AUDREY REED
News Editor
Construction of a live television studio that will be used by Pepperdine faculty and staff for interviews with professional news outlets will begin Nov. 17. The studio will use space in the Graphic’s newsroom.
The Public Relations office is spearheading the project. Dr. Michael Murrie, professor of communication and is a member of the committee organizing the project, said that having an on-campus studio will hopefully generate more national recognition.
“As somebody who is familiar with publicity and TV news, I think this gives the Public Relations office an important tool to improve exposure for the experts we have on campus,” Murrie said.
The studio will carve out an area approximately 12-by-12-feet in the Graphic newsroom and a 9-by-12-foot existing storage room currently occupied by the Graphic.
The area was chosen for several reasons. Most importantly because of the fiber optic wiring already installed in the building, and the area is adjoined to the Student Publications lobby is on the first floor, which will make for easy access, Murrie said.
Other locations inside and outside of the CCB were considered by the committee, said Communication Division Dr. Chair Robert Chandler.
The 12-by-12-foot space was originally planned to be used as a dark room area for photo development. With advances in digital photography, darkrooms have become obsolete. Currently, the area is used by the Online Graphic staff and to hold Student Publications trophies.
Public Relations associate director Wileen Wong said it was too early to discuss the construction, how much it will cost or what type of equipment will be used in the studio.
“We are still in tentative discussions regarding the studio,” Wong said via e-mail. “It will be again, premature for us to release or discuss any specific details.”
School of Law Dean Kenneth Starr and Caruso Family Chair and Professor of Constitutional Law Professor Douglas W. Kmiec are two of the most interviewed faculty on campus. Earlier this semester, a satellite studio was parked outside the School of Law for several weeks during the John Roberts confirmation hearing.
Murrie, who is also the Graphic adviser, said that he was worried the construction and operation of the studio could interfere with Student Publications.
“They are waiting until we have downtime, until we finish the last issue of the Graphic on Nov. 17, to do the work that would otherwise be really disruptive,” Murrie said. “They plan to finish that work by the first week in January.
“On the operations side, one of our big concerns was confidentiality. We sometimes conduct interviews in here and do other activities that require confidentiality. We were concerned about folks not on staff coming through the area.”
Students who work in the office have worries about this as well.
“If there is a story that we are working on, that deals with these people and they are in the newsroom when we are trying to get together sources and quotes, it sort of ruins our freedom to come out with an independent paper,” Graphic Sports Editor Garrett Wait said.
The studio door is inside the Student Publications office on the first floor of the CCB, however, people using the studio will not have to walk through the actual newsroom.
Even though the Graphic’s last issue for the semester comes out Nov. 17, other publications work in the space past that date.
“It’ll probably be disruptive,” said senior Ben Young, photo editor of the yearbook. Also, Currents magazine will be working in the newsroom area after construction is slated to begin.
Kmiec said that because of Pepperdine’s isolated location, having a studio on campus a good idea.
“It is very farsighted of President Benton to take the steps necessary to more readily connect Pepperdine to the larger public debate,” Kmiec said in an e-mail interview. “Our university now competes for students and faculty with the best places — Stanford, Berkeley, Notre Dame, UVA, GW — each of these educational peers has conquered the time-distance challenge with an on-campus studio-classroom which connects their faculty to the discussion.”
11-10-2005