Mercy Bishop. Communication: Broadcast and Digital Journalism

My name is Mercy Bishop, and I am a senior at Mississippi State majoring in Communication with a concentration in Broadcast and Digital Journalism. I did not realize this was the career path I wanted to take until my sophomore year of junior college. After taking English Composition, I gained a love for writing and reporting. I also enjoyed making videos for my YouTube channel in high school, which helped me develop a love for creating content and being in front of the camera.

As I put my love for writing papers and creating videos together, this turned into one big desire to tell stories and report. I was so happy to find a major and career path that combined all the things I loved to do. Although most of my work has focused on behind-the-scenes production, I am working to grow more comfortable in front of the camera as I want to be a news anchor in the future.

What I love about my chosen concentration of Broadcast and Digital Journalism is the ability to gain hands-on experience in the field. I have learned that you can make a story out of anything and do many things independently. This concentration has helped me become more sure of myself and find a purpose.

After taking a TV  production class at Mississippi State, my love for storytelling grew even more. I learned the importance of intentional interviews, newsworthy shots, and quality scriptwriting. This helped me gain a new confidence in my abilities that I did not have before. It was very fulfilling to begin to see how all of my classes were starting to build my skills as a reporter and creator.

One of my favorite projects I did was a news package on a Taylor Swift night that was hosted at Rick’s Café. It was really fun because I got to explore my love for reporting while covering a topic that I was a fan of. I enjoyed getting to tell the stories of the fans that were there and show that Starkville has fun things to offer for people of all interests. After this assignment, I received great feedback, and I truly believe it was because I found a story I was excited to cover.

Recently I have gotten the opportunity to gain experience in broadcasting by working with 91.1 The Junction, which is the radio station that broadcasts from campus. I have the chance to be on air from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. every Tuesday and Thursday. I am super excited about this opportunity and am looking forward to continuing to learn more about radio.

My favorite things to do in digital media are social media content creation, writing, reporting, and shooting videos. I can get anxious when it comes to communicating with strangers or working in new areas, but I like to challenge myself. If someone had told me in high school that this was my future career path, I would have laughed in their face. I am proud of my progress, and I owe much of it to this university and its instructors.

Although I am proud of the skills I have developed in this field, there are still some things I am not very experienced in. Something that I am not very familiar with in this field is creating graphics. I have started to experiment with this in the Canva app, but it is still a work in progress and not something I am confident in.

I am looking forward to learning how to better my storytelling in this class by adding different elements to it. I am used to writing stories, but I am not familiar with adding photos, graphics, or videos to help complete that story. Building websites is something I learned about in Digital Communication, and I am excited to explore that more.

My goal is to anchor and report at a news station and help people tell their stories. I would also love to do content creation on the side because I have always enjoyed doing that. I plan to start at a small station local to Mississippi and hopefully work my way up in the field. The more projects and stories I do for classes, the more excited I get for my future career outside of school.

 

Email me at mrb893@msstate.edu with any questions