At Vista High, Anchoring the News Can Be Educational

The red light atop the camera went on and the blonde at the news desk flashed her anchorwoman’s smile, braces glinting in the studio lights. Her co-anchor, displeased with the way his black-and-white striped T-shirt looked on camera, muttered, “I look like zebras galore.”

Welcome to KVHS, Vista High School’s television news station. This year, for the fourth year in a row, students will be greeted two mornings a week by the daily administration bulletin, presented in a news show format by fellow pupils.

The first newscast of the school year aired in late September, and included a reminder to seniors to order their class rings. However, the newscasts are not entirely made up of the mundane minutiae of school life. The anchors are encouraged to include lighthearted feature segments, which may range from interviews with star athletes to information on new campus programs.

“We try to keep it entertaining for the students, but we also keep it on a professional level for visitors and administrators,” said Greg Brohamer, this year’s lead anchor and a veteran of last year’s news show.

“I think the students like it. When you’re on TV it’s fun, and people notice it,” Brohamer said. “But we don’t like to consider it an elitist group, because anyone can try out and be on the show.”

Brohamer has also served as a moderator for the school district’s 12-segment series on school issues, ranging from district services and year-round education to teens in crisis and programs for dropouts. The series, “Issues and Answers,” is filmed in talk-show style in a small, carpeted nook in the production studio, furnished with orange vinyl chairs and a video monitor. Each half-hour show features a student moderator guiding adult guests--usually teachers, local politicians and community leaders--through the topic.

The series, filmed last spring, started airing Sept. 8 with a two-part look at district facilities and growth. A recent topic was year-round education, relevant because the Vista Unified School District plans to convert its 14 elementary and junior high schools to year-round programs in July, in an effort to relieve crowding.

“We tried to get into some things that were not necessarily controversial, but things we thought the parents, who also happen to be taxpayers, would be interested in,” said Paul Howard, communications director of the Vista district and originator of the series.

The show is aired Fridays at 6:30 p.m. on San Diego County’s “Learning Channel,” which makes it accessible to viewers outside the Vista school district. “The information is basically pertaining to our district, however some of the same problems and circumstances pertain to all schools,” Howard said.

Vista High School also uses the studio to broadcast the March convention before the Associated Student Body elections. On that day, Howard and his crew are responsible for an all-day live show, broadcasting simultaneously from the gym and the studio, where the candidates are interviewed individually. “It helps that the students actually know something about the candidates, so it’s not just a popularity contest,” said Rene Hartnett, one of Brohamer’s co-anchors.

Special programs also are produced at the studio, such as the self-defense instruction tape put together last year with the help of district psychologist Michael Cox, who is also a black belt in karate. Other specials have dealt with AIDS, drugs and campus suicide.

All the programs are produced at Vista High School’s small but sophisticated studio, which was built by Howard, with assistance from his full-time aide, Charlie Harris, a 1987 graduate.

When Howard joined the district four years ago, the school’s studio only had “a feeble array of black and white equipment,” he said. He began renovating the facility, using the expertise gained from a 25-year career in entertainment, production and recording. Color video cameras were purchased with some of the first proceeds from the state lottery. Most of the equipment in the studio’s control room, taping booths and sound stage was either donated or cannibalized from the studios of Howard’s defunct production business.

“It’s old gear, stuff I had for years . . . but it’s probably the most comprehensive setup in the county,” Howard said.

The high-tech facilities are complemented by a small but dedicated staff of student volunteers who act as technicians, anchors and moderators. The students receive no school credit for their participation in the television productions.

The payoff, instead, comes in the form of experience that could prove valuable in the future. Three recent Vista High School graduates recently gained admittance to a broadcast communications program at San Diego State University that had been closed to new students, based on the strength and professional quality of their videotapes made at the high school studio, Howard said.

Brohamer, who yearns to go to Pepperdine University, hopes to parlay his studio experience into a broadcasting career. Co-anchor Hartnett, a junior, has not yet selected a college but also plans to major in broadcast journalism. Both are also enrolled in drama classes, which they figure will help in their anchor roles.

For the first two years, the news show was taped and edited before it was broadcast. But last year Howard tried a “live” format. The show airs during the first class of the day, glitches and all. “The first two years it took three hours to tape a 10-minute show because no one was ever happy with the job they did the first time around,” Howard said. “Now we just go live, no matter what.”

The show airs Wednesday and Friday mornings at Vista High. Howard produces another news show at Rancho Buena Vista High School on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Similar campus news shows have proliferated throughout San Diego County in recent years, as schools update facilities to prepare students for a more media-oriented world. All new high schools in the San Diego Unified School District are built with multicamera facilities, according to Kevin Buck of the district’s media department. In-house news broadcasts at Stanley Junior High School, Serra High School and La Jolla High School have won several state awards, Buck said.

In the Vista school district, the video productions are considered an extracurricular activity rather than a class. Spurred on by Howard, the various programs gradually developed without any formal guidance from the school administration. “We didn’t sit down and plan the shows or anything,” Supt. Rene Townsend said. “It was Paul’s idea. Paul is real creative and energetic and obviously believes in television as a way of getting a message across.”

Although the in-house news shows appear to be there to stay, the future of the cable television series is uncertain. “I feel they were very worthwhile,” Howard said. “I feel it’s an excellent public relations tool between us and the parents of our students.”

“But I’m having trouble getting feedback at this point from the district administration as to whether it’s worth it,” he said. “It cost $1,200 to produce the series, or $100 per show.

Townsend said the feedback she’s received so far from other district administrators is positive, but added, “I don’t know how widely it’s viewed. At this point we don’t have any specific plans to do more.

“Of course, I think any way that we can get information out to people about what’s going on in the school district is helpful.”

“Nobody from the community has commented to me one way or another about the shows,” said district trustee James Hagar, who has not yet seen one of the programs. “But I think they’re a great idea. Any information we can put out about the school district is great.”

The Vista Unified School District is gearing up for a $38.8-million school bond issue, which will be on the ballot Tuesday, but no efforts have been made to capitalize on the cable television series to promote the bond issue, said Townsend and Hagar.

Howard said none of the segments specifically addressed the bond issue but noted that the issue of financial needs for the schools is prevalent among the show’s topics. “It’s mentioned several times. The show does say we are under-funded because we are; you can’t avoid it,” he said. “This is the second-lowest funded district in the county. . . . We’re so under-funded it’s pathetic.”