In the Wild West of UNM journalism, there’s a new gunslinger in town — albeit a friendly one.
U News, a Web-based TV station, has been broadcasting once a week starting this semester, said founder and news director Dan Martinez.
Martinez said U News is available only on the group’s Facebook page, which is linked to Unews.unm.edu. He said U News plans to start broadcasting on televisions in the SUB as early as next week.
U News has been completely student-directed from the start, Martinez said.
“The cool thing about it is it wasn’t a faculty member or someone from one of the departments that wanted to do this,” he said. “It was myself. It was the students that worked really hard to get this started.”
Martinez said the nine-person U News staff is made up of volunteers, and students who want to work with U News are welcome to contact them and pitch an idea.
“We’re looking for people to join next semester,” he said. “You don’t have to be a journalism student to get involved. We want everybody.”
Martinez said he sees the project as an addition to the news projects operating at UNM, not as a competitor.
“I don’t see us as competing against the Daily Lobo or UNM Today,” he said. “There’s no reason the Daily Lobo can’t work with us, no reason we can’t just have a TV outlet for this.”
U News already works with several campus outlets to produce content, he said.
“We use so many different outlets other than just ourselves,” he said. “The people who run GoLobos.com send us sports videos, (and) the people who do UNM Today point us to good stories.”
Broadcast journalism is rapidly changing, and journalists are required to perform diverse tasks such as writing, recording and sound editing.
“Now you have to do all that stuff yourself,” he said. “It’s so much better for kids our age. We grew up multitasking, using so many different technologies.”
U News Reporter Alex Zannes said the station provides a valuable experience for students.
“We’ve come a long way in recent weeks. It’s a learning experience for everyone, and it’s student driven, so we have the creative control,” he said.
Zannes said one of the most important things U News has done for the University is to provide coverage of the upcoming ASUNM elections.
“We’re trying to do a bunch of election coverage (because) student elections is one of the things that may not get a lot of coverage,” he said.
Reporter Shane McDonald said election coverage is one of the most valuable services U News has provided.
“Just recently we’ve been having a couple interviews with the guys running for student government, and I think that’s one of the most beneficial things,” he said.
McDonald said he thinks the station is important to UNM because it lets students practice the skills needed for broadcast journalism.
“A lot of other big-time Universities have their own news shows,” he said. “As a broadcast major, for me, it gives me a lot of experience.”
Martinez said there’s an important difference between producing a news show as a classroom project and making a show that will be broadcast to whoever wants to watch it.
“I did my first internship with a small TV station in South Dakota, and I saw a huge gap between doing these projects in class and going out into the real world and doing it,” he said. “I thought this would be a good way to bridge the gap.”
Martinez said U News does not get funding from UNM and uses equipment that’s already available in the communications and journalism department.
“Right now, there is no funding. We use all the equipment C and J already had. We use their studio,” he said. “If we want business cards or a new backdrop or something, that comes out of our pockets.”
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