Smile...you're on NUTV

Last November, at the dedication of Northeastern’s new veterans memorial, students were there with cameras.

Shortly thereafter, their coverage of the dedication was available on Northeastern University Television (NUTV), which went online to web viewers everywhere for the first time. Then the e-mails started coming in from enthusiastic alumni, thanking NUTV for its coverage.

Alumni aren’t the only ones who are excited. Student media adviser Sandra Miller says she gets daily e-mails from students who want to get involved with NUTV.

The three-year-old student-run organization ramped up its efforts this school year with ongoing coverage of news and sports on campus. Prior to that, Miller says, NUTV mostly aired comedy sketches and other “fun stuff,” and was available only to NU students.

But now, anyone who goes to NUTV’s site, at <www.nutv.neu.edu>, can watch President Aoun talking about Northeastern’s response to a racist incident on campus, the activities at a university event focused on environmental issues, or students in the Curry Student Center making three thousand peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches for the homeless.

“This is a bootstrap organization, all student-led,” says Miller. “They do it for the sheer joy of journalism, and production, and simply communicating whatever they want.”

Without their own studio space, NUTV members sometimes film in an empty classroom. They store their equipment in a file cabinet in a student center office they share with three other student-media groups. Eventually, NUTV is hoping to have its own space, say juniors Jonathan Cohn and meghan Colloton, who helped start NUTV.

Cohn, the NUTV president, touts the organization's news. sports, and technology shows. 'The viewership has skyrocketed."

The next order of business? "To try and get a studio," says Cohn.

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