Tag: screen

  • Can you picture your story on a big screen?

    Can you picture your story on a big screen?

    Some people would rather watch movies than read news articles.

    The thing is, an awful lot of movies came out of news articles. Consider the entire Fast & Furious movie franchise, starring Vin Diesel and my personal movie favorite Michelle Rodriguez (shout out!). It revolves around people who race souped up cars on city streets.

    The idea of the first movie started with an article by journalist Ken Li, after he saw someone steal a car in New York and that spurred him to investigate the underground world of street racing. Someone at Universal Studios saw the article and bought the rights to it. 

    Or consider the Tom Cruise movie Top Gun, about a cocky U.S. Navy pilot. The idea for that came from a story in California magazine about Navy pilots.

    How can all this help an aspiring journalist? Well, thinking about your news story as the movie that might be commissioned from it is a way of seeing the story. So how do you go about doing that?

    Visualize your story

    First, think of the characters in your story. Who are the central actors involved? Who is the Vin Diesel or Tom Cruise in your story? 

    Who does the problem you are exploring affect? Who is causing it or standing in the way of solutions? Who are the people trying to solve or mitigate the problem? In journalism, the basic story structure is Who, What, Where, When and Why. The characters are the Who of the story. 

    The most compelling movies (and news stories) revolve around conflict: What are the stakes? In Fast & Furious, one of the main conflicts is the role of Brian O’Connor, who starts out as an FBI agent investigating the car racers and then becomes loyal to them. 

    Movie scripts revolve around turning points: What could change the course? What steps are being taken to solve or mitigate the problem you are exploring? What are people or corporations or governments or organizations doing that could worsen the situation? This is the What of the story. 

    Then think about the setting: Where is the crisis playing out? The original Fast & Furious took place in Los Angeles. Top Gun took place at a naval base in San Diego, California. This is the Where of the story. 

    Finally, what drives your story is the motivation of the characters: Why do they take the actions they do? 

    In Top Gun, Tom Cruise’s character is motivated by the death of his friend Goose to be the best pilot he can be. In Fast & Furious, Vin Diesel is motivated by the death of Michelle Rodriguez’s character to seek justice. 

    Actions and motivations

    Death is a common motivation in movies — the killing of John Wick’s dog triggered one of the most successful movie franchises out there. But for non-fiction news stories, there can be all kinds of motivations: parents wanting to get their kids into good schools, communities wanting to fight crime in their neighborhoods, governments wanting to end homelessness. 

    In news stories this is the Why of the story. Why does some corporation build a plant in your community? Why does some NGO oppose a development proposal? What’s their reason and motivation?

    So now try this: Think of a problem around you that you want to explore. It could be about anything from climate change, to mental health or inequities in sports or education. Start by noting down the Who (actors), What (what’s at stake), When, Where (setting) and Why (the motivations of the characters). Then turn this into a few paragraphs as if you’re writing for a news site. 

    Start with a hook: It should be something interesting or important. Why is this a big story? Why should people care? Then summarize in one paragraph the whole story. What’s the overall problem? Where is it happening and when, how did it start, what is causing it and who is it affecting? 

    Next, slowly work through each of those elements — the who, what, where, when, how and why. There is the meat of your story. Finally, talk about what’s next. What are the solutions or mitigations happening or proposed?

    Who knows? You might get your story published and down the line a Hollywood or Bollywood producer calls you up. Now, isn’t that motivation to write a news story? Just make sure you have a good agent.

    Questions to consider:

    1. How can seeing your story as a movie help you report and write it?

    2. If your life played out as a movie, what would be the central theme?

    3. Think about the most important thing you are doing these days. What motivates you to do it?

     

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  • One-third of U.S. public schools screen students for mental health

    One-third of U.S. public schools screen students for mental health

    This press release originally appeared on the RAND site.

    Key points:

    Nearly one-third of the nation’s K-12 U.S. public schools mandate mental health screening for students, with most offering in-person treatment or referral to a community mental health professional if a student is identified as having depression or anxiety, according to a new study.

    About 40 percent of principals surveyed said it was very hard or somewhat hard to ensure that students receive appropriate care, while 38 percent said it was easy or very easy to find adequate care for students. The findings are published in the journal JAMA Network Open.

    “Our results suggest that there are multiple barriers to mental health screening in schools, including a lack of resources and knowledge of screening mechanics, as well as concerns about increased workload of identifying students,” said Jonathan Cantor, the study’s lead author and a policy researcher at RAND, a nonprofit research organization.

    In 2021, the U.S. Surgeon General declared a youth mental health emergency. Researchers say that public schools are strategic resources for screening, treatment, and referral for mental health services for young people who face barriers in other settings.

    Researchers wanted to understand screening for mental health at U.S. public schools, given increased concerns about youth mental health following the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

    In October 2024, the RAND study surveyed 1,019 principals who participate in the RAND American School Leader panel, a nationally representative sample of K–12 public school principals.

    They were asked whether their school mandated screening for mental health issues, what steps are taken if a student is identified as having depression or anxiety, and how easy or difficult it is to ensure that such students received adequate services.

    Researchers found that 30.5 percent of responding principals said their school required screening of students with mental health problems, with nearly 80 percent reporting that parents typically are notified if students screen positive for depression or anxiety.

    More than 70 percent of principals reported that their school offers in-person treatment for students who screen positive, while 53 percent of principals said they may refer a student to a community mental health care professional.

    The study found higher rates of mental health screenings in schools with 450 or more students and in districts with mostly racial and ethnic minority groups as the student populations.

    “Policies that promote federal and state funding for school mental health, reimbursement for school-based mental health screening, and adequate school mental health staff ratios may increase screening rates and increase the likelihood of successfully connecting the student to treatment,” Cantor said.

    Support for the study was provided by the National Institute of Mental Health.

    Other authors of the study are Ryan K. McBain, Aaron Kofner, Joshua Breslau, and Bradley D. Stein, all of RAND; Jacquelin Rankine of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine; Fang Zhang, Hao Yu, and Alyssa Burnett, all of the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute; and Ateev Mehrotra of the Brown University School of Public Health.

    RAND Health Care promotes healthier societies by improving health care systems in the United States and other countries.

    eSchool News Staff
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  • We need a better quality of conversation about education and the skills agenda for the screen industries

    We need a better quality of conversation about education and the skills agenda for the screen industries

    Every few years, the drumbeat of the skills agenda grows louder in higher education.

    Those of us who teach media courses are reminded (again) that universities are held responsible for the screen sector’s talent pipeline. Policymakers and industry voices call for greater ‘relevance’ in our course content, and stronger ties between academia and the screen industries.

    Yet, genuine collaboration has remained elusive, in part, because of layers of misunderstanding about both HE and the media industries. A better quality of conversation is now needed.

    So, let’s start by clearing the ground and challenging several of the persistent myths that have undermined progress in this area. By myths, we simply mean common assumptions that are not always entirely false but collectively oversimplify and distort what is both possible and desirable for collaboration between these sectors.

    Universities exist primarily to serve the needs of employers

    Wrong. Universities serve a range of stakeholders and beneficiaries, but their priority is their students. Certainly, we put considerable energy and resources into improving our students’ chances of finding suitable work, but the model of employment has changed. Today’s graduate is unlikely to be heading for a stable, consistent, long-term occupation.

    Work in the screen industries is based on contingent work arrangements and ever-evolving skillsets. If employability is to mean anything it is in the notion of career readiness – being prepared to manage an individual career over time. Of course, we want to ensure that industry can draw on a broad skills base for the graduate workforce, but we do so by prioritizing the immediate and long-term interests of our students, rather than the shifting “needs of the employer”.

    The screen industries do not require a graduate workforce

    Wrong. Despite there being no formal qualification requirement for many jobs in the screen industries, a degree matters a great deal. It is true that the graduate nature of media work is often downplayed within the industry, not least by the culture of “paying one’s dues” – the idea that whatever their qualifications, new entrants must prove themselves in the menial aspects of the job before they can progress.

    But over 70 per cent of the workforce are graduates (and a higher proportion of new entrants). In the words of a recent report commissioned by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Creative Diversity, “a degree will not guarantee an individual a job in the creative industries; but an individual is unlikely to get a creative industries job without a degree.”

    Media work requires media graduates

    Wrong. Media degrees are not a prerequisite for most screen industry roles. While certain degrees may offer added value for specific positions, the primary qualification sought is simply a degree.

    Media employers appear to be more interested in what used to be called “graduateness” – a broader set of skills, attributes, and intellectual capabilities not limited to subject-specific knowledge. Graduates who work within the screen industries, therefore, are drawn from the full gamut of science, social science and humanities degree programmes.

    The value of a media degree is determined by how well it prepares students for entry-level media jobs

    Wrong. Given that graduates working in the screen industries are not drawn in any systematic way from media courses, it must follow that media courses are not necessarily any better placed to provide successful new entrants than are others. Conversely, skills developed on media courses make for graduates employable in a range or roles and sectors.

    This is not to argue that these courses have no distinctive value for media industry employers. On the contrary, as employer-led entry-level training provision has been eroded, subject-specific knowledge, critical insight or practical media skills and experience can provide a valuable grounding for many media roles. Yet to fixate on ‘industry relevance’ is to miss the point that media work is now integral to all economic and cultural development and extends far beyond the screen industries.

    Practice-based and “practical” courses exist primarily to produce “set-ready” graduates for specific industry roles

    Wrong. This may be the pitch that many universities make to potential students and it may be the reason that students give when asked why they chose their degree programme. But both the complexity of student motivations and the critical purpose that practice plays within pedagogy are frequently misunderstood.

    Many students who choose courses that foreground their practical components identify themselves as practical people who learn in a practical way. For many such students, these courses provide a path through HE that others do not. Thus, in opening the door of the university to a wider constituency, courses that contain practical elements ensure a richer diversity of talent for employers to draw from. Put simply, the value of university-based media practice is less as an end, than as a means.

    Universities are a barrier to industry diversity

    Wrong. The greatest challenges for those from minority groups are their lower employment prospects following graduation. The UK screen industries have historically been affected by a conspicuous lack of diversity. This has remained a problematic feature of the sector and is currently getting worse.

    A more diverse industry is clearly an important goal towards which greater HEI-industry partnership and collaboration could profitably be focused, but this is unlikely to happen if the idea prevails that universities are the principal barrier.

    Beyond the mythos

    While collectively incoherent, these myths have tended to dominate initiatives for sector collaboration and partnership. Education and industry alike need to move beyond these unhelpful misconceptions to develop collaborative ventures based on authentic reciprocal relationships and a recognition that while employers bring industry insight and expertise, universities are leaders in education – a field in which industry is both a contributor and a beneficiary.

    But for this to happen, there must be greater honesty and pragmatism about both the nature of work in the screen sector and the responsibility of universities to develop the broader career readiness of their students.

    For a more detailed discussion of this topic, see our recently published open access article: Higher Education and the screen industries in the UK: the need for authentic collaboration for student progression and the talent pipeline

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