Media Mania in Las Vegas… by Nancy Dupont

The following is a blog entry by Assistant Professor (soon to be Associate Professor) Nancy Dupont:

Media Mania—that’s my nickname for the annual conclave of broadcasting organizations which occurs during one week in April every year in Las Vegas. Tens of thousands of people, ranging from the professional to the merely interested, flood into the desert for the meetings of the National Association of Broadcasters, the Radio-Television News Directors Association, and the Broadcast Education Association, all accompanied by the largest showcase of communication equipment and software in the world. It is dizzying, thrilling, and exhausting, all at the same time.
I was one of four Ole Miss Journalism Department faculty members who went to “mania” week, and I think I speak for all of us in saying that we learned a lot of things which can help us answer the all-important question: How can we communicate better, faster, and with greater impact? And how can we help our students discover their own answers to the questions, both for now and in the future?
But there was a certain touch of sadness this year. Over and over again during discussions at BEA, we returned to the issue of campus violence and our students’ ability to deal with it, as students and well as student-journalists. We examined the performance of student media at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University where gunmen unleashed so much tragedy during the past year. As we all pondered our students’ ability to deal with such an event, the message came through loud and clear: it could happen anywhere. Even here.
Twenty-first century student media are now faced with a number of new issues. Should there be an emergency plan for student-journalists? Is there a need for an off-campus gathering site for student-journalists should the campus be locked down? Should student-journalists have cameras with them all the time so they could capture a violent incident? Do they need press credentials? And should there be a network of counselors available for student-journalists if they were to witness something tragic?
I have no doubt that Ole Miss students would be brave in trying to tell a tragic story; Sidna Brower Mitchell proved in 1962 that excellent journalism can come from young reporters, even in the worst of times. But I am worried that violence is even a possibility for all of our students in a time and place that should provide their opportunity to grow and learn without worries about their own safety.
It is a sign of our times, and not a good one.