The Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School Grapevine student-led broadcast is continuing to inform the community, despite social distancing requirements.
Instead of meeting together in a room every week to plan content and organize the various segments of the broadcast, students are getting together on Zoom and anchoring their program through a digital platform.
“Honestly, it hasn’t changed that much from when we met at school,” Bella Giordano, an anchor and coordinator for The Grapevine, said in a phone interview with The Times.
“We are still able to get all the necessary information out to the community, we are just achieving that in a different way.”
Bella said that although nothing can compare to sitting down together and brainstorming, the ability to see each other and speak about ideas, even virtually, is incredibly important. She noted the sense of comfort of everyone being in their own homes while they write their scripts, edit their content, and anchor their own segments.
“It is also a much quicker filming process. Last week, the entire filming took about three hours, as opposed to four days in prior years,” Bella said.
Bella said the 10 or so students involved with The Grapevine collaborate together in a Google document and review the script for each topic or segment.
“The people who piece it together are the anchors, making sure all the parts make sense and are cohesive,” Bella said. “Then it goes on over to our editor, Jackson Pachico, and he does the final edits.”
Last week, the students compiled a mental health segment, and Bella said she plans to continue to update the community with different ideas on maintaining good mental health and positivity during this difficult time.
The students of The Grapevine are working on setting up an Instagram account titled CovidfreeMV, where they promote proper distancing protocols and provide ideas for fun activities to do while self-isolating.
“If we could get some footage of people riding a bike or talking with their family, it could give people ideas for stuff that others are doing in their own homes,” Bella said.
The most important goal of The Grapevine, especially now, is to “provide a sense of normality,” to students and families.
“Although the newscast looks very different with all of us anchoring from Zoom, for the students that watch it, it provides a sense of ‘okay, the world isn’t so crazy that we have to stop everything.’” Bella said.
With social deprivation being a major challenge, Bella said getting the broadcast news team together is “a great feeling.”
She said being able to look back at the final product and know that it is going to help people is gratifying, and makes all the hard work worth it.
Bella said that with the new online workflow, cohesion in general is a major challenge.
“When you are coming up with ideas or co-anchoring with somebody, it’s helpful to be right next to them so you have something to go off of. Being able to mimic that on Zoom is going to be difficult,” Bella said.
But because it takes less time and effort to film the broadcasts, Bella said the students can pump more information into each segment.
“It’s been interesting adjusting to this new way of doing things, but we are going to keep providing information and a sense of normality to the community on a weekly basis,” Bella said.
Editor for The Grapevine, Jackson Pachico, said that when the infection started, he didn’t know whether or not the broadcast would be able to keep going.
But he said he is pleased how the final product has come out, and said that although there are some inherent difficulties involved with not being able to speak face to face with other members of The Grapevine, he is confident they will be able to continue.
“We got almost 400 more online views on our last broadcast than we ever have,” Jackson said.
Jackson said piecing the final product together is a tough job after all the anchors email their content to him, but he is slowly acclimating to the change.
“It’s obviously much easier talking face to face. Over these Zoom calls, we are very limited toward our feedback with each other,” Jackson said. “Right now, we are forced to work more individually on each of our segments, but it seems to be working out.”
According to Nell Coogan, restorative coordinator at the high school and faculty organizer for the student-led broadcast, the ambition of students involved with The Grapevine has not changed since its inception years back.
“The whole thing started a couple years ago as a newsletter, but we decided to switch over to video, and it totally took off,” Coogan said. “Everyone loved it.”
Coogan said she mainly serves as a support for the students, who take it upon themselves to create the majority of content and carry the torch in almost all elements of the broadcast.
“The kids who are a part of this are so awesome and dedicated, they put their hearts into this project every single time,” Coogan said.
With online learning and other inherent stresses of life as a high school student today, Coogan said it is impressive and admirable that the students choose to devote their time and effort to informing the community.
“These kids want to do this from home, they care so much about the final product. It’s really quite amazing to witness,” Coogan said.
Coogan said changing over from a very hands-on setting in front of a green screen to a virtual meeting space has been challenging, but the end result of the broadcast has remained intact.
“Our idea has always been short, sweet, and to the point, but we also want to bring the kids together,” Coogan said.
With the students being so used to seeing each other every day in school and collaborating with each other during their regular Grapevine meetings, Coogan said it is important for them to have time to laugh and chat with each other, even if it’s through a screen.
“That social time is so necessary for these kids and for everyone,” Coogan said. “Even just setting up the content for the coming week, it’s hilarious, it’s fun, I miss them all and they miss each other.”
According to Coogan, staff, students, and parents have reached out to show their gratitude for The Grapevine staff and all they are doing to keep the community up to date.
“It’s a tough time for everyone, but the students love this product, and they want to keep doing it,” Coogan said.
Check out the student-led broadcast, The Grapevine, on the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School website.