USU grad on CNN
Julie Garcia, a recent USU graduate, is now a featured reporter on The Gig Guide, which appears daily on CNN.com.
Garcia, who graduated in December 2006, is one of three reporters who appear daily on The Gig Guide. The segment is designed to inform viewers on what bands are playing live across the country on any given day. Though the segment exposes viewers to all bands, it particularly focuses on lesser known groups, or the “underground” scene.
The Gig Guide is produced by The Palestra, a college news and entertainment site which produces segments on everything from college football teams to dining out in college towns.
Besides The Gig Guide, which is a very concise feature, Garcia does lengthier segments about groups with such names as The Sump Pumps and Summer Obsession. Garcia also ran a segment on The Palestra about local group The Rock Bandits. These segments include interviews and performances by the groups. They can be accessed through The Palestra’s Web site.
Julie said her favorite thing about working at The Palestra is the variety of things she gets to do. One day she’ll be shooting a story about a little-known band, and the next day she might be helping someone else shoot sports or a dining segment. “You go into work, and you don’t know what the heck to expect,” she said.
Penny Byrne, a broadcasting professor at USU, first introduced Garcia to The Palestra as an interesting option to get some experience in broadcast. Byrne said The Palestra, which receives material from college students across the country, offers a good opportunity for students to build their portfolio and is great for showing to potential employers.
Byrne said the Internet is a growing medium which will develop more and more over the coming years. “One of the advantages to the Internet is that it’s relatively unregulated,” she said. The Internet does not have the time restrictions of television, nor are there restrictions on how commercial it can become. She said over the coming years, more and more journalists may be expected to work on the Internet.
CNN.com is the most viewed news site in the world, according to a press release from The Palestra. However, Garcia said when she shoots material for The Gig Guide, she doesn’t feel nervous about who’s watching. “You go and shoot it, and you’re just looking at a camera,” she said. “You don’t think of how many people are going to see it.”
Garcia said studying at USU provided the base she needed to work in the real world. “Teachers are hard on you, but that’s what’s good about it,” she said. “You learn how to write solid stuff.”
The Gig Guide can be accessed through the entertainment section of CNN.com. More of Garcia’s work can be seen on The Palestra’s Web site at www.thepalestra.com.
-dpedwards@cc.usu.edu