UA Television Station Creates Teaching Tool for Students

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UA Television Station Creates Teaching Tool for Students

WVUA set - front, l-r: weather anchor John Mason, sports anchor Gary Harris; seated center, l-r: anchors Lynn Brooks and Rebekah Caldwell; back, standing, l-r: student Michael Stanton, general manager Stan Siegal, anchor Philip Coleman, student Tamika Taylor, photojournalist John Huddleston

WVUA's team will include students, anchors and a general manager. Front, left to right: weather anchor John Mason and sports anchor Gary Harris. Seated center: left to right: Anchors Lynn Brooks and Rebekah Caldwell. Back, standing, left to right: student Michael Stanton, general manager Stan Siegal, anchor Philip Coleman, student Tamika Taylor, and photojournalist John Huddleston.

By Amelia Parker

Officials in the College of Communication and Information Sciences hope WVUA-7, the University’s newly acquired television station, will become a learning tool for students, where they can train and interact in a professional, on-air environment.

In addition to benefiting students, the updated station hopes to provide local viewers with better news coverage of Tuscaloosa and the surrounding areas.

UA purchased WVUA-7, originally WJRD Channel 7, in July of 2001. A one-time donation from Board of Trustee member and UA alumnus Paul Bryant Jr. covered the acquisition costs of the station.

Since early December, the channel has been broadcasting from the basement of Reese Phifer Hall, its home since moving from the station’s location on Jug Factory Road. The station officially changed its call letters to "WVUA" on Jan. 21, during the 6 p.m. newscast, which is now an hour long. A recent open house celebrated the name change.

WVUA-7 is an affiliate of the PAX network, a self-described "family-friendly" network that offers prime-time reruns of shows like "Touched by an Angel" and "Diagnosis Murder."

WVUA-7 will maintain its status as a commercial endeavor and will be financially independent, much like the UA athletic department or the University Supply Store. When those departments generate more profits than are expected, the excess is put back into the University and redistributed to other programs.

Dr. Culpepper Clark, dean of C&IS, said he hopes profits from WVUA-7 will be used to aid programs within the college.

WVUA-7, whose call letters stand for "Vision of The University of Alabama," plans to model itself after KMOU, an NBC affiliate owned by the University of Missouri. According to University of Missouri spokesperson Christian Basi, the UM station provides a lab for students seeking practical experience.

As is the case at Missouri, the University hopes training students for future careers will become a large part of the station’s mission. Dr. Loy Singleton, chair of the department of telecommunication and film, said WVUA-7 will provide students with the best possible opportunity to observe and participate in the workings of a commercial television station.

"The TCF department has a classroom literally in the middle of WVUA-7 and has access to its technical facilities for teaching purposes," Singleton said. A wall in the classroom is a window that looks into the newsroom of the station. Students will be able to observe reporters putting together newscasts.

In addition to providing more professional opportunity for students, WVUA-7 hopes to provide Tuscaloosa with a more localized, in-depth news broadcast, thanks in part to the hour-long format the station recently adopted.

"Tuscaloosa is now just a small part of the larger Birmingham television market," Singleton said. "Tuscaloosa is certainly big enough to support its own television station and is certainly big enough to need local daily news coverage," Singleton said Alabama cities similar in size to Tuscaloosa, like Dothan and Huntsville, have proven to be able to support more than one local station.

The station will reach a market in West Alabama to include some 200,000 people. In addition to covering Tuscaloosa news, WVUA-7 will focus on news from smaller West Alabama communities, including Northport, Gordo and Holt.