By Tristan Summers, Reporter
MOUNT BERRY, Ga. – WRCB Channel 3 Chattanooga gifted Viking Fusion an entire broadcast news set over the summer, including a news desk, monitors, studio furniture, and lighted backdrop, giving Berry students unprecedented learning opportunities on pro grade equipment.
Already, Viking Fusion is putting the recently re-assembled set to use with a live-to-tape inaugural production of Viking Fusion News. The newscast is being developed by students taking the Content Development course. The students reported and wrote the stories to be featured on the broadcast, and they are staffing the entire production and on-air teams.
“When we saw the set put together, we knew we had to use it as soon as possible,” said Dr. Brian Carroll, the instructor for Content Development. “We’re so thankful to WRCB and to Callie Starnes and her crew for making a lot of people’s dreams come true. It helped us see the future.”
An alumna in Communication from Berry, Starnes is president and general manager of WRCB, where she has been since 2008, starting there as a reporter and weekend anchor. She coordinated set donations to the departments of communication at Berry and the University of Tennessee Chattanooga.
Giving back to Berry was a “no brainer,” said Starnes, who was part of the student team in 2005 that painted the set that WRCB’s donation replaced. “Two decades later, to have the opportunity to give back and share updated materials to continue the teaching and practice of journalism on Berry’s campus is the ultimate gift.”
The donation was made possible by a comprehensive rebrand and station update underway at WRCB since 2022.
“We needed a studio with the latest technologies to equip our journalists with the best tools to serve our viewers,” she said. “The renovation allowed us to reinforce our station’s commitment to being the local source of news and weather.”
Starnes said it is a special point of pride for the station that not a single piece of equipment was thrown away.
As for Viking Fusion and the Department of Communication, the new set enables Viking Fusion to immediately begin offering news programming.
“This has made us become a very professional news team,” said Dr. Curt Hersey, associate professor and chair of the department. “It’s not something we could have built ourselves.”
The Communication department’s Content Development and Content Creation courses are collaborating to produce and streamcast Viking Fusion News, with Carroll’s students developing the content and producing the show and Mr. Kevin Kleine’s students doing post-production, graphics, and editing.
“Teaching and learning are a lot of fun when you get to re-imagine what these activities can look like with an infusion of new technology,” Carroll said. “Between the WRCB donations and the rather sudden accessibility of AI, we’re in incubator mode all over again.”
The Communication department’s student-run multimedia hub, Viking Fusion was awarded second place in both the “TV Station of the Year” competition and “Website of the Year” at the College Media Association awards in New Orleans last month.