The Illinois Broadcasters Association recently awarded Student Silver Dome awards to TV-10 News, consisting of two first places, five second places, and two third places for entire shows and individual work.
Laura Trendle Polus ’87, M.S. ’00, the director of TV-10 News, expressed her excitement at this remarkable accomplishment. TV-10 has more finalists than any other television program in the state.
Trendle Polus has taught at Illinois State in the School of Communication since 1997 and has been director of TV-10 News since 2003. Her leadership and guidance have been key to the success of the Illinois State University news program.
TV-10 News produces eight live shows a week, consisting of five newscasts and three specialty shows. No other collegiate news station in Illinois produces this amount of shows each week. With approximately 100 students in the program, the newsroom operates from 7:30 a.m. until 11 p.m., and there are three shifts of students working every day.
Students work in five-hour shifts. “They take the story from idea to completion within that five hours. What that does is tell future news directors and future employers that they can grind it out and get things done,” Trendle Polus said.
Univision television hosts of the Primera Hora morning show.
In addition, Trendle Polus, with the help of Joseph Blaney, Ph.D., associate dean for Research, Facilities, and IT in the College of Arts and Sciences, has formed a partnership with Univision, a Spanish-language television station located in Chicago. Through this partnership, students have the opportunity to create and execute news stories. TV-10 just completed its third story for Univision, all of which are about various aspects of Latino life at Illinois State. “The idea is to capture the attention of prospective Hispanic students and their families through stories and news about ISU and its Latino community,” said Ana Belmonte, a social media manager and graduate assistant for the Univision partnership.
Trendle Polus said these stories “reach the Spanish-speaking audience and show them something about college life because there are a lot of issues there with sending a child away from home to an environment that maybe is not well known to them as first-generation students.”
For more info about TV-10 and how to become involved, visit its website.
