From classes to studying -not to mention clubs, work and socializing - college students have a tendency to get caught up in their own lives. While some follow headlines and watch the news, many find that they simply don't have the time to do more than skim the front page of The New York Times or flip past CNN while channel-surfing.
But for Tufts senior Kristen Casazza, the news is more than a quick update.
Casazza, who transferred to Tufts from Northwestern, started working with Tufts' television station TUTV only a short time ago. She took an ExCollege course called Producing TV News, where she learned the logistics behind broadcast journalism and how to produce with a "topical focus."
Shortly after, she landed an internship at the Democratic National Convention for Fox News through Roberta Oster Sachs, a Senior Fellow at the University College of Citizenship and Public Service (UCCPS).
This internship further sparked her interest in televising news. Casazza searched the Internet, curious to see what other colleges were producing journalistically.
"I found out that the stuff we were doing was just as good, if not better, than what these kids were doing - and they were being nationally recognized for it," Casazza said.
With an ambition to organize a venue for students at her own university who shared her interest in broadcast journalism, Casazza organized the TUTV news show "On The Hill."
The show encompasses national, state and Tufts opinions - "from Capitol Hill, Beacon Hill, to Tufts' Hill," its slogan boasts. It aims to get broad perspectives on issues, focusing on national and international points of view, and ends with a student panel.
Casazza and her crew have covered on-campus events, such as the recent debate between Political Science Professors Jeff Taliaferro and Malik Mufti. They also plan on collaborating with Somerville Media Access to cover events in and around Davis Square.
"Camera work gets so addicting," she said. "We just want to cover anything."
One of Casazza's main goals has two parts: first, to find professors who have interesting perspectives on current issues, and second, to inform students who are outside of those professors' fields but still interested in their work of lectures and events that they would otherwise miss out on.
This past weekend, Casazza traveled with a group of students to Washington D.C. to film the Conservative Political Action Conference, the country's largest gathering of conservative political thought. Describing the event as a "cultural venture" for the mostly left-leaning class, the group organized interviews with the chairmen of College Republicans and a panel at Georgetown University.
The theme of the weekend was "State of the Union, State of the State and State of the University." The students aimed to cover where President Bush is going domestically and internationally, in addition to political activism on college campuses. In contrast to merely viewing Washington through CNN or C-SPAN, the "B-roll" footage that the group returned with will actually give students concrete and up-close scenes of the Supreme Court and Capitol Hill.
After graduating from Tufts, Casazza hopes to continue work in broadcast journalism. She loves the policy side of politics and investigative reporting, which she thinks doesn't exist much in the news today.
"I'm excited to see what's out there," Casazza said.
Going out into the field, she believes, will be a good opportunity to see the nation, from metropolitan cities to rural areas to everything in between.
"At Fox, they told me that a lot of people haven't seen the country and 'gotten their hands dirty.' I mean, I think it would be good to report in, say, county fairs in Montana, or rodeos in Texas," she said.
Casazza, a student of conservative political leaning, does not believe that conservatives at Tufts are excluded from the rest of the predominantly liberal population.
In the classroom, she feels comfortable sharing her views, but thinks that people "definitely need to know why they feel a certain way about an issue."
"The key is knowing and questioning," she said. "Conservatives will lose a lot if they brush off their own views and don't constantly question themselves."
This is perhaps the most important part of the panel featured at the end of her TUTV show. "I want to take a journalistic, not partisan, approach," Casazza said. She said that partisan approaches are popular in the media today and don't attract viewers, especially those of college age.
"It doesn't have to be a blatant shouting match," she said. "Both sides can, and should, learn something."
And thanks to her TUTV news show, students have a chance to watch and learn.
