Middletown

Middletown high schoolers produce student-run newscasts in video production class

NBC Universal, Inc.

High school students in Middletown are leading the show when it comes to their daily newscast called “Blue Tube.”

Lauren Pszczolkowski teaches the class, which includes ninth through twelfth graders, but says that she does very little and leaves it in her students' hands.

"The teachers send in in announcements, and they put them into the teleprompter, they pick the music, they put up the graphics," Pszczolkowski said.

Kaiah Talbot is a senior who has been a part of the school news since she was a freshman. Currently, she serves as one of the main anchors for the newscast but previously worked with the teleprompter, which uses a specialized program called QPro.

Jenna Carfora is now on the production side of the broadcast after spending time as an anchor. She notes that the platform they use is different than that used for the teleprompter.

"We use our tricaster, which brings graphics in, it switches which anchors are talking and switches cameras. That's kind of the big thing that really keeps us running here," Carfora said.

The learning experience for these students expands beyond the studio and classroom as students traveled to California to explore the technology used by companies such as Warner Brothers.

"That really advanced our technology careers," Carfora said.

What they’ve done and created in this class has taken some alumni to become national award winners in their professional lives.

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