Humans of NICAR: Jamie Grey

By Keytron Hill

Three questions for Jamie Grey, assistant professor at the University of Missouri School of Journalism and managing editor of KOMU-TV.

Q: What advice can you give to a student who wants to do broadcast or radio but doesn’t like the way his or her voice sounds?

A:  You have to remember that you will adapt into your own voice, your own style. You shouldn’t get too terribly hung up. Of course there are some things you can work on as someone who works in radio, but I think the best thing you should do is listen to people you like as far as storytelling style and try to pick out a couple of elements from what they’re doing. 

Q: What should a journalism student in college be doing right now to prepare?

A: Internships can be incredibly valuable because they put you into a real newsroom type of situation. If you are looking to get a job, it’s important to start networking while you are in college. Every job I’ve ever gotten in my life has had to do with networking and, in television, that’s incredibly crucial. They are great because you get to work alongside with someone who has been doing it for so long. 

Q: What do you feel the IRE conference does for students like myself?

A: I hope that this conference will make you inspired to go out and do great journalism because there are some of the best journalists in the world at this conference, who are doing some of the best work I have ever seen. Second of all, there are practical skills that you can get from this conference whether its learning how to use a little bit of Excel or something as advanced of coding. If you can take away one small technical skills from this to build upon, you will be leaps and bounds ahead of anyone coming straight out of college.

Keytron Hill is a 2015 CAR Conference Knight Scholar and broadcast journalism student at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University.