Wehrenberg Food Drive

Wehrenberg theatres along with two other organizations joined forces saturday to hold their annual cans film festival. This festival is far different than others though because here, the films are free under one condition. “The first saturday of every year, of December, this year it’s December 6th, you bring in 5 can goods and you get to see a movie for free before 5 o’clock,” Saint Charles Wehrenberg general manager Mike Holden explains.

       General Manager Mike Holden

Wehrenberg teams up with the Salvation Army as well as UPS to make this event a success. Volunteers from the community turned out in full force to put their hands to good use packing boxes. Whether it was single volunteers or entire families, they were ready to help tackle the task at hand. All of these canned goods will go to local food pantries to help those less fortunate, “These cans that are in St. Charles county stay right in St. Charles county. It helps with the food pantries it helps with the soup kitchens that the Salvation Army runs, and in the shelter program in O’Fallon,” says Salvation Army Captain Matthew O’Neil.

           Dropping off donations

Roughly 35,000 cans are collected through the St. Charles Wehrenberg. With all those boxes of canned goods being stocked up, the Salvation Army needs some way to deliver them, and that’s where UPS gets involved. “Well with UPS we partner with a lot of organizations, this is a great event for us, a great venue. We along with the Salvation Army, we collected 37-thousand canned goods for the homeless, it’s an inspiring, awesome event for us,” says UPS employee Amy Jennings.

         Entrance to the Film Festival

Wehrenberg collects between 300,000 and 400,000 canned goods in the greater St. Louis area during this one day food drive. For more information on how you can help out your local Salvation Army, go to http://www.salvationarmyusa.org.

Deer Season Safety

Missouri’s firearms deer season draws out more hunters than all other deer seasons combined. With so many people using firearms, safety becomes the number one priority. Though firearms safety is important, another major concern is treestand safety. “Actually the majority of accidents during deer season don’t happen from firearms, they actually happen from falling from treestands,” says Missouri Department of Conservation Media Specialist Dan Zarlenga, “It’s extremely important to utilize a full arrest system when you’re climbing in and out of your treestand, or some sort of safety harness.”

                        Dan Zarlenga

Two incidents occurred during firearms deer season involving treestands, tragically, one of them ended in a fatality. Despite the fact more safety issues involve treestands, firearms safety and the practice of identifying your target shouldn’t be left out, “Any movement, you might assume it’s a deer but it could be another hunter, it could be somebody’s dog, there could be a lot of things, so unless you actually see and confirm that it’s the proper animal, then you shouldn’t pull the trigger,” says Zarlenga.

             Deer feeding in grass field

Roughly half of missouri counties require antlered bucks to have a certain amount of points to be legal. This law allows younger deer to grow, but also forces hunters to be sure of their target. “At times you’ll find hunters will shoot anything that moves, they get the anxiousness to kill a deer and kind of lose focus of that, so you want to absolutely make sure you see a deer,” says local deer hunter Logen Wright.

                Safely Attached to Tree

Missouri’s total deer harvest for the firearms season came in at almost 170,000.

Final Phase of Highway 364 Now Open

City officials from St. Charles to O’fallon gathered at the intersection of Highway K and Highway 364 Halloween morning to officially open the final phase of the highway 364-Page avenue extension project. Even though the winds were strong and the temperatures cold, a crowd gathered to celebrate the long sought moment in St. Charles county history. MODOT district engineer Greg Horn says the project shows the great partnership between the cities in St. Charles county, “This phase of this project would not have happened without the partnerships of saint charles county and the local communities. Those partnerships are what drove this project, and will allow the traveling public to benefit from reducing traffic congestion, improving safety, and providing overall economic growth to the region.”

      Greg Horn speaking at ceremony

The final phase is just a small step in the entire project, which stretches from Interstate 270 in St. Louis county to Interstate 64 in St. Charles county. St. Peters Mayor Len Pagano says that no other county has ever worked together like this to achieve a project of this magnitude, “This is highly unusual for all governments to work together for the betterment of the people. I have to say, no other county has ever produced such a working relationship.”

            County Officials cutting ribbon

After the ribbon was cut, officials and residents celebrated the opening of the highway and took the chance to stand on the new highway before anyone else. St. Peters alderwoman Terri Violet says it’s an honor to have been a part of this project,   “It’s amazing to see how everyone in the county works together to make this happen. It’s an honor for us to be as a big team.”

Construction on the final phase of Highway 364

The final phase of the project cost over $118-million to complete. If you would like to take a drive down the entire length of the highway you can access it from Interstate 270 in Creve Coeur or Interstate 64 in Lake Saint Louis.

Lindenwood Shotgun Sports Finds New Home

The shotgun sports team is now calling Saint Louis Skeet and Trap in Eureka it’s home range after leaving Gateway gun club in Bridgeton. Many are wondering why the team would travel so far to practice. Coach Shawn Dulohery says the team has a budget to follow, and Gateway couldn’t meet it, “we always have a budget to work on, so when I got called into a rate increase meeting I expected the worse and when we got done with the meeting which is a very exorbitant 10 dollars a round which is very very expensive for any club.”

Saint Louis Skeet and Trap are where the first five national championship teams practiced, but when Gateway opened it’s doors so close, it was hard to say no. Senior Dominic Buoni says even though it’s a long drive to Saint Louis Skeet and Trap, he prefers to practice there, “even though there is a convenience factor, where gateway is only about 10 minutes away and St. Louis is 45 minutes away, but because we’re shooting better quality targets the good outweighs the bad.”

The shooters seem to be overall happy about the move to Saint Louis Skeet and Trap, even though most didn’t have a chance to decide one way or the other as the move happened so quickly. Senior Casey Vansant says the club has treated the team with great hospitality, “I definitely think the staff there is more willing to accommodate our needs, you know making arrangements for us on practice nights. They’ve done a really stand up job with helping us out with our situation.”

Coach Dulohery says that he hopes to return to Gateway Gun Club in 2015, but for now their home is in Eureka.

How to Get Quality Information

Figure out the Twittersphere

I recently read a couple articles that pertain to gathering information in some way. Hopefully they will help you out in future journalistic endeavors.

The first one was How do you find useful Twitter accounts? 5 tips for journalists from the Online Journalism Blog. This article talks about how to find useful accounts on twitter to help you find information on potential stories. One of the main points it talks about is finding and following lists. Lists are made by others who may be interested in the same things you are. If you follow that list, there will constantly be information and stories flowing in that you can investigate. I think this is a great article for all journalists to read, especially up and coming ones, because twitter can help you out tremendously. It will be one of your best tools to get your information out to people as well as get it from others. If you look at most TV News reporters twitter accounts, they are constantly posting pictures and updates from their assigned stories.

Here is a short video on how journalists can better use twitter in their professional lives.

Know how to Dig

The other article I read is called How to investigate a university (the right way) from Poynter. With all of the college scandals and sex crimes going on in the news today, it’s good to know how to approach getting information from the colleges. This article goes over specific ways to make sure you get the information you need. One of the best points the article makes is knowing what information you are entitled too. Too often, institutions will ignore requests for documents or make up bogus excuses for not handing them over. This is when it is very important for you to know what kind of documents you are legally allowed to access and how you go about doing so. Another great point mentioned was to make allies. The more people you know around the campus, the more chances you have at getting information about the story you are after.

Wrapping up Super Semester

Well after what seems like an eternity, Super Semester comes to a screeching halt tomorrow afternoon. Weeks of blood, sweat, and tears have been poured into making the news at LUTV and it has been an awesome experience. Coming into this semester I knew a lot about video production and what it takes to make quality productions in the real world, but I didn’t know a lot about news. Now, it seems, my brain is on news overload, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. At this point and time I really don’t have a huge interest to get into the news industry, but I feel that having that experience can only help me when it comes to finding a job to start my career. I’m extremely thankful for the great professors I had to point me in the right direction all semester and look forward to watching the next super semester group get started.

The End is Near

Finally…

It seems like this semester started a year ago, when in fact it has only been a few short months. We all started out as nearly strangers but have now formed into friends who are pretty damn good at making the news. This will definitely be the most memorable semester of my college career.

Wrap it Up

As I try to finish shooting my last few stories with what very little steam I have left in my engine, I’ve realized what a great program this is. It might really suck at times, but if you want to be in the news, you better get used to. My latest package had to do with something that is pretty close to my life, and that is deer hunting. I got to talk with Dan Zarlenga, who is the St. Louis area Media Specialist for the Missouri Department of Conservation, about ways to stay safe during Missouri’s firearms deer season. This package contains what I think is my best stand-up all semester, and probably the editing I’ve done too.

Behind the Desk

I have thoroughly enjoyed anchoring or doing anything in front of the camera this semester. At the beginning I really didn’t think I was going to like it or be remotely good at it, but now, I could see myself doing something along the lines someday. For some weird reason I happened to be sick on two different occasions this semester, and both of them were on days I was supposed to anchor. So now, here it is the night before our last newscast, and I’m readying myself to get behind the anchor desk one last time.

Oh, You’re a Producer?

I new from the beginning of the semester that I had the mindset to be a great producer. I don’t mind telling people what to do, I like making my own ideas come to life, and I’m efficient when it comes to tight deadlines. I produced two decent shows throughout the semester but on Monday I produced what could easily have been the best show of the year. It actually came together really well, but when everybody has a VO/SOT or Package to air, it makes it pretty easy. I can’t take all the credit for the show because without everyone in front of and behind the cameras, it never would have happened. All the video looked and sounded great and I think we ended up with 2 or 3 Readers for the entire show. It was awesome!

I’m Going to Miss You Guys

This class is an awesome experience because there is no other class at Lindenwood where you will bond with your classmates like you do in here. I never once dreaded coming to class, because I knew I was going somewhere where I would be surrounded by friends and people who loved to do what I do. As much as I hate the program, I’m going to miss trying to figure out everyone’s Avid problems and showing them little tricks to make their life easier. As far as the professors go, Ed and Jill are top notch instructors who really care about the success of their students. It’s very refreshing to walk into a class and realize that your professor is more like your colleague than someone that is just trying to force information on you.

I’ll miss all of you and good luck on your future endeavors!

The Impact of Photos

Photos have always played an important part in media, and their may not be two photos that caused more of a stir than the falling man photo and the girl falling from the fire escape. Obviously both of these photos show someone falling to their apparent death, but one of them can be used to help better the environment of city apartments, while the other basically just tears at your emotions.

The Stanley Forman photo eventually led to better fire escapes at the apartments, which I think justifies running the photo in the paper, somewhat. It still shows someone that is about to fall to their death or serious injury, which definitely does not pass the breakfast test.

The falling man photo doesn’t pass the breakfast test either, and to me shouldn’t have been run in the paper. All this photo does is add to the sadness of the families that lost loved ones in this tragic event.

South Park Under Fire

Let’s be honest, South Park has always been known to push the limits when it comes to content. I know I find most of their content funny, but at the same time I don’t take it seriously. I can see where this episode could offend the Muslim community as it would offend Christians in America if they did something like this to Jesus, but threatening to kill someone over it is a little much.

The apparent death threats from Revolution Muslim are an interesting subject, since we are dealing with things like this during the Michael Brown-Darren Wilson case. Yes, you have the right to speak what is on your mind, to a point. When that freedom of speech goes as far as to be a threat, that’s where you will see people, and possibly law enforcement draw the line. The Supreme Court is actually dealing with this case right now, as to what is considered a threat on social media or the internet in general. It will be interesting to see what the high court says.

Alex from Target

I find this situation absolutely crazy but at the same time it doesn’t surprise me at all. With the digital age in full swing and the millennial’s “taking over the internet,” I am surprised however that this doesn’t happen more often. Some teenybopper takes a picture of a cute boy somewhere and posts it, then the zillion other teen girls share and retweet the hell out of it.

One thing that I do find very sad about the situation is all the negativity Alex is getting from it. I mean the kid didn’t ask to become a social media star, it just happened when he wasn’t looking. That’s almost like telling somebody you’re going to kill them for winning the lottery, granted, money has a little more of a motive behind it than 50 million retweets. Or does it? In this day and age, it’s sad how much people judge the quality of their life off of how many friends or followers they have on social media.

Anti-Mike Bost Campaign Ad

With the midterm elections fresh in my mind, it was easy to think of a political ad that I wanted to review. The democratic party in Illinois was out to bash Mike Bost for his apparent explosion in congress, so they used it in their favor. They had an actor walk up to different groups of people and have an outburst of anger like Bost did, while putting graphics with information on them up and talking about them.

I think the information in this ad could be useful to most voters, but is overshadowed by the outrageous acting in the commercial. It really makes you pay more attention to what the actors are doing and not to the information that is being explained.

I didn’t think there was a sufficient amount of information in the ad, basically three key points. Most people aren’t going to make a decision about who they want to vote for based on three things, especially with the lack of depth that they were explained in.

The information could be taken as trustworthy by some, but I really don’t believe anything that I see in political ads. The reason being is that most of them are out to defame their opponent instead of talk about the good things they have done and will do in the future. A lot of them get their information from newspaper quotes which could be bias, such as the Belleville Democrat that is used in most Democratic ads.

I would say that the audience for this ad would be voters in Illinois who are middle of the table voters, meaning they don’t mind voting Democrat or Republican. Most of your Democratic voters are going to vote for that party no matter what, so the campaign is geared at grabbing the attention of those voters who don’t exactly know who they are going to vote for.