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JAMES LILLIN
Staff Writer
Each year at the annual Broadcast Education Association conference, an award is handed out for the “Best Education Video” in the nation, with this year’s award going to assistant professors of communication Mike Igoe and Roslin Smith for their production, “Good Storytelling.”
Igoe, a veteran TV reporter for Channel 2’s Nightly News who currently teaches courses on communication law, public speaking and effective video journalism, was originally inspired by his standard storytelling lectures.
“I got to thinking, I teach television news and other things around here, and basically I give a lot of lectures on good storytelling,” said Igoe. “I got to thinking about all of the lectures I’ve done and all the students I’ve used as examples in my lectures. My thought was originally just that I wanted to have my thoughts on storytelling in permanent form.”
Igoe’s vision gave rise to the original version of “Good Storytelling,” a more bare-bones video that didn’t have the concision and polish of the award-winning version. To refine his vision, Igoe reached out to Smith, an expert editor and friend.
“I originally got together with a former photographer [colleague] of mine, who teaches at Hilbert College, and we did the basic video,” said Igoe. “I got talking to [Smith,] and she was very interested in helping me out, and she did a fantastic job. She was the one that actually submitted it to the Broadcast Association.”
Igoe found the editing and higher production values to be a refreshing change of pace from the high-pressure, short-timeline atmosphere of TV reporting.
“Sometimes with TV news you regret that you couldn’t do something in a certain way, but I really got the benefit of being able to go back and fix up exactly what I wanted to after making the original video,” said Igoe.
Smith found herself elated at the news that they had won but is just as excited for what the video offers current students at Fredonia.
“[It was] like winning an Oscar, except an Education Oscar,” said Smith. “[I also] hope students can improve their broadcast journalism stories so that they can become more professional and [that it] ultimately helps them create a showreel that impresses future employers.”
The winning video combines project footage from both Fredonia students as well as Chinese students from Igoe’s years teaching at United International College in Zhuhai, highlighting common mistakes in editing, presentation and composition while offering better alternatives.
“Everything in the video consists of common mistakes made by students,” said Igoe. “As recently as a few years ago I never really taught or warned about the bad stuff, but once I started I found that it really resonated with students both in America and China.”
Igoe looks back on his years in China with fondness, noting that students from both countries are more similar than many believe.
“The main thing is that they’re a lot more shy than American students, but ability-wise I don’t really see a difference,” said Igoe.
Smith and Igoe are currently working on sequel video to “Good Storytelling” with the tentative title “Facts Feelings and Focus. How To Create Great Stories for Broadcast.”
Igoe is also set to release an upcoming book called “The Real China: Discoveries of an American Professor” that sets to paper many of the articles written by Igoe in China, with side-by-side translation by Elaine Ng, due out next year.