Emily Attrill

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Hello, and welcome to Conversations with Kojo. I'm the student host, Willem Lim.
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Today, I'm with recent SDSU alum, Emily Atrell.
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Emily, why don't you introduce yourself today?
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Okay. Hi, I'm Emily Atrell. I just graduated in May of 2026.
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I graduated with an advertising major and then minors in journalism and digital and social media.
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While at SDSU, I was involved in the Pride, the Women's Choir,
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and then Collegian Media.
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Currently, I'm in Sioux City, Iowa, working at KTIV, which is one of our local news stations.
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I work as a technical media producer, So what that means is I'm directing newscasts.
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I'm working behind the scenes for a lot of stuff.
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Recording interviews, doing our live newscasts, working with the station logs,
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making sure stuff gets on air when it needs to, stuff like that.
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You mentioned that you were an advertisement major and you graduated as an advertisement major.
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How did you get involved with like student media and like journalism and were
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you always interested in that,
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I worked a little bit with like broadcasting before I went to college with one
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of our local sports teams doing like cameras, directing, replay, stuff like that.
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And when I got to SDSU, our first year seminar class, we took a trip to Sioux
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Falls and they took us to like an ad firm and a news station.
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And that's where I really kind of got interested in it. I saw their control
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room and I was like, this is what I want to do.
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So I talked to Erica Kwam and she helped me get involved with On Call with the
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Prairie Doc, doing production assistant stuff, running prompter, cameras stuff like that,
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and then that summer of 2024 I actually interned at KTIV as a technical media producer and.
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And after that, after my time there, Jim and Rocky reached out to me and kind
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of introduced the idea of restarting the newscast.
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And they wanted me to be a part of it as the director. And so that really got
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me into it. And I really enjoyed doing that.
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And I guess that's kind of how I got started. Yeah.
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What like so obviously the Collegian Report right now is way different than
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what it was when you guys first started.
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Tell me about that, like being at the beginning of, I guess,
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the revival of the Collegian Report and like the differences it was,
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the differences there were then and then when you graduated.
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Yeah it's amazing to be a part of something that became what it is now in the
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beginning there were just three students and then rocky was our main advisor helping with it,
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i was the director and then we had annie witt who was our anchor,
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and she was also writing and then lsd fodder and she was our producer and it
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was just the three of us our first episode was in the basement of the student
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union in the collegiate office,
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and it was like two minutes I think was the length, just very short stories.
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We had readers which was basically just Annie on cam reading a story.
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I think we had maybe two graphics, nothing crazy.
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And then we started getting more people involved. They were seeing what we're
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doing and they were like, I want to try this out. It's something different than
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writing in the newspaper or being on air for radio.
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They wanted to learn more of the technical stuff, writing for broadcasts,
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which is very different from print.
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And then we had our broadcast news reporting class and people would come in
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from that because we talk about
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it. And their stories would be in the newscast, which was really cool.
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Seeing your work that you're doing in class actually being put to use in our newscast.
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And it just kind of started growing and more people were getting involved.
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And now we've got different anchors in every week. We have an ag segment, sports.
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We started getting ads in our newscast, which was huge for us.
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And now we're putting out 10 to 15 minute shows every single week.
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So it was crazy how fast it'll happen. Looking back on it now,
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I'm in awe of how fast we grew.
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I mean, what was the, like, when did Rocky reach out to you?
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The beginning of the fall semester of 2024, after we all got back from that
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summer. So right after my internship, they reached out saying they wanted to
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expand Collegian Media.
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And if I would be interested in kind of going along with that.
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So, yeah, that growth is insane because like just like even.
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I came in late, you know, I came in quite late and knowing like even even from
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when you left off from the spring semester to like now, it feels like we keep doing more.
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And it's just so cool to see like people come in and and like,
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I guess, to help out and and want to do things, you know, and it's just two
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two years. It's such such rapid improvement that. Yeah.
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Would you say that you were comfortable with leaving the Collegian Report as
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it was when you graduated?
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Oh, definitely. I I think we were in a really good spot.
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And then I knew the people that we were leaving it with. And I knew they were
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going to do great things and they had so many plans. And I was just as sad as
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I was to leave such an amazing program and these amazing people.
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I knew it was in good hands. Just the plans that everyone was talking about
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and the content we were already putting out and just knowing it was going to
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keep growing and keep getting better.
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Yeah, definitely. What were some of like the biggest challenges that you had at the beginning of it?
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I think we were such a small group, so that was a bit of a challenge.
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But I think we all worked together well, so that really did help.
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And I think the biggest challenge for me was I didn't really know a lot on like
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the writing and the news side of things just because I at that point I wasn't a journalism minor.
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I took like Jim's basic media writing class, but that's because we all do.
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And I wasn't a huge writer. And so I think that was the biggest challenge for
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me is I wanted to help out with that aspect of stuff. But I'm not a very big
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writer. I'm more comfortable behind the scenes.
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So I think for me, that was a big challenge.
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Are you more confident in your ability to write now? Yeah.
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After, there's so many classes that work on different parts of your writing. And,
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as like a freshman, I was like, I don't really know what I'm doing.
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But taking classes with Jim and Rocky and even Heather, some of those ad classes
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really helped me work on my creativity and be more comfortable with what I'm creating.
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Those really helped with that.
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Now, how has your life changed from being in student media to being in a professional
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media space? What's that like?
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It's quite a shift, especially now we have so many shows each day.
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And the way that we do our shows, it's coding. And so we put all of our stuff
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in our graphics, our camera cues, everything beforehand.
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And then when we actually do our show, we're just hitting like a space bar on
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a keyboard to advance everything.
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So while you still have to make sure your cameras are in the right spot and
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everything is queued up correctly and all of the video is right and everything it's a lot more,
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on the like prep side of things so it's a lot different than what we did at
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Collegian Media where you have that switcher and you're doing all of it through
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that rather than having everything prepped,
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But I'm still working with great people.
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And I think people in this field are just amazing people. And it really,
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I am seeing that through working in school and now where I'm at,
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everybody is just great people. Yeah.
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How many shows do you work on a day? so my shift i work two to eleven so i'm
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kind of like the night side of things we have three shows a day a 5 p.m a 6 p.m and a 10 p.m,
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and so i'll do like one of those shows a day and then i'll be working on,
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master control is what it's called but we're working on the logs for the station,
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making sure all of the spots from sales are getting in anything that our creative
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team is putting in and then also we'll have.
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Like live events going live sports right now we're really into football we just
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got out of our like big baseball season,
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so we'll run breaks for that and then there's always like an interview or,
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a stand-up for a package or something that will kind of help work on.
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And so it'll usually be like the one show and then you're working on other stuff
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for this station throughout your shift,
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nice how has like working like live live events been like because like,
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i started working at the prairie dock and we just had our first live show and
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even though all i do is like press
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one button and then press like whatever lowell tells me to press i still,
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i i the whole time i was like did i click record i like even though i know i
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clicked record i was like like I was so worried,
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what has that been like because the Collegian report we tried doing it as as
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live as possible even though it wasn't live so what was kind of how did how
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does that that switch feel like.
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It was a little stressful, especially in the beginning. I think just I was worried
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something was going to go wrong or I was going to hit the wrong button and something
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was going to happen that wasn't supposed to happen.
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But I think I've definitely got more comfortable with that.
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Just like it's live tv what's what's gonna happen is gonna happen and we do
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our best to control that and I think with time I've gotten better,
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with like by coding and knowing how everything works and there's certain things
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like you have to clear out a graphic channel before putting the next thing in
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and just knowing how all of that flows together,
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I think I've really gotten more comfortable with that and it's kind of exciting
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being on like being live you don't,
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you have it planned out but you don't know exactly what's going to happen and
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I I don't know I think it's kind of fun.
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Sound fun. It's just like you got to keep you just got to stand your toes, basically.
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Yeah, you don't you don't really know what's going to happen, but you do your best.
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And with time, you get better at it. And then yeah.
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And then once you get better at it, you can start being more creative with your
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monitors or your camera shots and stuff like that.
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And so I think I'm starting to get there where I feel comfortable with the basics.
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And so then you can add more stuff. And I work with some great people and they have these great ideas.
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And I'm really trying to push myself to be like them and make all these great monitors.
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And they're nominated for Emmy Awards and all these other things.
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And I'm like, I want to be like that someday. And so I work with some great
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people and they they try and help me to if I have a question or an idea and
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I'm like, how how can I make this look better?
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Or do you have any suggestions on
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this? And I think we all just work great together as a team. So so cool.
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You know, like we always talk about like we are standard like for like whenever
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we're trying to work on something is like, what would Emily do? What did Emily do?
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Would like we we just like we we we always we always think back on like your
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experience and it's so cool that someone who inspires us is also inspired by other by other people,
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but the collegian report it like was so it seems like so much so different than,
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than what you do at ktiv as technical media producer what how did the collegian
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how did how did working for the Collegian Report, like help prepare you for it?
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That's a good question. I feel like I should have a quicker answer.
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I think, I feel like there's so many things that I could talk about.
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Definitely just being able to handle a lot of things at once.
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Like with Collegian Media, I'm trying to figure out who's doing what stories,
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what stories we actually have for this week, things that staff is working on
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that might take a little bit longer,
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like a more developed story rather than a kicker that we got that week.
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And it's just a fun, lighthearted, quick story.
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And then making sure we have staff for studio positions and all of all of the
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things that go into getting our show out on time.
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I think just the multitasking really is a big thing because at work,
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if I'm doing master control, the logs came in and then we have a live event
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going on and some spots need to be prepped and ready to go.
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And just, I feel like in this field of work, there's so many things that are happening all at once.
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And if you can figure out how to stay calm in those situations,
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that's a really good thing.
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Because it's easy to get stressed out, and I do sometimes. But if you can figure
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out how to bring yourself back down and figure out what needs to be done and
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just get it done, I think that's a really big thing.
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Now, going back to like, like the college aspect when you were here in student
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media, what, what do you miss the most about it?
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Hmm. I really miss the people.
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Like, everybody that I worked with, they were just great people.
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And I really was friends with them, not just, like, going to work and talking
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to them and then leaving and that was it.
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Like we really all connected I think and that was one of the big things that
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I really do miss and even like our advisors and our teachers I I learned so
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much from them and I feel like,
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this is gonna sound really cheesy but Kojo is a family I really do believe that
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everybody just gets so close and then,
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I graduate and it's I still talk to people but it's just like I miss seeing
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everybody every day and i think that's that's one of the biggest things i miss from,
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from being there is just the people for sure definitely i think one of my favorite
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memories was when you me ryan and jacob,
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went mini golfing.
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That was such a fun day that's such a core core memory for my student media
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experience as well Because, like, I mean, it is kind of cool,
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I just say, but Kojo is a family.
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And it's just like, like, I really appreciate everyone, everyone around here.
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So I can, I see where you're coming from.
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Yeah, I think that really just shows the connections that we build. Just...
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We went mini golfing together and I feel like some people maybe wouldn't be
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able to say that about people they work with. But I think that just shows how,
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how connected everybody is. Yeah, definitely.
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I think it's cool that like everyone is, was like, is like so close with each
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other, especially because at like post like graduation, like seeing like,
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like you working at like ktiv,
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and like claire working at at her like radio station stuff like it's just cool seeing everybody be,
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so many places.
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And i think i think kojo really gave us that opportunity we were able to kind
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of pick what we wanted to learn the path we wanted to go down and everybody's
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so willing to help and now,
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we we're seeing where that is taking us everybody is,
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doing the things that they wanted to do whether that's writing or like you said
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Claire's on the radio and behind the scenes,
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producing newscasts people are at advertising firms like it's we were really
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able to choose our own path and everybody there is so willing to help us and
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they want us to succeed and I think that's really special.
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Totally,
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Like, I guess this is my last question, but what would you tell students going into student media?
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Like anything, like what would you tell them? Like a piece of wisdom or like
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a suggestion of like what to do or like what would you tell them?
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I would say I feel like this kind of just goes for anybody, but get involved.
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You really meet some of the best people and it helps you also know what's going on campus.
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So that is kind of important for student media, knowing what's going on,
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meeting these people from, they have different perspectives from you.
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And that really, I feel like that helps just as somebody in student media,
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seeing all these different perspectives and really opening your eyes to everything
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rather than, I feel like sometimes you can get so stuck in your head of this is.
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My perspective and that's the only thing,
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like that's how everybody sees it.
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And so I feel like going to different clubs or meetings and just meeting everybody,
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meeting new people really just helps with that.
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And like going out and getting stories, you're meeting all these other people
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and learning their sides of things. And it's just, I think that's really important.
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Just getting involved, doing as much as you can. and I know you you know that,
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but I can't even keep track of how many clubs you go visit but I think that's
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amazing you're just meeting so many people,
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and yeah it's great networking is fun networking is fun thank you so much for
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for joining me today and taking the time and thank you to everyone listening
00:20:37.943 --> 00:20:40.221
to this podcast that's it for.