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Poverty, People & Politics: A Multimedia Project on Poverty in the City of SyracuseA Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of theRequirements of the Renée Crown University Honors Program atSyracuse UniversityGabrielle CaraccioloCandidate for Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Broadcast & Digital Journalism Degree and Rene?e Crown University Honors Spring 2020Honors Thesis in Broadcast and Digital JournalismThesis Advisor: _______________________ Les Rose, BDJ Professor of Practice Thesis Reader: _______________________ Randall Wenner, BDJ Adjunct FacultyHonors Director: _______________________ Dr. Danielle Smith, Director ? Gabrielle Caracciolo 2020AbstractThe city of Syracuse faces a poverty rate of approximately 30.5%, according to the United States Census Bureau. Every fall the bureau releases new poverty data for the previous year. As of this writing, the latest data available is for 2018. In 2017, the city had the ninth highest poverty rate in the country. In 2018, the city recorded its lowest poverty rates in a decade, moving to the 18th poorest city in the U.S.A. However, the economic impact of the novel coronavirus will likely send the poverty rate’s downward trend right back up to possibly some of the highest numbers in the city’s history. This series of digital videos explores a variety of aspects that contribute to poverty in the city of Syracuse. The series is aimed to engage college students at Syracuse University and other nearby institutions of higher education with the issues faced by the city they inhabit. There is no black or white answer to the primary cause of poverty or solution to the issue, but the series is aimed to offer a variety of perspectives on the matter. Link to site: SummaryNearly one-third of the residents of the city of Syracuse live in poverty. Meanwhile, Syracuse University with a $1.35 billion endowment sits atop the university hill with thousands of students never interacting or engaging with the community around them. My honors project looks into the poverty in the city, the different aspects that contribute to poverty, and how others are working to help those struggling with it. I produced a series of nine digital videos aimed to captivate and engage college students on social media. I was inspired to explore this topic after learning of drastic wealth gaps that exist in the city of Syracuse and even amongst students at Syracuse University. After learning about the food insecurity that exists on campus and in the greater Syracuse community and seeing Syracuse’s 2017 ranking of the city with the ninth-highest poverty rate in the nation, I decided the issue was important and one that more students needed to be made aware of. In order to prepare for the project, in addition to my normal Broadcast and Digital Journalism and Political Science classes, I enrolled in electives focused on political reporting, poverty policy, and political media. I looked at both local and campus news outlets and found very little coverage of why the massive issues with poverty exist in the area. I also learned how few of my non-Newhouse peers consume local news on a regular basis. Most told me they prefer to learn about what is happening in the world through social media. One of their favorite outlets is NowThis, a social media focused national news organization. Their captioned videos make it easy to watch with or without sound and they are short enough to keep an audience engaged and informed while scrolling on social media. I quickly realized there was room for this style in local news storytelling. This thesis aims to be reflective, digital-first, accessible, and engaging for a younger demographic. These videos were published in April 2020 at a critically important time in the world especially in regard to the issue of poverty. As the novel coronavirus prompted a stay-at-home order in New York State and record numbers of people filing for unemployment across the country, it is a pivotal time to reflect upon the poverty policies of the past in order to shape the policies of the post-coronavirus future. I hope the project leaves a meaningful impact on those who watched, as it continues to be shared on a variety of digital platforms. Table of ContentsAbstract……………………………………….……………….………………………………………………………………… ivExecutive Summary………………………….……………….…………………………………………………………….. v Chapter 1: Introduction…..………………………………………………………………………………………………. 8Media’s coverage of poverty …………………………………………………………………………………. 9Preparations ……………………………………………………….…………………………………………………. 10Chapter 2: Making the Series…………………………………………………………................................... 12Filming & Interviews…………………………………………..…………………………………………………….. 12Editing & Presentation……………………………………….……………………………………………………… 13Release……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 13Chapter 3: Reflection………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 15Chapter 1IntroductionWhen I first set out to create a project for my honors thesis, I had three main objectives: I wanted to create a project that combined the skills from both of my majors, broadcast & digital journalism and political science, develop a creative means of storytelling beyond the traditional broadcast format, and help to inform my peers on a new topic. When I was asked to cover a story about food insecurity at Syracuse University and in the city of Syracuse for CitrusTV (SU’s student-run television studio), I was shocked to learn how little many of my peers knew about the poverty that plagues the area. I developed the idea to explore the different aspects of poverty in the cities with the ten highest poverty rates in the country. I wanted to create a multimedia website aimed at informing college students of the poverty faced by these cities across the country. My head was quickly brought out of the clouds by the honors and broadcast and digital journalism faculty, who encouraged me to scale down the project from my original proposal in order to dive more in-depth into the issue. Ultimately, I decided to focus only on the city of Syracuse allowing myself more time to offer a more comprehensive view of the complex issue rather than a quick snapshot. However, it should be noted that when it comes to issues of poverty in the city of Syracuse, this project could only go so far and explore so much. I talked to many experts and even they don’t all agree on everything. I also talked to many individuals impacted by poverty directly and everyone has a unique story and experiences that may not be representative of all. Media’s Coverage of PovertyMy initial concern when it came to covering the issue of poverty in the city of Syracuse was making sure that I wasn’t simply re-reporting things that local and campus media have already broadcast. It quickly became apparent to me that that would not be a problem.When it comes to the local T.V. broadcasting stations in Syracuse, CNYCentral, and News Channel 9, I found a severe gap in their coverage of poverty. Both stations report on the Census’s annual poverty numbers and where the city of Syracuse falls on the ranking of the poorest cities in the United States. However, when searching “poverty” on both of their websites, I found that most of the stories posted did not include video and were written by national wire services like the Associated Press rather than local journalists. The problem got worse when I was examining the campus media coverage. As a part of CitrusTV, I knew that we covered the issue on a very basic basis. I had been assigned a story on the food insecurity aspect of poverty in the area before. During the spring 2018 semester, we produced a series on the future of I-81 that touched on a few aspects of poverty in the area. However, there was still room for further coverage and exploration of the issue. I also found that neither local nor campus news outlets had substantial digital media coverage of the issue. This inspired me to focus on the digital aspect of my broadcast and digital journalism major. PreparationsBefore I could start collecting interviews and footage for the project, I needed to research the topic. I researched the policies and positions of local politicians, local nonprofits, and experts. I needed enough background information to decide what each of the nine videos should be about and how to approach each video. Ultimately, my research led me to decide the videos should be about: Education- focusing on the power of public education to shape one’s future, and how cities with high poverty rates have less tax money for schools and therefore worse schoolsEmployment- focusing on the need for more construction jobs for people living in the city of Syracuse especially in regard to I-81 constructionInfrastructure-focusing on the impact of I-81 on the poverty in Syracuse Food insecurity- focusing on how the Food Bank of CNY is helping to combat food insecurity in Syracuse Health- focusing on how poverty can be both a cause and consequence of poor health Housing- focusing on the need for affordable housing in the areaWhat is poverty? - focusing on the different way poverty is defined Ask the expert- poverty experts answering popular questions Politicians- focusing on the poverty policies of important local politicians Once I decided on the topics, I needed to compile a list of people to ask for interviews balancing finding a good mix of relatable characters and experts. The facts are obviously important but seeing how it impacts real people drives the point home and helps keep the audience engaged. I then adjusted to what interviews I could get and finished planning my series from there. Chapter 2Making the SeriesOver the course of 2019 and the beginning of 2020, I collected my interviews and b-roll (non-interview video). Since I decided to focus the series solely on the city of Syracuse, I was able to collect interviews in Syracuse during the semesters as well as interviewing experts in Washington, D.C. while I wasn’t working at my internship. In total, I collected approximately three hours of interview and b-roll footage to be condensed into nine digital videos that run approximately one minute each – that was very much inspired by the NowThis style of social media news storytelling. Filming & Interviews I started all my interviews with the question “How do you define poverty?” This helped to frame the topic of the conversation. I used a combination of Newhouse camera equipment and my iphone 11. This helped me to get a variety of camera angles. Changing up the angle of the interview shot helps to keep the pace of the video moving quickly and is more interesting to viewers. At each interview, I got what is known as b-roll or non-interview video. The b-roll was important for the portions of the videos that were captioned and not interview sound bites. This was the hardest when filming interviews with the Syracuse City School District. Due to child privacy laws, I could not film certain children in order to protect their identities. After each interview, I transcribed the conversations I had with my subjects. This helped me to stay on top of what sound bites and information I had and what I still needed. It was also important to keep the footage organized in my hard drive so that I could make the editing process down the road easier. Editing & PresentationI started the editing process in January while I was still completing some of my interviews. My original goal was to release the series during the last week of March. However, the coronavirus had other plans and this stage in the process became rather complicated very quickly. Before the spring semester moved online, I was editing my project in the Newhouse editing labs. However, once classes moved online and students were not allowed in campus buildings, I had to download editing software onto my own laptop. My laptop is not nearly as good as the Newhouse labs and it took me much longer to edit the project than anticipated. The editing process is where I got to really bring the project to life. I selected quotes, created the “poverty, politics & people” animation to start and end each video, and put captions on each video. The presentation of the videos needed to be consistent and captivating in order to ensure that viewers won’t simply scroll past the videos. Release Unfortunately, due to the novel coronavirus pandemic- the release of my digital series was rather anti-climactic. I have been publishing the videos throughout the month of April. I have not promoted them across social media platforms as originally planned. As New York State is reaching an apex in the pandemic, I want to remain sensitive to the many issues at hand. However, the content of this series is relevant for an extended period of time, perhaps even more-so in the wake of the pandemic and the economic fallout that is occurring as a result. I think these videos will be important in reflecting on the past and looking forward to planning for the future. My hope is that once New York and the city of Syracuse passes the apex of the outbreak and life begins to form into the new normal, that I will be able to publicize these videos to a greater extent and help fulfill my original goal of informing and educating the Syracuse University community. Chapter 3Reflection When I began this project, I was too ambitious. I wanted to create an entire website with multiple pages and media formats exploring poverty in each of the cities with the highest poverty rates in the country. The Honors staff quickly brought my head out of the clouds and back down to reality. My original proposal would have realistically taken a professional devoting all of their working time to the project, the better part of a year to accomplish it. In order to be done properly, it also would have needed a much larger budget than the honors funding could supply, even if I acted as frugally as possible. As members of the Honors staff pointed out to me, this grandiose goal was not possible for a college senior with two majors and a variety of other commitments. However, I still hope to one day accomplish this goal and complete the project as originally intended. When I scaled down the project to a more realistic size, I decided to focus on three cities including Syracuse. But it was not that simple. The process of securing equipment took much longer than anticipated and by the time I was guaranteed that I could have the equipment, the prices for travel, hotels, etc. increased significantly. At the same time, I had begun working on the portion of the project that focused on poverty within the city of Syracuse. I quickly realized there was an abundance of information that could not properly be explored if Syracuse was only one part of a three-part series. It was that combination of circumstances that led me to come to my final decision to pivot the project and focus solely on the city of Syracuse. No one could have predicted the manner in which the coronavirus pandemic would drastically alter our lives. In terms of my project, the outbreak came at a critical time for my gathering interviews and editing videos. The editing could easily be completed from home. The interviews could be conducted via video call, but this would have led to an inconsistent quality of video across the project. Ultimately, I decided I had enough interviews and information to make the videos without completing the other in-person interviews I had scheduled over video call. I am pleased to have overcome an abundance of challenges that were faced during the process of creating this series. The biggest challenge was one that was certainly no one was able to anticipate, the coronavirus. I would like to publicize my videos to a greater extent. The timing of releasing these videos in April is less than ideal. I believe the topic is perhaps more important now than ever as record numbers of people apply for unemployment in the United States. However, these videos are framed in the context of the pre-coronavirus world. I have no doubt that we will not get back to normal. Whatever comes in the post-coronavirus/ stay-at-home order world, should and will be different than before. I love journalism because it provides an avenue for helping to educate and inform the public as well as hold public officials accountable for their actions and policies. This process taught me a great deal about journalism, myself, and the city I have spent the last four years living in. ................
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