On Tuesday, November 8, Professor Bob Rucker came up with a unique project for the graduate students in Mass Communications 210: Media & Social Issues.

As the votes were being counted and reported on Nov. 8th, graduate students from the SJSU School of Journalism & Mass Communications were part of the historic NBC 11  Bay Area extensive television coverage.

Thirteen students volunteered to help the local NBC station news staff gather and report the latest developments as they happened.

Stephanie Adrouny, Vice-President of News, NBC 11 Bay Area and Professor Bob Rucker, Journalism worked on the joint project for weeks. To prepare the students, Dan Pyryt, executive producer, NBC 11 Bay Area, visited the class and told students how they would be helping individual newsroom producers and reporters identify and share late-breaking election developments, address voter concerns, and support NBC social media reporting efforts that evening.

“Our grad students come from many academic backgrounds,” says Rucker. “This experience allowed them to have an up close, eye-opening and unique media learning experience on one of the busiest and most exciting nights in the television news business.”

Rucker, a former CNN Correspondent and NBC local news election night anchor/reporter in Philadelphia, covered the 1980 Ronald Reagan/Jimmy Carter vote count. “I will never forget how thrilling it was to be a part of that history making that evening,” Rucker said.

While on campus, Pyryt also met with Spartan Daily staff members and congratulated them on their efforts. Pryt told the student staff and Professor Rucker’s class that the NBC 11 Bay Area  news team reads the campus newspaper every day, and many times they develop SJSU stories after reading the student reporting.

“I’m proud of the education we offer students in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications,” says Rucker.  We strive to continue our long-time motto, to teach students to ‘Learn by Doing.’