Adobe In-Design

COMM 3110: Newsletter material

Info about an alumnus —

Dartise Johnson, content producer, WCIU-TV, The U, Chicago, Illinois and Owner/production manager, Dartise Media Design, Class of 2004

Job responsibilities: At WCIU-TV, I am responsible for efficient storytelling, utilizing the skills necessary to redefine television in the nation’s third largest television market. I am required to conceptualize, book, plan, shoot and edit engaging and visual television. I work under tight deadlines and self-manage. I frequently work with Avid Adrenaline; also responsible for field shooting, lighting and sound.

At Dartise Media Design, I am a deadline-driven manager who executes and coordinates production in all areas of video service; I plan and facilitate field-based and studio video pre-production, production and post-production; work with clients to ensure proper planning for successful and effective videos; and perform other production related duties as necessary to deliver finished video assets, manage complex video projects effectively and efficiently, supervise video production specialists and also provide technical direction assistants assigned specific projects.

Your best career advice for SSU mass communications majors: Get as much hands-on experience as possible. Find the job you want to do and volunteer somewhere. Create a blog or a website to highlight your talents and abilities.

Don’t leave the Journalism and Mass Communications Department without: …talking to your professors. Ask them what your strengths and weaknesses are and do what is necessary in order to improve them.

If I could do it all over again (my years at SSU in the JMC), I would: I don’t think I’d change anything.

My fondest memory of the Journalism and Mass Communications Department: We were discussing blacks on television in class (African Americans in the Media) and the show “A Different World” came up in the conversation. During the discussion, I found out that half of the class made the conscious decision to go to college through watching that show. I then understood how important it is to have “positive” images of African Americans in the media.