By Aaron Wright Gray
The Norman Transcript
NORMAN — Mike Boettcher’s office seemed out of place in the welcoming and clean University of Oklahoma Gaylord Hall. Lumped in piles in nearly every free space around his desk and visitor’s chairs were bulletproof vests, hearty helmets and boxes filled with sturdy camera gear.
Mostly, these are items that Boettcher will use to keep himself and his son safe when they depart on Sunday for year-long stint embedding with U.S. troops in Afghanistan as a project for ABC news.
For Boettcher, though, these are also tools for an upcoming, groundbreaking project that fuses together the academic and media worlds.
“We have a project like no other in the world,” Boettcher said. “Where we’re at is on the cutting edge of journalism on a national scene.”
Boettcher, an award-winning journalist and correspondent in residence with OU, explained that the premise of the project is that he and his son Carlos will collect raw footage and information from Afghanistan, where they will follow the 101st Airborne Division out of Fort Campbell in Kentucky. Their work will focus on telling the stories of the soldiers in the field. Boettcher expects to zone in on around a dozen service members and follow their progress throughout the year.
Boettcher will prepare material for ABC News in New York. He also will send material back to the students at OU, using equipment purchased through a grant from the Sarkeys Foundation of Norman. The students in the class “Advanced Multimedia Journalism” will then be tasked with creating various multimedia packages such as blogs, podcasts and slideshows with the content.
Most of the material will be used on the school’s website Routes, www.routes.ou.edu, which was launched last spring as the Gaylord webzine, covering Oklahoma news. The students’ work also will be sent to ABC for the ABC News website. Material also will be used on local ABC-affiliated stations in Tennessee (for families at Fort Campbell) and in Oklahoma. Students in other programs in the college also will be involved in certain aspects of the project as needed.
As newsrooms shrink and content remains the same, or even expands, Boettcher and those involved in the project are curious to see if their work can serve as a model for the future when it comes to media and university partnerships.
Boettcher is also hoping that getting students involved will give the war material a fresh take. He and his colleague John Schmeltzer, who is co-teaching the class with Boettcher, believe that young people, especially, along with many Americans have become detached from the nearly decade-long war with terrorists. Both are hoping the students can bring insight on how to engage those from their generation in the issues of the war.
“I need you for this,” Boettcher told the students in his class Friday, the first time for the class to meet. Boettcher further weighted the responsibility by saying that ABC needs them and their country needs them. “Be thinking, what would attract you to a site?”
Although Boettcher will be working with the division from Kentucky, he said he won’t forget his Oklahoma roots. When the 45th Infantry Division, composed of Army National Guard members, arrives next year, Boettcher will spend time with them as well, getting insight from the very hands that are fighting the battles on behalf of Americans.
“Our intent is we want to tell the stories of those that are there fighting this war,” Boettcher said. Through the stories, he is hoping the story of the conflict will be told as well.
This will be the second trip to Afghanistan for Mike and Carlos Boettcher. The two embedded with troops in Iraq and Afghanistan in August 2008.
Aaron Wright Gray 366-3533 pop@normantranscript.com
