The Badillo Beat: A Unique Partnership

Title

The Badillo Beat: A Unique Partnership

Description

On September 30, 1997, WIVB-TV created a mentoring program for high school students at the Herman Badillo Bilingual Academy in Buffalo. The goal was to initially expose them to the inner workings of a television newsroom and teach them the basics of broadcast journalism and production.

News 4 anchor Rich Newberg and news photographer Tom Vetter conducted workshops with the final goal of creating a TV news magazine program called “The Badillo Beat.” Fernando Correa, an 8th grade student who showed great potential in front of the camera, anchored the program, taking viewers into the heart of Buffalo’s Hispanic community. The purpose was to address important unresolved social issues.

The items featured in this compilation include reports on
what transpired during the course of the project and the student produced program that was presented to the school on June 23, 1998.

Buffalo mayor Anthony Masiello had praised the initiative, telling students at the partnership signing ceremony that they were being given “an opportunity to grow” at a time when “communications is everything.”
He said, “We live in an international marketplace. By the time you are adults, we’ll be communicating with all parts of the world every single day visa-a-vis TV and journalism, computers and telecommunications.”

The Herman Badillo Bilingual Academy already had facilities and equipment used to videotape important school events. Rich Newberg told them that having entry into a television station and a professional newsroom could be a major step toward a career in broadcast journalism. However, he cautioned them that, “Unless you go for it, unless you want want it badly enough and work for it, it is not going to come to you. All we can offer you is the opportunity to see what television is all about.”

Date

1997-09-30
1998-06-23

Date Created

2024-03-08

Publisher

Buffalo & Erie County Public Library (publisher of digital)

Rights

Copyright held by WIVB-TV. Access to this digital version provided by the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library. Videos or images in this collection are not to be used for any commercial purposes. Users of this website are free to utilize material from this collection for non-commercial and educational purposes.

Type

Moving Image

Format

video/mp4

Citation

Newberg, Rich (Reporter, Archivist), “The Badillo Beat: A Unique Partnership,” B&ECPL Digital Collections, accessed October 8, 2024, https://digital.buffalolib.org/document/17184.