The next generation of media personalities may number among a group of students from Lashburn High School who came on a tour of 106.1 FM – The Goat in Lloydminster.
Loaded with questions ranging from newsgathering, music selection, station ratings, ethics and handling complaints, the media studies students have just delved into the field for this semester.
Grade 11 student Hailey Temple talks about dealing with the issue of bias.
“We’ve been learning about that a lot – and how actually intriguing it is to see how different people have different opinions on many things and how they impact the media; especially news reporters or people who have a bigger voice in public.”
Temple is thinking about becoming a radio presenter at The Goat and likes the music of Three Days Grace.
Class teacher Emily Lawson says “it’s cool to see the hands-on” touch at The Goat and the creative input of the staff, especially the way in which songs are selected for the playlist.
She explains how the tour fits into the media studies curriculum.
“The course focuses on recognizing messaging in media and analyzing different parts of media – like what goes into the point of view, what the target audience is, who created it. So coming to the radio station and being able to see the effort and the work that goes into creating media – every step of it applies to the course overall.”
The class teacher says it was nice to see how media is created in this community and certainly the students would be getting some homework to do at a later point.