Reporting the news on the radio or in an audio news story is definitely not as easy as it sounds, but coaching definitely helps, especially when it’s from a former anchor and correspondent from network and cable news. Last Thursday, former NBC News and Fox News anchor Linda Vester offered her coaching services to Reporting and Writing 2 students in Professor Sissel McCarthy’s class as they prepare to write, report and deliver their first audio news stories. 

Jumping from the nation’s 183rd television news market to the number one market in just one year is pretty much unheard of, but not impossible if you’re Jessica Cunnington, now a News 12 anchor and reporter. Cunnington talked about that meteoric rise from her entry level reporting job in Charlottesville, Virginia to New York’s News 12 with Professor Sissel McCarthy’s “Hunter News Now” students last Wednesday. After Cunnington graduated from the S.I. Newhouse School at Syracuse University in 2012, her goal was to be working as a reporter within six months somewhere on the East coast. It didn’t take that long. By August 2012, she landed a job as a what’s known as an MMJ (multimedia journalist) for CBS19 in Charlottesville. There, she learned to report, write, shoot and edit all her own stories and within a year, she had the experience and show reel to make a big jump back to her hometown market, New York City.

 Cunnington shared her reporting and anchoring expertise while watching the second Hunter News Now show of the semester and praised students for their storytelling. “The techniques you’re learning here will really help you in when you get your first job,” Cunnington said. “My approach is to let the people you interview do the talking. Reporters don’t need to talk as much as you think.” Some of her more practical tips include: think about adding nat sound at the beginning and throughout your story, always use a tripod, shoot your interviewees on the tight side, usually from the collarbone and up unless you need to show something else in the shot, avoid too much head room, use dissolves to smooth out the audio and smile when you’re anchoring. She also said everyone gets better with practice and that’s why that first job in a triple-digit small news market is invaluable.

The Pulitzer Center has awarded one of its prestigious summer reporting fellowship to Hunter journalism student Audrey Henson. The fellowship comes with a $3,000 grant that Henson will use to travel to Japan to report on dementia treatments. 

Henson’s winning proposal, selected from among four Hunter finalists, focuses on the rise of “dementia villages” in Japan, where local businesses are trained by Alzheimer and dementia associations to aid older people who suffer from cognitive impairments.