AV Students Gain Real Experience with PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs at SXSW

Daphne Longenbach, Heritage Editor-in-Chief| March 13, 2023

  • Posing for a selfie, Ivy Beltran ’23 meets youtube educator Hank Green. Beltran has watched Green’s videos since middle school. “Seeing the truly awesome and funny, generous, kind person he is, it was outstanding, breathtaking, and I couldn’t talk or move at the same time,” Beltran said.

    Daphne Longenbach
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  • Laughing, Colin Johnson ’23 chats about his projects with teachers and other students. PBS NewsHour hosted a meet up at SXSW EDU for students to learn from each other. “We had people come and ask about our projects,” Johnson said

    Courtesy of David Winter
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  • At SXSW EDU, Ivy Beltran ’23 interviews 2022 National Teacher of the Year Kurt Russell. This was Beltran’s first on-camera interview. “I was really nervous about how I was going to read the questions off my phone and be discreet at the same time, but the PBS crew were super nice, super helpful, gave me a lot of tips, and the interview went really good,” Beltran said.

    Courtesy of David Winter
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On Tuesday, March 7 and Wednesday, March 8, Audio/Video Production (AV) students joined others from across the nation at the South by Southwest (SXSW) EDU Conference and Festival to work on PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs. At the conference, AV seniors Ivy Beltran Lopez, Daphne Longenbach, Kathryn Schiff, Colin Johnson, and Anjali Sunil worked on interviews with various educators.

“I learned various journalism experiences, broadcasting experiences, [and] different ways to move cameras, how to position people in interviews, [and] lighting,” Lopez said.

In addition to handling the cameras for interviews with Hank Green, Joy Harjo, and Michaela Goade, Lopez conducted an on-camera interview with 2022 National Teacher of the Year Kurt Russell.

“I researched a lot about him and learned a lot about him. His vocabulary was amazing and I just felt like what he had to say meant a lot,” Lopez said.

The students were also able to visit the exposition area of the festival, filled with educational innovations and booths. On March 8, PBS NewsHour hosted a meet-up for students to discuss their projects.

“[I enjoyed] talking about myself and hearing about other people, and other teachers, there was some interesting stuff there,” Johnson said.

After learning about video production for all four years of high school, getting real experience was crucial to the AV students’ education.

“When you go out to an event like this, and you’re doing the production, and you’re seeing it all come together in a real world experience, that’s when I think it clicks for [students],” AV teacher Ms. Tish Saliani said.