressed (that I agree is very important) is that everyone who is working on the job is on the same page. Everyone needs to be giving people the same information, otherwise the credibility of whatever the real story is will be completely shattered.

            The final session that I attended as a part of Medaille Media Day was “Television Today,” which everyone was required to attend. The guests at this session were Mary Alice Demler, News Anchor at Channel 2, Mylous Hairston, News Anchor at Channel 4, and Joanna Pasceri, News Anchor at Channel 7. I personally do not have very much interest in going into television broadcasting, but I felt that the information they gave the students was applicable in almost any field. I feel like I particularly learned a lot from this session because I do not watch or pay attention to TV that much.

            All of the guests took turns talking a little bit about themselves and what they feel is necessary for students to succeed in the television industry. I was particularly interested in Demler’s discussion of her journey to her career because she initially had no desire whatsoever to become a news anchor. It turns out, she actually got her degrees in Political Science and French. She even taught French for three years before switching to another unrelated to media job. When she finally realized she was not following her passion, she went back to school and got a degree in Communications. I think for the most part, we see faces on TV and assume that they were just always on TV… but that isn’t the case.

            What I also was unaware of was that news anchors do so much more work than I realized. Maybe because of movies like Anchorman, in which characters go to the studio, get their hair and makeup done, and sit down in front of the camera, I have gotten a distorted idea of what anchors do. I never knew that on top of the 9 hour shift news anchors work as just anchors, they also do writing and reporting for additional hours of the day. The three guests really stressed the fact that though being an anchor appears glamorous, it really isn’t. There is a lot of hard work put into the news before it gets broadcasted in your living room.

            During the session, a question was asked about if you have to have a certain look to become a news anchor. The response given was that in order to become an anchor, you don’t have to be drop dead gorgeous, but your look has to be completely non-distracting. You have to look your best. If you do not appear clean and neat, viewers will not listen to what you have to say. Pasceri joked that when she gets her haircut, she tells her hairdresser to cut her bangs, because otherwise, the viewers won’t hear her. With hair in her eyes, she cannot present information without viewers becoming unfocused. Though the information was shocking, it came as no surprise to me that image is such a big deal in the TV industry.

~Megan Fitzgerald