The Making of D-TV
May 19, 2017
Throughout the years, this school has been known to produce one of the nation’s most impressive broadcast journalism programs known as D-TV or Davis High Television. Airing every Wednesday during Homeroom classes, D-TV has become a well known organization among the students of Davis; however, there once was a time when it was a foreign and risky idea in progress.
“An obstacle while creating it was trying to make sure that the students would receive it well and that it was a good mix of professional but also fun so that the student body and also the teachers would be interested in watching it,” D-TV Staff Advisor Teresa Hall said.
While in the process of creating this student-run organization nearly ten years ago, finances were a large barrier when considering technological equipment as well as production of the broadcast throughout the entire school. Certain sacrifices were made including the abandonment of producing a live broadcast and instead pre-recording anchors and story packages in order to save money.
“Financial was a big issue. Trying to make sure we had the funding to buy the cameras and microphones and all of the equipment that we would need to produce a broadcast was difficult,” Hall said.
D-TV is run to teach students the importance of teamwork along with individual persistence and responsibility. When it was first created, students on the Dart Staff were divided on only producing either print or broadcast journalism. Throughout the years however, D-TV has become a co-production class where students have learned to incorporate both written and video news segments into their work.
“A production class where you are immediately evaluated for your work by your peers and are held accountable for the work that you do and are critiqued, sometimes not always nicely; you can’t put a value on that,” Hall said.