Chesapeake Associated Press Broadcasters Association

2007 Scholarship Competition

Winner:
Sarah Merkey
University of Maryland, College Park

Sarah accepted the $2,000 scholarship during the
2007 CAPBA Convention

Sarah's Winning Essay:

            As is the norm in many classes on the first day of middle school, my 7th grade teacher went around the room and asked each of us to tell the class a little bit about ourselves.  In an effort to encourage the awkward, less loquacious students—awkward I may have been, but I never had a problem speaking up—she prompted us with a question. 

            “What’s your favorite television show?” 

            I was oblivious to the “cool” answers that would have ensured my survival in the jungle of 7th grade; most kids said MTV’s Total Request Live with Carson Daly, and the really cool kids said MTV’s Real World. 

In total honesty, I said Dateline, adding that when I got a chance to watch The Today Show I liked that too.  I’ve always been drawn to broadcast journalism, fascinated by the world and all its stories.  It’s impossible for me to pinpoint when I first became interested in broadcast journalism, because the interest has been there for as long as I can remember.

When I came to college, the decision to major in broadcast journalism was not something that I took lightly; for a time, I considered the possibility of becoming a print reporter, and I interned and freelanced at the Harford Bureau of The Baltimore Sun.  But when I had to make the choice between print and broadcast journalism, I went with my gut.  I like how the broadcast medium can capture a story, tapping into senses that print cannot.

As is my tendency, once my choice was made I dove in, immersing myself in the broadcast world.  After a short internship at WBAL-TV in Baltimore, I was hired as a freelance assignment editor, filling in occasionally as an Associate Producer.  For the past two and a half years I’ve learned more than I could fit on this page about how a local television station works, especially when it comes to news judgment.  Watching the newsroom work together to make decisions, especially difficult editorial decisions, is an education I couldn’t have gotten in school.

I’ve also had an interest in documentary; when I went abroad for a semester, I found my way into an internship at BBC-TV in White City, London, working on a 5-part documentary series on personal debt in Britain.  (“Found my way” is actually a nice way of saying I harassed everyone I could get a hold of until someone finally called me back).  Aside from learning techniques from some of the best in the business, it was a chance to look at journalism in a different culture. 

I was lucky enough to go with a producer to Blackpool, a city north of London that has a feel something like Atlantic City.  The two of us stayed overnight, interviewing a woman who had lived in poverty for the past 20 years after a loan shark took advantage of her.  The woman was beyond hospitable to us, opening up her humble home to our camera for an entire day.

She had one room in the front of the house that she kept as presentable as possible, a buffer between the outside world and the squalor that her family actually lived in.  The one thing she asked was that we didn’t show anything beyond that room.  Of course, the story was in her family’s poverty and we shot those rooms.  In post-production, the producers tried to be as sensitive as possible to her request while balancing the need to tell the story.  I’m not sure how it turned out, whether or not our subject was upset with the final product, but these types of ethical questions are everywhere in journalism.  Finding the balance between telling a story and respecting the subject isn’t easy, and you’ll find as many opinions about how to strike that balance as people you ask.  

The recent events at Virginia Tech have offered another chance to examine broadcast media’s role in covering tragedy.  Perhaps the most prominent coverage controversy concerns NBC News and the gunman’s home video.  When it first released the video, NBC News seemed to be patting itself on the back for cooperating with the authorities from the very beginning.  The public didn’t seem to agree with NBC Network News President Steve Capus that it had acted as ethically.  The backlash was strong and the criticism harsh.

I tend to err on the side of airing something rather than not airing it, and I think that NBC did the right thing.  I would rather give the public a chance to watch something and turn it off than censor it at all.  In the lead in to the story on NBC Nightly News, Brian Williams was tactful and honest about what was about to be presented.

That doesn’t mean the critics are wrong either, and I think the coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings could have been better, namely less focused on assigning culpability immediately after the events. 

Regardless, I think the most important thing is that the public has a forum to voice concerns over news coverage.  As new media becomes more popular, news coverage is becoming more of a dialogue; it is becoming easier for people to respond to what is broadcast through their radios or television sets, and I think that’s a good thing.  News outlets should be watched and criticized in the same way they watch government or business.        

I think on the whole, broadcast outlets put serious thought into what they air.  It may be naïve, but I think there are still a lot of people concerned with quality.  I want to work in broadcast news because I want to be one of them.  And because I don’t know that there’s anything else I want to do.

At this point, my plans post-graduation are to work as a reporter in a small-market station.  I’m expecting a low salary and ungodly hours, but I’m looking at the experience as an extension of my education; this scholarship would go a long way towards helping me get by.

I sometimes ask myself why I’m going into this business with its ethical dilemmas, public criticism, long workdays and bottom line obsessions.
         The honest answer is that I can’t imagine doing anything else.

Click here for more information on the 2008 Scholarship Contest.