Post 50 Featured in Raleigh Newspaper

The Durham Bulls housed more than a baseball club during the 2001 season, they were also a training ground for future television professionals. Explorer Post 50, affiliated with FOX 50 and the Occoneechee Council of Boy Scouts, helped put 31 Durham Bulls games on the air this summer, and Raleigh’s News & Observer featured them on the last home game of the season.

N&O Staff Writer Al Myatt ‘s article “Bulls put teens on TV crew” appeared on the cover page of the Metro section on Saturday, September 1. He went through a typical night with the teens from Post 50, watching them do everything from working the cameras to producing graphics to directing the operation.		Anthony Johnson, 14, works with Post 50 on the broadcast.
Eric Spencer, 17, (left to right), Ken Bland, advisor, & Matt Duffer, 16, work together to put the camera angles & audio on the air.	Myatt explained that the concept for the teen TV crews came from the top: “Giving young volunteers a television experience was first the idea of Jim Goodmon, the owner of the Durham Bulls and the chief executive officer of Capitol Broadcasting Co. Inc.” The students trained by working in-house productions in 1999 and 2000. Myatt continued, “But this summer, the Bulls put the broadcasts on the air as the teen volunteers worked with four cameras
and about $500,000 worth of equipment. The broadcasts are a boost for the Triple-A club, because minor league games are rarely broadcast, and they also provided experience for the young crew.” The teens staff the entire crew, with the exception of a supervisor. The Bulls professional announcers Ken Tanner and		Bob Grissom, 16, runs a camera from the press box.

Steve Barnes provide audio. Bulls Director of Media and Operations Aaron Bare produces the broadcasts.

Myatt talked to Bare about the broadcasts. Bare told him about the difficulty of producing a broadcast that is not coordinated with umpires as it is in professional baseball. He told Myatt, “‘They [umpires] do their own thing, and we work around them. …That can make it hard. Sometimes they get going early, and we might miss the first pitch of an inning.'”

Myatt also spoke to Jordan High School senior Melissa Oates, the student director for the game he covered. She told him, “‘I let the cameras tell the story usually unless it’s a particularly intense part of the game…Then I might ask for a specific shot. Everybody kind of has their own personality when they work a camera.'” As for those cameras, the students must be wary to protect themselves and the expensive machinery from flying baseballs. Bare told Myatt, “‘We’re the secret service, and the cameras are the president.'”

Myatt closed the article with Bare’s comments about the program, “‘I would measure this group’s success in five years by whether they are involved in their communities and by their happiness. If we do good TV along the way, that’s a big plus.'”

The Post 50-produced Bulls games were shown live on Time Warner digital cable channel 251 and HDTV channel 49, FOX 50’s digital channel.