The Yellow & Blue Podcast | Student Media at SDState | S2E6

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This episode features Sara Schoenfelder, Ryann Davis and Andrew Lewno, current students and members of student media at South Dakota State University.

From writing and reporting to broadcasting and podcasting, they’re gaining real-world experience while creating content that informs, connects and engages the campus community — and helping shape the future of student media.

The episode was recorded as part of MCOM 317: Multimedia Reporting, where classroom concepts come to life through hands-on opportunities like this, offering a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to produce student-led media.
 
Transcript:

[Andrew]: The same way that we do in athletics, the same way that people go in band competitions, too, and all the different things where SDSU goes to compete, I want to be able to wear that logo as like a proud thing. And I want other people to see what we're doing as live, and I want them to see it and say, wow, they are just like we are in other aspects. Like this is another area where SDSU is really leading the charge and they're doing a really good job of doing it.

[Heidi]: Hello, Jackrabbits Nation. My name is Heidi Bushong, and this is the Yellow and Blue Podcast. Today we're joined by Sara Schoenfelder, Ryann Davis and Andrew Lewno, all current students and members of student media here at South Dakota State University. From writing and reporting to broadcasting and podcasting, they're gaining real-world experience by creating content that informs, connects and engages the campus community.

They are evolving how student media can look and feel. They're also recording this episode as part of a hands-on learning experience, MCOM 317 Multimedia Reporting, where classroom concepts come to life through opportunities like this. Stepping behind the mic, sharing their perspectives, and giving us a closer look as to what it takes to produce student-led media.

Thank you all for being here today.

[Andrew]: Absolutely.

[Heidi]: I'm really excited to talk about this topic. I know it's one that's close to all of you. You all are involved in student media here at SDSU. The first question that I kind of want to ask you guys is, why did you decide to get involved in student media here at SDSU?

[Ryann]: I guess I'll start. When I was a junior in high school, I was supposed to take a child development course that I was really excited for. And then the class filled up, and they put me in one of my substitute classes, which was journalism. And I was like, I don't know anything about journalism, but it turned out that I loved it so much.

And I knew from there on out that I at least wanted to do something writing-focused after high school and when I eventually got a job. So, I started at SDSU as a journalism major and never looked back. I was in Jim Helland's basic media writing class. It's kind of your entry-level course. And he asked me at the end of that semester if I would want to start working for the Collegian at the newspaper, and I did. So, it's kind of the best decision I ever made here.

[Heidi]: Very cool. How about you, Sara?

[Sara]: I've honestly, I've always really loved storytelling. And I feel like journalism allows me to have a way to do that in sort of a way. I don't know. I've just always been interested in it. And even when I was little, I'd watch the news on TV, and I'd read the newspaper when it'd come to my house every week. And it's always just captivated my interest.

[Heidi]: Very nice.

[Andrew]: My story is actually really similar to Ryann's. So, the high school that I went to, junior year was when you could really start picking your own classes. And so going into junior year, end of sophomore year, going into junior year, when I started to pick those classes, I was filling out, checking all the boxes that I needed, but I still needed electives. And I knew nothing about what electives were, what we had, because we had a pretty, I went to a smaller school, so we didn't have a ton to offer. But I knew the only one that I knew for a fact was an elective was journalism. And I'm like, sure, I don't mind this teacher, I guess. So not even a professor yet, but I'm like, I don't, you know, she's pretty cool. I'll have another class with her. And sure enough, it became an absolute dream, just like Ryann said, and I fell in love with it.

I really liked the work environment, the pace of work and everything, the people that were in it, and the same rang true when I came here to SDSU. The work environment's been great, and the people here are what keep me coming back.

[Heidi]: Love that. You all are involved in different areas of student media here at SDSU. Kind of tell me about the student media organization. It's all kind of under like this Collegian media umbrella, and it's really expanded here, this academic year. Tell me about that.

[Ryann]: So, we have the Collegian, which is our weekly newspaper. It comes out every Wednesday. We have the Collegian Report, which comes out on Fridays. It's a news broadcast. And then we have Collegian Online, which is where we put all our stories online throughout the week. We also have KSDJ, the radio station. And then, yeah, that's kind of everything under the umbrella.

[Heidi]: You also have a newsletter.

[Ryann]: Yes. Thank you for pointing that out. That goes out every week on Wednesdays and sometimes Thursdays if it's, you know, it's just week by week. But that goes to students' emails. You can sign up for that and get all of our kind of newsiest headlines of the week.

[Heidi]: For sure. And to kind of establish for the audience, what part of the student media branch are you a part of?

[Ryann]: So, I am the news director for Collegian media. I guess a majority of my job roles focus on the newspaper, but I do help with the Collegian Report every week, too.

[Sara]: I'm kind of involved in like everything. I'm still finding my place, but I'm mainly involved with KSDJ. That's our radio station. And I host a, I co-host a show every Wednesday. And then I also write freelance stories for the Collegian newspaper.

[Heidi]: Very cool. To give your show a shout out, what is it called?

[Sara]: It's called The Variety.

[Heidi]: And when can people listen to it?

[Sara]: This semester, we're live on air from 4 to 5 p.m. on Wednesdays. We kind of just talk about whatever. It's kind of just like a fun little like podcast radio show. We play songs that we like. That's all that really goes into it.

[Heidi]: For sure. It's on FM radio. What is the call number?

[Sara]: KSDJ 90.7.

[Heidi]: Like she's said that before.

[Andrew]: Trained, trained professional, truly.

[Heidi]: How about you, Andrew?

[Andrew]: So, my position is both as a multimedia journalist for Collegian media, which as I like to describe is doing whatever the Emilys tell me to. So, whatever our editor-in-chief Emily DeCock will ask me and whatever our broadcast director Emily Attrill will ask me. And I also serve as Emily Attrill's assistant broadcast director. But yeah, that's kind of where my main focus is. But I have experience in all of it.

[Heidi]: Very cool. Very cool. You all are majors within the School of Communication and Journalism, but you don't have to be, to be a part of this. I know when I was a part of student media, our best photographer was like an engineering student. Like it kind of blew my mind. But sometimes it's nice to get other people's perspectives, right? So, tell me about that.

[Ryann]: So, we have some photographers, like you were saying. I know we have a human bio major, construction management major, and they're really good at what they do. So yeah, you definitely do not have to be directly involved in the journalism world to work for Collegian media. I know I was saying the other day we have graphic design, is another aspect of it. We have page layouts every week that need to get designed. So, if that's something that you have practiced with, you can do that, too.

[Heidi]: Perfect. Anybody can get involved.

[Andrew]: Absolutely. Anybody. Yeah.

[Heidi]: Very nice. How, like if someone's listening to this and they're thinking, oh, that kind of sounds like fun. How do they approach it?

[Ryann]: So, we have a job application spot on our website. It's SDSUCollegian.com. Otherwise, you can reach out through email. And then I'm pretty sure all of our emails are listed on the website. Or you can reach out to any of the COJO staff. They're always happy to help.

[Heidi]: One thing that when we were talking about this show and producing it, one thing that was really, really important to you guys, Andrew, and you specifically, you wanted to share the amount of work that goes into doing some of this stuff. Like this stuff doesn't just appear overnight. The paper, the report, podcast, you know. What all goes into creating your different areas of media?

[Andrew]: When you introduce it like that, it kind of makes me sound like I'm bitter about it almost. (laughter) But no.

[Heidi]: You just want to be acknowledged for the hard work you do.

[Andrew]: I do. I'm not gonna lie. I think that the conversation that we were having before was that at the end of the day, no matter how good or how bad of a week we had, how slow or how busy, the people who aren't involved, they're only going to see the finished product. And that's the case for student media. That's the case for anything. It could be the same thing for music. It could be the same thing for a live production like a play. It could be the same thing for just about anything. When you make something, people are only going to see the finished product unless they get that peek behind the curtain. And I think that's important for people to see.

I think people don't know that we have a meeting every Monday where we talk about the stories, where we talk about who needs to be going where, where we discuss things for the week. And then that following day on Tuesday night, we'll have hours locked in the newsroom where we will be putting together a newspaper. And that has its ups and downs. Sometimes we'll be singing songs to ourselves and dancing in between getting stories edited. And then other times we'll be pulling our hair out because someone hasn't sent us photos yet, and we're stressing out because we need to meet deadline.

[Heidi]: You got to send it to the publisher.

[Andrew]: Exactly, exactly. But at the end of the day, they just see what comes out and we always get through it. But there's a lot of work that goes into it, especially the balancing act that we have to do now with Collegian media, not just the paper, not just the broadcast, but everybody usually is working on, most times people are working on stuff on both ends at the same time.

[Ryann]: And like you were saying, we have these long Tuesday nights and then you wake up on Wednesday and you're like, OK, now it's time to focus on the Collegian Report. What are all these things we still need to get done for that on Friday? So, there is so much that goes into it.

And I think weeks sometimes feel like they're going really slow. And then you look back and you're like, oh my gosh, it's actually going really fast because we're focused on this all the time.

[Heidi]: Yeah. How about you, Sara? What kind of goes into the process of a podcast?

[Sara]: I feel like because we do our podcasts live, there's not as much work into it because we don't have to edit. For a podcast like this, you do have to edit. And we don't plan our script, but I know other people who have shows and they also, they either do it live or sometimes they have a script that they follow, which means they have to write it in advance, pick out their songs, pick out their guests if they're having any. And then if their guest cancels or something, they have to be like, OK, now I need to go find something new. That happened a few weeks ago. Someone was telling me about that. And I was like, oh, that's a bummer. Now you have to go rewrite that script.

But for The Variety, we always, we try to like pick a few topics ahead of time. And then we get in there and the show is an hour long from four to five. And we kind of get there around 3:45. We unlock the station and then we go in there. We clear out the songs and then we pick our songs and then we just start talking. And then, yeah, we don't plan it because we like it to feel natural, in a way. But I know people, I know there's someone who has a two-hour show and he writes out a script for the whole time.

[Heidi]: Holy cow.

[Ryann]: Wow.

[Heidi]: That's a lot of work.

[Sara]: Yeah, it is.

[Ryann]: I was going to ask you if you guys set any ground rules for like, this is something we should never talk about.

[Sara]: We didn't do that.

[Ryann]: I mean, I feel like that's something I would be worried about, but maybe you just know to like have kind of a thing.

[Sara]: When we got trained in, the station manager told us like the “no's,” like the do's and don'ts of radio. And like, obviously, like you don't swear and like you don't like bring up like bad topics.

[Ryann]: Yeah.

[Sara]: And obviously like keep it professional, but we just have fun with it. And we try not to take it too seriously, if that makes sense.

[Heidi]: Sara's got FCC guidelines she needs to follow.

[Sara]: Yeah. Yeah. So as long as we're following those, it's fine. I mean, there's never been a point where I've been like, OK, we need to change the topic now. It's never been like that.

[Heidi]: “Can I steer you in a different direction, please?”

No, I think that's probably something we should talk about, too, is how do you approach what you're going to write about? What's going to be in the paper? Like pitching content is a huge part, coming up with new ideas every single week. Like that's a huge part of the job.

[Ryann]: One of my main job roles is keeping track of what we call a story budget. So, it's just a running document of all of our available stories, all of the ones that have been taken with people's names next to them who are supposedly writing them. Most of the time, hopefully they are. And each week on Monday nights, those stories get pitched to the reporters who come to our meetings. Sometimes we have really good Monday nights where people are willing to take a lot of stories, and sometimes no one takes a story. So that's when it's kind of distributed among ourselves, especially if there's stories that we're like, this needs to happen. We really want to have coverage on this. But I feel like as far as importance, we kind of steer toward the newsiest stuff. And then like fun features or lifestyle stories are usually tried to get implemented in those, too. Or something stands out that we're like, those would make really good photos. We try and put a gallery in and stuff.

[Heidi]: So, like from the report side, is everything that's in the paper, does it make the report? Or do you kind of have to decipher like, this will, this won't? Or is it different content?

[Andrew]: It's, there's a lot of overlap sometimes, but it's definitely story dependent. And I think it's week dependent, too. We'll have some stories that are fantastic for the paper. It's very newsy. It's very informational. There's really good content to be read. But that same content maybe wouldn't translate to a conversational style script of a broadcast. And maybe it also doesn't have a lot of visual elements. That's the biggest thing I look for, is how can we make this story visually interesting? Because it's one thing to have a newscast where you have an anchor sitting on camera the whole time, just reading through a script. That's one thing. But it's much more interesting and much more engaging when you have something to look at. And so, we try very hard to make sure that most of our stories, as many as we can really, have a video element, as well as what we call a soundbite, which is basically just a clip of an interview on camera with someone. And I think that's the biggest thing we look for. So sometimes we do have things that overlap, which it's not uncommon at all, which is kind of the reason why we have people who are able to do as many things as they are, because they can write the story in the very formal, very informational, three sources, traditional print style. But then they could also take that same information and write it more conversationally, shorten it down a lot, and make it completely applicable for a broadcast story with visual elements.

[Heidi]: Right. For sure. You get a lot less words with broadcasts than you do news ads.

[Andrew]: Absolutely.

[Heidi]: I can speak from experience.

Sara, when you and your other co-hosts are going into a show, do you have anything in the back of your head that you're like, oh yeah, I definitely want to talk about this. I know my co-hosts would talk a lot about this. Do you have any form of outline as to like ...

[Sara]: Usually I try to brainstorm some topics ahead of time, and sometimes I won't tell them beforehand, but sometimes I'm like, oh, the Winter Olympics are happening right now. We should look up the medal count. Are we winning? That's something people might care about. Just like with the Super Bowl, just current events, I'm always like, oh, wait, this is kind of interesting. What if we talked about this? Sometimes I'll be like, yeah, guys, have you watched the Winter Olympics? Have you watched? Then we're just able to talk about that. Oh, what's your favorite event? Do you have a favorite athlete? Just stuff like that. And sometimes we'll talk about the songs. I think every day since I started the show, my mom texts me one artist that she thinks I should play. And so, I'll always look to see if we have it. And then I'm like, OK, well, I'm going to play some Phil Collins today because my mom asked me to. So, then I'll usually be like, oh, Phil Collins, listen a little bit about him. And then here's a song.

[Ryann]: This one's for you, Mom.

[Heidi]: You'll be in my heart. He didn't have to go that hard on Tarzan, yet he did.

So, when you guys are approaching different ways and different things to put in your different areas of student media, sometimes you are the first ones to break the news or approach a topic first. Tell me about that experience and what that has been like.

[Andrew]: It's been a busy year for that, it feels. And in the past, granted, I haven't been as involved in our previous years as I have been this year, but it feels like this year we have had a lot more hard news happening on SDSU. It keeps us busy, if nothing else.

[Ryann]: I feel like we should shout out our editor-in-chief, Emily DeCock, and our breaking news and digital news editor, Brayden Byers, because they're very involved in a lot of the stuff we've had to do this year as far as breaking news. And they did a ton of work. So that's, I mean, I just really want to credit them. That can't not happen. But it's really rewarding, I think. I like hearing that another real news source used your story is really cool, too, especially as a student journalist.

[Heidi]: Yeah, because from the communications side, I can speak to local news outlets. They're paying attention to what you guys are doing because you're the eyes and ears on the ground as to what's happening. So that has to be a pretty good feeling when you see that stuff get picked up.

[Ryann]: Yeah, absolutely.

[Andrew]: It gives a lot of validity being anywhere from 18 to 21, maybe 22 years old, and having, like Ryann said, a professional news outlet look to the work that we are doing for their information and for their story ideas. It definitely gives you a sense that you're in the right direction. What you're doing is being seen and you're doing a good job of it.

[Heidi]: Yeah, absolutely. Let's talk a little bit about how student media has changed. I've been on the SDSU campus since 2012, and that's when I started to become involved in student media here. And I can tell you, like, you guys are doing an awesome job. And there's so much variety in different ways you can pursue things. I was kind of like you, like I wanted to pursue broadcasting and there wasn't as much on campus, I would say, as there is now in terms of like organizations to do that. But one thing I noticed is that you guys, while even though you do have a smaller paper, your online presence is so like robust because the newspaper industry just kind of has changed that much, right? How else have you guys seen things change over time?

[Ryann]: I think it definitely helps to have a social media presence, just because it's a huge part of our society nowadays. I know every week when the newspaper comes out, we have like a bunch of social media posts that we make beforehand. And then we post those on Wednesdays when the paper comes out. And then we plug the Collegian Report when it comes out, too. So that really helps with our online presence. And then I think posting stories throughout the week instead of just all in one night when we're producing the paper, that really helps as well. So, spreading things out and making sure you post a story right before an event, that can help as well.

[Sara]: Yeah, for radio, I mean, like 20 years ago, you had to be in the area to listen, where now you can listen from anywhere. Like my family back in Minnesota, they are able to listen. I send them the link to tune in and they're able to listen where they don't have to like use like an actual radio and try to find the station because they wouldn't get it from where they are. And that helps a lot, especially because KSDJ, we don't have like, we don't go very far. Like it's most of Brookings County, but you can listen from anywhere, like from any place, anywhere.

[Heidi]: Andrew, how have you seen things change over time with the Collegian Report?

[Andrew]: There's been a lot of changes. When I first started, it was just kind of on a whim, actually. It was about a year ago in the spring semester. I was at just a weekly reporters meeting and the editor at the time, and Rocky Dailey, professor Rocky Dailey, who is kind of the one who oversees the broadcast side of this all. They were both down there and they had mentioned, hey, we're looking for a little more help with the broadcast side of it. If you're interested, come talk to us afterward. And I had done a story actually on Rocky for his documentary work when I was like a freshman. So, I'm like, I recognize that guy. I guess I'll go talk to him kind of thing. So, the familiar face turned into a conversation about what that would look like, how I can help, when it would be. And I showed up once just to kind of check it out. And then I thought, well, we only showed up once, you know what I mean? So, then I showed up a second time, and I showed up a second time like, well, I feel like I'm obligated to show up a third time. And then I was just there every week, and they put me to work every time. They gave me, they kind of, they eased me into it. They didn't just drop me in the fire, but they taught me what I needed to know. And I started, and it's changed a lot. 

We went from having one anchor and everything being done in post-production, and we were lucky if we had a 10-minute show. We're like, holy cow, guys, we got a lot of content. We have a whole 10-minute show. And now fast forward just a year later. It's crazy to think it's only been a year since then. We now have oftentimes four, if not five anchors. We have a weather segment. We have an ag segment. We have sports. We have sponsors. We have people from the Brookings area community who have contacted us and said, we like what you guys are doing. We would like to offer you guys finances so that we can help you guys continue this, which is mind blowing.

[Ryann]: It’s amazing.

[Andrew]: And now we have, absolutely. Yeah. And now we have 10-minute shows and we're like, man, it was a light week this week. And it's insane to think about where we started. I mean, two years ago, before I even got here, this was out of the basement of the union with someone holding a laptop underneath the camera.

[Ryann]: As the prompter.

[Andrew]: As the prompter. And now two years later, two years later, we have as many subscribers as other university news outlets who have been doing this for years. And since like 2014, it feels really cool to see where it's come.

[Heidi]: How does that make you want to keep going? Keep growing?

[Ryann]: I think probably just the fact that people are reaching out and recognizing that we exist and that we post every week because sometimes it's like, are people even watching this? But it lets you know that people do see it. And I think that alone makes me want to keep doing it.

[Heidi]: So how about you, Sara?

[Sara]: I just love being involved. And so, I want to keep getting involved in the future. And I love just seeing all the new faces and seeing all the new people. And I get to work with so many different people every day. Whether it's for the Collegian, when I'm writing freelance, I get to meet so many people and I get to try so many things. And I want everyone to have that experience. If they're looking for it, it's honestly just so much fun.

[Andrew]: It feels like compound interest, really. If this is how far we've come now, imagine where we could be if we continue this pace. We continue all the changes that we've made and all the trajectory. Think about what's possible, kind of thing.

[Heidi]: How to make things better for the next person, too.

[Andrew]: Absolutely, yeah.

[Heidi]: Since you all are COJO majors, this is somewhat related to what you'll be doing for a career once you're done with SDSU. How is experience like this preparing you for your future career?

[Ryann]: That's a great question. I think that dipping your feet into every single aspect of journalism really helps you and prepares you for whatever job you might end up doing. Just because I feel like multimedia journalism has the most presence now. And you want to have the photography skills or the broadcast skills and especially the writing skills in any job. I think the more you can do, the more people will want to hire you.

[Sara]: Yeah, to add on to that, I really think that coming out of school with a lot of, maybe a little experience in a lot of different things, it really adds to your skill set because you know how to do so many different things from just different areas of journalism.

[Andrew]: When I was first contacted by Jim Helland about the multimedia journalism position here coming into this year, he told me, I was kind of on the fence about it. I didn't know if I'd be able to handle the workload. And he said, “Andrew, if you finish this and you do this and you are able to add this to your resume and put the stuff that you worked on in your portfolio,” he said, “the journalism industry and people who are going to want to hire you, they're going to be foaming at the mouth to have someone, to have that level of knowledge in so many different areas.” And exactly like you guys had stated before, it's just where the industry is at. You'd be hard pressed to find a journalism outlet and the workers inside of it that didn't have these skills. That's just how it is. And I think that's why going from The Collegian to Collegian Media and adding all of KSDJ and all of the newscast and all of all of it under this one big umbrella, I think it's propelling this journalism program to becoming at the forefront of the area and preparing students in the best way possible for what is to come.

[Heidi]: As a person who's on the other side of it, like I was in your guys' shoes once working for The Collegian, I was looking back last night, reading some of my old stuff and the one thing that I would say that The Collegian has done for me and I hope that it does for each and every one of you is the connections, like both personally and professionally. Like I was reading some of my stories and I work with a lot of the people who I actually covered back in the day. Like Ben Stout was Students’ Association president. He's still very much in the Brookings community and prominent alumni. Then dean of the ag college, President Dunn, you know, now President Dunn, I covered him for some different ag stories and I'm like, wow, I actually work really closely with Barry's office now. And some personal connections, I met one of my best friends working at The Collegian, and we've been in each other's wedding and now we have kids that are the same ages and stuff like that. And I feel like that really kind of propels not just your career forward by knowing other people, but your life forward, too. But yeah, I was able to use my Collegian work because it was like my first professional work, right, to get that next internship, to get that next job, to get that career that I wanted. And that's how I ended up in this position today. So, hope for that for each and every one of you. 
Looking at the bigger picture overall, why should people support student media? Why should they care about what you guys are doing?

[Ryann]: I would say No. 1, we're keeping you informed. There's a lot of things that happen on campus that you might hear about and see a flyer for it, but you wouldn't see all of the pictures from the wacipi in the paper if it weren't for us. You know, stuff like that, I think.

[Sara]: Yeah, to add on to that, I really, since I've been involved, I feel like I just know so much about so many different things, like stuff I wouldn't normally know about. Like I know almost nothing about agriculture, but Little I was last weekend and I heard a lot about that. And that was just so interesting just because I've never heard about that before. And I'm able to just be so knowledgeable about everything. And I'll be talking to my friends who aren't in journalism. I'm like, hey, did you hear this was happening? And they're like, no, what is that?

[Heidi]: Read this, please.

[Sara]: And I'll be like, yeah, like, did you hear, like, this is happening? Like, this is so cool. And they're like, oh yeah, I never knew that was a thing. And I was like, oh yeah, I heard about it. Like, I know someone who wrote a story on it ,and they're like, oh yeah. And so, I just, I don't know. I just always like love, like learning about the different things because the campus is so like complex and you're able to like, to see like all the different sides of it

[Andrew]: I think it's kind of a two-prong thing when I think about it. I think the first one being it's important. People care about the media in general. People care, like you guys are saying, people want to be informed. And people want to experience that. They want to keep that, keep going, especially nowadays. I feel like it's very divisive at times, but ultimately people just want to know. And I think the other side of that is the fact that we are students. I think that's a unique perspective that a lot of people don't necessarily get. It localizes a lot of things for our audience, which usually are the students. It puts them in the forefront. A lot of times they're busy thinking about jobs and the adult world, and the adult world is reflective of that. They're thinking about the jobs in the adult world, but we are able to not only have that but also balance that with just being a student. Like we cover stuff about classes, about club organizations. Like we are covering stuff and involving things that a lot of places wouldn't offer. And it makes it very personalized for the experience that they're getting here at South Dakota State.

[Ryann]: Yeah, I think a lot of the reason that kids our age don't read the news is because it's coming from these people who have like, they're veteran journalists who are obviously very good, but they're not our age. They're not in the same position as we are. So, a lot of our work is by students for students. I think that really helps stand out, I guess.

I also wanted to say that we do a New Student Orientation edition every year for incoming freshmen. And that has a ton of information about SDSU in general. And because it's done by students, we feel like we prioritize the information that we'd wanna know when we're coming to college. And then we also make a calendar that you can have year-round that has all the football games, all the sporting events. Anything important you need to know is in the calendar, so.

[Heidi]: How to get involved, like your true guide to SDSU.

[Ryann]: Yes, absolutely.

[Heidi]: I love that. Look for that if you're a new incoming student at NSO, it'll be in the newsstands.

Looking ahead, I know you guys have grown a lot of things. A lot of things have changed over the last academic year. What's next?

[Ryann]: Well, next year, what we know for sure is I'll get to be editor-in-chief, which is really nerve wracking, but really exciting. I think one of our big goals for the Collegian Report is to produce it live instead of as live every week. So hopefully we can accomplish that next year. Sara will be a part of our team officially next year, which is also really exciting. So, there's a lot that I have kind of like a running list of goals right now. I'm hoping to do a lot more with KSDJ, too, and kind of work on our online presence with that as well.

[Heidi]: Ryann, I know you said you produce, you know, the work that you guys produce by students for students, but there are other people who are looking for your expertise as well. The Collegian and student media have had several South Dakota news organizations reach out for Collegian content, you know, to put as part of their publications. And maybe that's a partnership you guys can work out in the future, but how does it feel knowing that people want your expertise even though you're not necessarily in the professional world just yet?

[Ryann]: Yeah, I think that's a huge honor and it's really rewarding. I think it's also really exciting because like a news outlet in Sioux Falls, if we had pages of content in their paper, that's a whole another population of people who would see our work. So that's really cool. I also think, especially for like our sports editors or sports writers, there are students who get to go to these games every week and report on them. And that's not the opportunities that reporters like outside of SDSU would have. So, I think that's also to their advantage.

[Heidi]: Sara, The Variety, your podcast, along with your other co-hosts, it's a growing show, and you're looking to put it online outside of just KSDJ where people can come back and listen to it other than live. How does it feel knowing that people are looking for that content, that they're wanting to engage with it?

[Sara]: I'm honestly like, I just love it. I love that like we're growing and that people want to listen. This is so exciting because that's time out of their day that they're dedicating to listen to us. Maybe not the whole time, but maybe just a little bit. And that honestly by itself is just, it's so rewarding because like we do put work into it and we're on air for a whole hour and that's a good chunk out of our time. And so, it's nice that people like want to listen. They like hearing what we have to say. If we go into having like a podcast or something where we're able to put it online so people don't have to listen live, I think that would really expand to like our viewers because it's more accessible because listening live during the one specific hour, maybe someone's busy, maybe someone has a class. But if it's a podcast that is online, then they are able to like go back and listen to it. Maybe listen to old episodes that they might've missed. And that's just really exciting.

[Ryann]: I think you guys are really easy to listen to as well. It's like a super lighthearted hour of just fun. And I know every time I've listened, I get a lot of laughs out of it and it's always good music. So, like having it on while I'm doing homework even is really good, so.

[Sara]: Yeah, I've loved getting like the feedback from fellow students and professors and like family. And it's just, it's so rewarding, and other people have a lot of radio shows and other people can put their radio shows online, too, once we get to that point. And so, it's not just something that like The Variety is doing, but a lot of different shows because there's a lot of different shows that KSDJ has.

[Heidi]: Andrew, the Collegiate Report being live would be a huge deal.

[Andrew]: It would be huge.

[Heidi]: I don't know that I've seen an SDSU newscast be done live before. What kind of makes you want to pursue that?

[Andrew]: I think one of the biggest pushes for us is the Midwest Journalism Conference. In the Midwest Journalism Conference, there are different categories. And having a show done live and having a show done not live are two separate categories. So, when you look at other competition around that would be also in those categories, it's a lot of them are going to be in that live category. And right now, as good and as clean as we've been able to get our shows at the end of the day, they do have that one up that they are running as live because that is the ultimate goal. And that's going to be what all professionals are doing in the industry anyway. So not only for good practice to get you ready for what that's going to look like in a career setting, also for, this may sound a little bad, but the competitive spirit of it. I'm a really competitive person, and I'm sitting here on this Jackrabbit podcast. And so, I want to, you know what I mean? Like I want to represent  and I want to be able to put the same way that we do in athletics, the same way that people go in band competitions, too, and all the different things where SDSU goes to compete. I want to be able to wear that logo as like a proud thing. And I want other people to see what we're doing as live. And I want to be able to see that and say, wow, they are just like we are in other aspects. Like, this is another area where SDSU is really leading the charge, and they're doing a really good job of doing it.

[Heidi]: Really great point, Andrew. 

Thanks again to Sara, Ryann and Andrew for sharing how students are shaping the future of storytelling on campus while gaining real-world experience. Thanks for listening to the Yellow and Blue podcast. We'll see you next time.