Breaking into Breaking News
On October 31, 2017, Billy Miecuna found himself alongside reporters from nearly every major news network during the aftermath of a terrorist attack when a man used a rented truck to run down pedestrians and cyclists along a bike path near the World Trade Center Memorial. Miecuna helped to set up the camera, lights, and other equipment for the news crews of Spectrum News NY1, where he completed a fall 2017 internship in field operations. For the budding news producer, the experience gave him firsthand insight into what it takes to cover breaking and sometimes tragic news.
Miecuna, a second-year student pursuing his B.F.A. in Digital Film and Television Production, worked in the ENG (electronic news-gathering) room renting out and managing equipment for the cable news network. The experience covering the October 31 truck attack showed him that the journey to becoming a producer is going to be full of challenges and surprises.
“It’s an incredible experience,” he says of supporting news crews from behind the scenes. “You get a phone call from the assignment desk, and they say, ‘Okay, I need Guido and Billy to get in the truck and go to the terrorist attack to get some footage.’ You don’t know when news is going to happen, but you have to be at the scene, you have to use facts, and you have to use a professional attitude because you can’t have a biased opinion. You have to tell people what’s going on. And you have to tell it in a very interesting way.”
Since completing his internship at NY1, he has been accepted into the Fox News College Associate Program for the spring and will be working in studio production or video editing. Miecuna eventually wants to become a producer because he wants to be in charge of a crew and video production, and he wants to mentor others. “My interests are in the technical environment,” he says.
Since starting at NYIT in fall 2016, Miecuna has wasted no time in getting hands-on experience. In his first year, he began a work-study job maintaining the equipment and rental room for the Department of Communication Arts. He also did freelance videography for Creative Tech Week and TEDxNYIT.
Miecuna found his niche at NYIT very quickly. “I’m able to fit in with other NYIT communication arts students,” he says. He likes that the student body is diverse and international, and his classmates impart different points of view.
Miecuna also appreciates the extensive resources in Career Services and the many faculty members who have guided him. “They want students to achieve whatever they desire,” he says.
He got a jumpstart on both NYIT and his future television career while he was still in high school. He took classes in field production and 3-D animation at NYIT as part of a precollege program even before he was accepted early decision. He also took a television production course in his senior year of high school and created a documentary about Muhammad Ali with two other students who went on to become his closest friends.
Miecuna chose NYIT because he felt the most comfortable there and because he was excited to work with Communication Arts Professor Michael Banks, who he had met at an NYIT open house in 2014. Miecuna went on to complete an independent study class with Banks in the summer of 2016 before matriculating at NYIT.
“My advice to students is to get as much experience as you can,” Miecuna says. He points out that internships can often lead to full-time jobs and recommends that students seek out internships at local access networks in their hometowns. While in middle and high school, Miecuna worked for Great Neck Public Schools Television 75 (GNPS-TV). GNPS has had a professional television studio since the 1950s, according to the program’s website. In 2016, during the time Miecuna served as a production assistant at GNPS-TV, the network beat out thousands of entries from colleges and high schools around the country to win a Hometown Media Award.
Miecuna also emphasizes the importance of getting an internship or at least volunteer experience in your desired field to learn skills that can’t be learned in a classroom, such as corporate etiquette and how to manage large, fast-paced work environments.
“In news media, you must know how to set up cameras quickly and perform various technical functions in a short and reasonable amount of time. For example, at NY1, we almost sent out a camera with a broken SDI (serial digital interface) connection. The ENG assistant missed it, but I picked it up, I swapped it out with a new wire, and we were out,” he says.
