Students, staff call for more professionalism in Greyhound News
This screenshot from YouTube of the Greyhound News shows that some of the broadcasters fail to take the job seriously, which has been criticized by many. That orange is taking the place of the broadcaster.
Two years ago, Atascadero High School transitioned from the morning announcements being read over the PA system, to a daily online video featuring student “broadcasters” in a professional setting called Greyhound News, which teachers share during periods 3 and 4 every day. The Video Production class, taught by Mr. Bradley, creates the morning announcement videos. Many other schools have similar programs. Although Mr. Bradley is in charge of the class, his role is limited. Besides making the scripts, choosing the commercials, and looking over the final product, Video Production and Greyhound News is a student-run program. While having a video format comes with benefits, like being able to give an entire class the opportunity to get a good look into video development, and allows for commercials to be shown, the old method of using the PA system to broadcast the announcements was more effective for a number of reasons.
For starters, many students in the class do not take the production seriously, and are goofing off during the broadcasts. Recently on Mar. 5, one of the student anchors made a complete joke of the morning news by only speaking in a zombielike, monotone voice, staring intensely/angrily into the camera, and even ending the video with the phrase, “I will consume your essence.” It goes without saying that acts like these should not be acceptable and give AHS a bad reputation since these “news” broadcasts are published on YouTube for the whole world to see. While some broadcasts are very well done, many are an embarrassment.
During another recent broadcast, one of the “newscasters” was replaced by an orange wearing a microphone. Other times broadcasters are turning their backs to the camera, laying their heads on the table like they are just too bored to participate, staring up at the ceiling, spinning around in their chairs, and laughing so hard that they can’t clearly communicate the news. One of the worst instances of this was during an announcement that students were invited to come to the Wellness Center for a retirement party for their therapy dog. One broadcaster said, “Louie, one of the Wellness Center’s therapy dogs, is turning fourteen and is on its last legs.” He then started laughing so hard he could hardly finish the announcement for students to come by and give him some treats. AHS senior Lily Hoppa said, “It is not a good representation of our school and frankly is a joke. It takes up too much time and no one watches them.”
For some reason, not all information students and staff needs makes it into the Greyhound News. Recently the information for many events like Jump Serve Joe and Mock Rock have been neglected, and have left many students to question what's going on. Announcements must be emailed to greyhoundnews@atasusd.org instead of Mr. Bradley’s regular teacher email, which might account for the gaps in information being shared.
Overall, the Greyhound News has a lot of potential, but the current attitudes of the anchors and quality of the production is not adequate. They need to balance their sound so that the music isn’t blasting, then students can’t hear the voices. The program is a great opportunity for students, but it's not being taken seriously and the result is an embarrassment to AHS. Things need to change or they shouldn’t do it at all and revert to the old PA bulletin.