Andy Shaw Speaks To ICB Students
Andy Shaw, President and CEO of (BGA) Better Business Association was a guest speaker at The Illinois Center for Broadcasting-Chicago campus on Tuesday, August 27th.
Andy was an award-winning news correspondent for ABC7 and NBC5 prior to his current role as CEO of BGA.
During his guest lecture, Andy related how the industry had changed dramatically in his 37 years in the business as a reporter working first in print and then on to television. He recalled that television reporters and their crew when he first moved over to TV, consisted of a cinematographer who shot with a very large film camera and a sound man/woman who recorded sound separately. Film required that it be put in a chemical bath for processing and that it took a good hour (and more with drying of film strip materials) before one could even get their hands on the film to begin the edit process. The film reels consisted of an A reel that contained the interviews, which had to be synced to the sound tracks recorded in the field and the B reel that had the pictures of the event covered, which became known in TV lingo as the B-ROLL. An editor with a scissors and tape actually cut the pictures together with the interviews or sound bites to create “the package.” From a time standpoint there was a lag of an hour or two before you could present a story to the public.
Fast forward 25 years and TV now incorporates the use of smaller video cameras (known in the industry as mini-cams), satellite technology and eventually Internet transmission, that provided to the public instantaneous news coverage. Andy related how he was on the air live from Amman, Jordan; Havana, Cuba and Jerusalem, Israel as wells as Ireland and Mexico where Andy traveled to report on stories of interest.
Andy talked about the 60’s as a time that was turbulent and filled with controversy as civil rights, the Vietnam War, the hippie movement and the explosion of music and media that made it an iconic decade for news reporting. Andy was a decent writer and got himself a job writing news for City News Bureau which later led to a job as the finance writer for the Sun-Times that later led to an assignment as the education reporter. As the education reporter, he had an opportunity to help the newly assigned General Manager of NBC5 with information regarding the schools available in Chicago that his children could attend. The GM was so impressed with Andy’s thorough and complete research delivered the very next day, (which Andy spent hours and hours preparing) that he asked Andy if there was anything he could do for Mr. Shaw. Andy suggested that if NBC5 ever decided to hire an education reporter, he be considered. That opportunity lead to a job in TV at NBC5 and later at ABC7 and 15,000 stories later, Andy Shaw had a career that was filled with travel, interesting celebrated people and award-winning recognition for a job well done.
Andy Shaw is just one of the many distinguished guest lecturers who meet with students each week at the Illinois Center for Broadcasting, Chicago Campus. If you’d like to attend an upcoming lecture, fill in the form below and we’ll get back to you with the time of an upcoming event.