Three news-editorial majors participated in September in a first-ever electronic picture story assignment that was transmitted over the Internet.
Seniors Kiley Christian of Norfolk, Michelle Paulman of Sutherland and Sydney Turner of Lincoln, worked together to produce a picture story that was laid out in Lincoln and transmitted electronically to an Internet computer site in Chapel Hill, N.C.
Called the “Virtual Newspaper Assignment,” the project was the brainchild of Kurt Foss, technical editor for the Sixth Electronic Photojournalism Workshop Sept. 23-30 in Chapel Hill.
Refugees and immigrants were the focus of the story. The project involved students from almost two dozen high schools and universities throughout the United States, in addition to universities in New Zealand and Bulgaria.
Students had about a week to do research on the topic before beginning photography in their communities. The finished pages had to be transmitted to North Carolina by Sept. 29.
Paulman photographed and wrote the picture story about the Czechs of Wilber. Christian assisted with picture editing, and Turner did the layout and handled the electronic transmission.
After Paulman’s color film was shot, processed and edited, selected negatives were scanned electronically compressed and transmitted. Because of the compression software used, the page could be viewed by any computer equipped with the software and typefaces used to create the page.
“The fact that our college was chosen to participate in this project is another indication that our students are helping lead the way in this new technology,” Alfred Pagal, news-editorial department chairman, said.
Professor George Tuck said, “The transmission of a picture story from Lincoln to Chapel hill, N.C., is quite an event, especially when the technology goes awry, the students doing the project are in one location and the supervising professor is in another state and everything else is an unknown quantity.”
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