Contributing Editor for New Jersey Newsroom.com

The strongest competent of the ENGL409: Blogging in the News course was being a contributing editor for the NewJerseynewsroom.com. A New Jersey-based news blog that brings together aggregated posts on articles written about top stories in the state. It was a component of the class that I wish to have utilized more of my energy into perfecting and what I regret the most about being in the class. Having the ability to work as student contributors to a news site that receives more than 900,000 monthly visitors is surreal in and of itself and although my posts were never placed on the site I enjoyed honing my skills in writing aggregate posts.

Blogging is an art of journalism that I have been trying to dabble in for a very long time but have never started until working in this class. During this class I have learned how different blogs are from traditional articles, more importantly there is a huge difference in tone within the writing. There are three steps to writing aggregate posts: develop idea for posts, identify the sources, and add additional reporting and write up. What I found most difficult about writing a post at times, after selecting the ‘hot topic’ I wanted to write on, was ideally how to frame the post in new way that delved deeper into the context of the story.

Most interesting about our time as contributing editors for the newsroom was that for many of us were writing articles on topics that stretched our thinking and were difficult to piece together which required us to push our sources. Many of these stories required us to go directly to the source or write on topics outside of what we usually write on. I personally enjoyed posts on crime and altercations within government spheres but I found a lot of enjoyment in posting about Carmelo Anthony’s Shark Fishing Adventure. Looking back on this class, I hope I can receive more opportunities such as these with NJNR and other news blog sites and I hope to make the most of it in the future.

Here are just a few of the aggregated post I worked on during the semester:

https://docs.google.com/a/udel.edu/document/d/1CxTZcvy0Jgjh35pSFh_hc2C3xT7K8w8u06GMihwyEP4/edit

https://docs.google.com/a/udel.edu/document/d/1jnZj4V4Lp_yblmKwoZkofnI_JyGw3RkFTBMMfiW3zsE/edit

https://docs.google.com/a/udel.edu/document/d/1OU58hG7y-3hXj3fOKmBK2zkPw2lV3Nt9ZLPOYDbcW2U/edit

About Me: Ayanna Simone Gill

Ayanna Simone Gill is a finishing sophomore Communications Interest Major with a triple minor in Journalism, Black American Studies and Political Communications at the University of Delaware. Ayanna was born in Brooklyn, New York and moved to Princeton, New Jersey with her family at the age of 12, where she attended West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South and graduated with honors. During his time in middle school and high school Ayanna was an active member of the school’s television network and was assistant editor for the school’s newspaper and yearbook. Ayanna developed her passion for journalism and video production at a young age which led her to attend the University of Delaware in pursuit of her Bachelors in Mass Production. Ayanna hopes to gain hands-on experience within the field of broadcast journalism during her years of undergrad, with the ultimate goal of working for a major news outlet in the near future.

Check out the links of my work as an intern with the Office of Communications and Marketing at UD:

http://www.udel.edu/udaily/2014/oct/social-media-halloween-102913.html

The Newark Historical Society

One of our digital fieldwork assignments of the semester was a photo gallery slideshow video. I had a great deal of difficulty with this assignment and found it hard to select a subject that I wanted to build my video on. In the beginning I pitched the idea of focusing on an international student at the University of Delaware and how their transition has been as a first time student at an American institution of higher education. But it was rather difficult for me to gather all my shots because my subject was very busy, which didn’t give me enough time to shoot photos that developed into a complete story.

With the help of Professor Jones’ guidance, my photo gallery video was about the Newark History Museum. A museum that I had never heard of or seen before and located just minutes from my campus near a historic 1877 railroad station. On a beautiful Sunday afternoon I gathered shots of the museum, just adjacent to the railroad tracks and a nature trail that community residents and students travel along. I aimed at focusing on the history the exhibit emanated through more than 300 years of artifacts and pictures, but more importantly how community orientated the museum is. The residents of Newark and the elderly citizens that volunteer their time to maintain the authenticity of the museum are the foundation of the video.

The Newly Hens Game Show

Heading into the Video Production Assignment was rather simple to accomplish because I have been waiting to highlight something truly close to me in one of my projects. A close space to me on campus is the Student Television Network, a place that I honestly call my second home at times with a group of amazing students dedicated in the field of video production. Making my subject one of the shows broadcasted on the network, I made sure to grab the perfect time to highlight them in action, during their final show of the semester.

Utilizing the Five Shot Rule, I decided to get in on the action and go behind-the-scenes with the underlying narrative being how much work and dedication goes into bringing a television show to the screen. The Newly Hens Game show plays off of the classic nationally televised game show called “The Newlyweds Game”. The show features University of Delaware Students as well as members of the community competing to see which pair of contestants know the most about each other. This video was a lot of fun to put together and I thank the cast and producers Scott Lederman, Tessa Flores and Loren Flores for allowing me to bring their amazing show to light.

A package I did my freshman year while working with the Student Television Network, 49 News. This piece was done during the 2012 presidential elections and highlighted a National Agenda course, taugtht by Dr. Paul Brewer, as part of the political communications department at the University of Delaware.

This package was shot and edited by Ayanna Gill*

Enjoy

University of Delaware Blue Hens Football Game, 2013

Hello everyone and welcome to my amazing blog about my experiences as an undergraduate journalism student at the University of Delaware. Being a journalism student is not an easy feat, it takes hard work and determination to find stories that can truly impact your community or shed light on situations within your community that have never been acknowledged. This semester I had the amazing privilege of taking ENGL409: Blogging in the News course, in the beginning I was very intimated by the caliber of this class. What was truly exciting about the course was that you were given agency to take charge of your assignments within the class, through digital fieldwork assignments that tested our skills in photography to video slideshows that gave us the ability to utilize our skills in sound and editing production, students of the class were given the chance to take ownership of their projects. I specifically remember a class with Professor Richard Jones, a seasoned journalist and alumni of UD, who stated that this class is what we make of it and it is more important that as journalist we take authority of our work because it reflects our talents and skills as budding journalists.

His words spoke volume to what I aimed to achieve throughout the semester in his course. Being only a sophomore and a novice journalist, I embraced his class because I admire the fact that in many ways it reflected how being a journalist is like in real-life, continuously writing aggregated post on daily news stories to working on mandatory deadlines. You acknowledged through the class that these individual assignments and writing posts for newjerseynewsroom.com are gearing  us towards developing our profiles as journalists within the field. I truly admired every assignment and hope that you enjoy the work that I have accomplished over a semester.

Digital Images

Getting started with the Digital Images Assignment was a bit interesting for me. Prior to the start of the assignment we were given tutorials on how to properly handle a DSLR camera. I’m an avid lover of photography and enjoy taking still images of flowers, statues, and landscapes; my type of camera is a Nikon with standard angled lens and a powerful zoom lens to grab the strongest of details in my photos. Being my first time utilizing a DSLR camera, the moment I rented it from the library I immediately was excited to get started taking photos and I snapped everything and anything. When the camera was in my possession, I started to see the world differently and without realizing I looked for opportunities to take great photographs. I began to understand that even the most seasoned of photographers must take thousands of photos to end up with that one amazing photo that stands out from the rest.

I took my camera everywhere. Even on a trip to the city of Wilmington, Delaware where I happened to be a student coordinator for the National Conference of Black Political Scientists in March. Having that camera attached to me at all times I took photos of people, objects, flowers and the overall aesthetic moments of the area. By following our readings on visual basics, I gathered  a variety of long, medium, and close-up shots along with properly framed head-shots of a person, depth of field shots of object(s) moving and the rule of thirds.