By BECKY GAILEY
J Alumni News staff
Doug Meyers
Sean McMullen and fellow UNL meteorology major Doug Meyers share a common goal: They want to be your local weatherman.
“Weather is a common conversation topic, and it affects everybody whether you realize it or not,” Meyers said. “What other profession can say that?”
With the help of a partnership between the College of Journalism and Mass Communications and the meteorology department, McMullen and Meyers are gaining live news experience. The two are earning meteorology credit while providing the weather reports for Star City News, which airs on Time-Warner Cable Channel 21 every Tuesday night at 5. Star City News is produced by students in the advanced reporting for broadcasting class. McMullen and Meyers also do forecasts for KRNU-FM, the J school’s radio station, and for the college’s news website, NewsNetNebraska.org.
Journalism faculty member Larry Walklin said the forecasts offer specific weather news for the university campus and the city of Lincoln that cannot be found anywhere else.
New partnership is founded on an older model
The J school and the meteorology department had a similar partnership in the 1990s when both units were in Avery Hall. Then the J school moved to Andersen Hall, and the meteorology department became a part of the geosciences department and moved to Bessey Hall. The partnership dissolved by the end of the decade.
Meteorology faculty member Mark Anderson has wanted to reactivate the partnership for several years, and he received permission to do so for the fall 2009 semester.
“The journalism school is one of the best in the country, so why not take the opportunity to use it?” Anderson asked. He contacted Walklin, who was involved in the previous partnership, and Anderson created a broadcast meteorology special topics course that students from both majors could take. Anderson teaches the students how to predict the weather and Walklin teaches them how to use the technology and relate information in a live broadcast.
“They need to be able to understand basically how to get the information across to the audience,” Walklin said. “Otherwise they’re essentially scientists in the lab without really getting information across to an audience.”
Getting real experience is important
Sean McMullen
Although the students benefited from the special class, Walklin thought they would learn even more if they participated in Star City News, where they could get real experience. He contacted journalism faculty member Trina Creighton, who was enthusiastic about the idea.
“It’s the most valuable class because it gives students the opportunity to apply everything they have learned, so when they walk in to a commercial newsroom they can hit the ground running because they have experience to help them.”
Meyers and McMullen predict the weather themselves, create the graphics and broadcast the information on the newscast. At the same time, they are teaching the journalism students some of the basics about weather forecasting. At the end of the class, the students created resume DVDs with footage of their broadcasts to be used in their job searches.
Both Meyers and McMullen have had excellent professional TV internships, but they both jumped at the possibility of working with the J school again this semester.
“I was really excited to get this opportunity because it gives us experience you really don’t get anywhere else,” McMullen said. “With internships, there is no chance to go live. Here we have more responsibility because we make the forecasts, make the graphics and present them by ourselves.”
McMullen and Meyers are now searching for jobs in news markets where Anderson estimates only 30 to 40 percent of forecasters are trained meteorologists. In 2009, two of the 10 UNL meteorology graduates became broadcast meteorologists.
UNL’s program is unusual
Andersen said very few other universities have a similar partnership, and he hopes the program continues because it gives students an advantage in the job market.
McMullen and Meyers both said they would like to work in the local area, but they are willing to go wherever the weather takes them.
“In this job you have to be willing to move wherever,” McMullen said. “Just getting into the business is the first step – and if you have the passion you won’t mind not having a 9 to 5 schedule.”
As for the future of the partnership, professors and students expressed hope that the course would continue; a broadcast meteorology class has already been scheduled for next semester.
“It’s great because the meteorology students train our students and work with them,” Creighton said. “Every semester I try to do something new, and this is really good for Star City News and the meteorology students because otherwise they have no place to practice their skills. It’s a win-win situation.”
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