When community members give on Day of Giving, they provide opportunities for students to participate in a variety of high-impact learning activities. In December, 10 media, communication and journalism majors attended Camp News, a two-day immersive broadcast journalism workshop designed to help hone students’ live reporting skills.
All 10 students received funds from the Dean’s Council Annual Fund, which is supported in part by Day of Giving donations.
Day of Giving is an annual, 24-hour, online fundraising effort beginning at midnight and running through 11:49 p.m. on Wednesday, March 18.
The camp is split into two distinct parts, each at a different location — the news anchor camp at Pepperdine University, and the reporter camp in the canyons of Malibu.
At the anchor camp, students navigate doing a newscast during a live, breaking car chase.
“They are working with their colleague, a helicopter reporter, as they are reporting this and seeing it for the first time,” said Kim Stephens, journalism lecturer at Fresno State and mentor at Camp News.
Meanwhile, at the reporter camp, another chaotic breaking news scene is unfolding. The simulation features actors in full costume and makeup, portraying victims, distraught family members or suspicious characters. Also on scene are real law enforcement and emergency medical technicians, including members of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and undercover police officers.
“We were sitting there during orientation and doing a big circle introduction … everybody introducing themselves, and then out of nowhere we heard sirens behind us,” said Olivia Pavao, a mass communication and journalism student. “We went outside, and there were fire trucks.”
With the chaos just beginning, students began gathering information and directing photographers on what to shoot.
“It was a first for me in that situation,” said Finnley Pendergast, a broadcast journalism student. “It took me a couple of minutes to really set in and notice where I was at … I learned a lot in the first 10 minutes of that.”
Every year, the scenario at Camp News is different. In fact, it’s a tightly guarded secret, so even the mentors don’t know what will happen. This year, it included a deadly fire at a home that was a suspected marijuana lab, while DEA and sheriff’s deputies conducted a fentanyl drug bust at a nearby home.
“I didn’t expect it to be as vibrant as it was. Something is happening every second. It was craziness all over the place. I was keeping my head on a swivel,” said Isaac Marquez, a broadcast journalism student.
With mayhem all around, students worked on finding their story, interviewing people, getting footage, asking questions at a news conference, writing and editing so they could deliver a live, on-air report.
The immersive experience allowed students to apply what they had learned in the classroom, or even on the Fresno State Focus student newscast, but to perform in a high-pressure environment, which is normally only experienced by professional reporters.
“They learn what the reality is. They are in it,” Stephens said. “You can learn it in a class. You can read it in a book. We can give you the best experience with Fresno State Focus, but [at Camp News] it’s expanded even further.”
Each reporting team was assigned a mentor, someone with experience in the broadcast news industry, who has helped them grow their professional network beyond the local area.
The students said they are grateful to Day of Giving and the Dean’s Council Annual Fund donors for providing them with hands-on experience in their area of study.
“Those people are allowing me to get out there and do what I love,” Marquez said. “In a way, they’re helping the community because one of my goals is to give voice to … communities that don’t have that opportunity.”
Pavao said the experience was unforgettable and helped solidify her career goals.
“I would just thank [the donors] for helping me discover what it is that I really want to do and helping foster my education in such a positive way,” Pavao said. “It was an amazing, amazing experience that I definitely won’t take for granted, and there are things that I’ll remember from Camp News forever.”
That kind of impact — the kind that shapes a career, sharpens a skill and sparks a calling — is what Day of Giving is designed to make possible. For 10 students who walked into the canyons of Malibu, once the sirens faded and the cameras stopped rolling, what remained was something no textbook could teach: the unshakable knowledge that when the chaos starts, they’ll know exactly what to do.
Fresno State’s annual 24-hour, online Day of Giving will be Wednesday, March 18. The College of Arts and Humanities relies on private financial support, such as funds raised from Day of Giving, to support student success. For questions about how to support arts and humanities students, contact Adam Goldberg at agoldberg@mail.fresnostate.edu or 559.278.8344.
