Next year, I will be in a position to advise a middle school principal Geraldine Brady on how to use video in her newly acquired “TV studio” (a very small storage room currently without any particular function), and I’m thinking that morning announcements is the place to start.

One of the more consistent findings of my recent K-12 video school tour has been the phenomenon of morning announcements in relation to video. From what I have observed so far, it seems that the morning announcement ritual was born for video.

Having grown up in a pre-video era, I remember when morning announcements were monotone recitations of the pledge, a moment of silence and relevant school information for the day, usually read by the principal or other school official.

Over time, the announcements evolved with technology, including music and, in braver schools, readings and/or performances by students. But overall, the morning announcements were part of the morning wallpaper of my school, just something I learned to take for granted like the red brick exterior – it was just part of the school experience. With the advent of video and other communication technologies, morning announcements have certainly come a long way.

But now, as I contemplate how to proceed with Principal Brady, I’m wondering: “What is the right way to do morning announcements with video?” I’ve witnessed two extremes: a formal journalistic model and a comparatively informal “democratic” model.

A Formal Model

When I visited Don Black in his news studio at a progressive Southern California High School, I was captivated at the organization and professionalism of this group of students ranging in age from 12 – 18. They were exceedingly well coached and they were operating as a journalistic organization. They had news meetings where they discussed past, present and future stories including the more academic issues that arose on the periphery of their story strategies.

For example, when they talked about an incident involving a middle school student being hit by a car (outside the school as he was skateboarding, resulting in a minor injury) the producer of the story talked about one of the young witnesses (about 10 years old) and whether it was appropriate to use his revealing account of the accident in the news story. As they were moving closer to a decision not to use the account because of his age a very involved and interesting discussion ensued between the students about the journalistic appropriateness of certain witness accounts.

These were seasoned students who had been trained at the middle school level and risen up to the ranks of producers, directors, reporters and anchors. They were driven and they were disciplined. I found it remarkable that Don could communicate so much in such a soft tone. He never raised his voice above normal conversation level even though he was addressing the entire room. They were tuned to his frequency and responded quickly and thoughtfully in the interests of effectively delivering the news to their 3000-plus audience in the school system.

Don’s journalistic background had a great deal to do with the approach he employed in their morning announcements.

An Informal Model

Though informal in comparison, Mark Young’s morning announcement program was not undisciplined. Everyone had a job to do and these jobs, like those in Don’s operation, rotated giving each student exposure to all of the positions in the announcements production. Though it was a news-style presentation, it was based less on a journalistic model, and more of what I would call “expressive-democratic” model.

I arrived at Mark’s studio in a nearby Central New York high school along Mark’s students at 7:30am – well before the beginning of school. This was normal the time period that the news of the day was collected from various sources including the internet. On this particular morning, the internet was down and that was a significant problem for this group since they needed it for their announcements that day.

Mark was calm and poised in dealing with the problem and as the countdown to air approached, the internet showed no signs of recovery so the students collected what they could from existing news sources and made it work.

Whereas I could imagine that Don had designed his video operation to set his students up to step seamlessly into a professional news setting , Mark’s operation seemed based on a more holistic outcome, more of a personally dictated comfort level with video in general. His students exuded more personal style, irreverence and dimension in their work because they did not conform to one code or approach to video.

Some of them seemed interested in technology. A handful were interested in news. One student showed me her comedy film she had been working on. Others were clearly most interested in performing for their student colleagues and worked very hard on their “act”. In talking with Mark, I discovered that he had, over the years sent me some of my better entertainment production students over the years.

In any event, as I watched them pull together the final show, I felt like was watching a presentation of information in this school’s style, based on the personalities and interests of its students.

Morning Announcements as “Local News”

As I consider which side of the formal-informal spectrum might work best for Principal Brady, it strikes me that the morning announcement ritual is really “local news” in its purest form: about, by and for the school community. Because of this, every morning announcement presentation is unique and there is no single right way to do it except for the way that best represents and serves the school community.

Watching these video morning announcements truly inspired me. The fact is that the idea of local — which seems to rise up effortlessly out of the morning announcements—continues to confound leaders in the communications industry. The challenge of meeting the unique needs of local communities has proved elusive to the touch and control of corporate control.

I often wonder why my journalism colleagues, who prepare the next generation of newsmakers for the industry, spend so much time teaching their students how to make news like the local news professionals in our medium sized city. These are the very corporate-run professionals who are criticized about their inability to address the local the needs unique to their surrounding communities.

Why not give them one more exercise before they graduate? Do the morning announcements for their school!