“Afghan 101“, a collaborative project involving Gaylord Journalism and Strategic Mass Communication students, world renowned news correspondent Mike Boettcher, and the ABC news network, allows college students to gain real world experience documenting the war in Afghanistan. While embedded with the U.S. Army’s 101 Airborne Division in Afghanistan,Boettcher and his son Carlos spend countless hours sending raw footage back to the students at OU.
“We’ve been embedded right near the action,” Boettcher said about his successful recordings. “Carlos and I have gotten the full support and the access we needed over there.”
Boettcher, a Gaylord visiting professor, then skypes with the students in the Advanced Multimedia Journalism class offered at OU to help them create multimedia packages and pod casts for project. Some of the material created by the students will be utilized by ABC News, including a student-created website hub for viewers to watch all of Boettcher’s feeds on the network’s main website.
Viewers can expect to learn not only about the lives of the soldiers abroad, but also some of the hardships of their families on the home-front.
“We want to tell the stories of those fighting this war,” Boettcher said. “This is ground-breaking stuff that you can’t find at any other university in the nation.”
This partnership, while revolutionary in its approach, could be the first of many similar projects as journalists work to keep up with the 24-hour news cycle. Boettcher hopes that the project will also resonate with American viewers that have become disconnected from the current war.
To help get younger viewers involved, Boettcher and his class have outreached to several classes on campus to help them promote their efforts. Members of other journalism classes, such as the public relations campaigns classes are also on board to help out with the overall publicity production of the historic project.
“We really need all the help we can get,” Boettcher said to the students. “This is such a big project and we want to show the nation what’s going on at the University of Oklahoma.”
Boettcher, a Ponca City-native and a Gaylord Visiting Professor, was recognized as a Gaylord Distinguished alumni in 2002.
