NGU Media Team: Making a Difference
Devin Kilgore, Contributing Writer
The lights brighten the stage, the speakers hum softly as the sliders are pushed up and the cameras are set and ready to capture the service but none of that is possible without the North Greenville University Media Team.
The Media Team handles everything audio and video related on campus. They are mainly involved with Chapel services and student recital recordings. They also record and broadcast every event.
“It’s just a great group of people to work with,” stated Robert Therrell, junior broadcast media major. “I have learned a lot of stuff from people on the team that I wouldn’t learn in any regular class.”
Hours are put into setting up the events, working said events and tearing down the sets after they are done. Despite the effort placed into the show, the media team has no desire to pull the attention to themselves.
“If we do our jobs right, no one notices us” said Tiffany Goff, senior broadcast media major and video director of the media team. “We are here to serve the school with the talents that God has given us. We use media as a way to glorify God on this campus and witness to those who see it because for a lot of people, what we produce is all they see.”
Sadly, the media team is noticed most during services when they make mistakes. The student-led team tries its best to offer a seamless and smooth service for students and other audience members but sometimes things go awry.
“Nothing happens to often,” said Megan Gouge, senior broadcast media major. “They aren’t anything major, just a couple of hiccups here and there. But whenever there are accidents, they are fixed almost immediately.”
“Through all the mayhem that may occur, they do a good job and I think it’s a great opportunity for the team. They get a hands-on experience and a taste of the craft because its what some of them will be doing after college” said Gouge.
Other than the hiccups that the team runs into, there are times where the team can’t fix what is in front of them.
“Some of the worst things that can happen unexpectedly would be the power going out in chapel or the live stream not working and we can’t figure out what’s going on,” stated Goff. “The thing about being media people is you always have to be ready to work around problems because something will always go wrong. We just have to work through it, either realize it’s not worth worrying about or be a problem solver and fix it the best you can.”
The team members care deeply about the audience and what they can do to help them as much as possible. They never know when a word or sentence could change someone’s life and if the media team isn’t performing at 100%, it could jeopardize that opportunity.
“Anything we do has an effect on our outreach to the students and even people who are not on campus,” stated Jacob Bradford, junior music major. “Our job is to work together to produce the best worship experience ever and i think we do that every time we go in to work.”
Despite their efforts to make chapel the best they can, many of the students on the team feel unappreciated.
“The media team is like the invisible heroes of chapel,” stated Lara Eller, mass communication instructor. “They work all these events and nobody even thinks that without the team none of it would be possible. They are always the team that gets overlooked at an event when people are being thanked and I think that’s just wrong.”
“I don’t think a lot of people know who were are and why we do what we do but I enjoy my job because it give me the opportunity to help with a campus ministry even if people don’t always know that I’m there” stated Therrell. “It may be a thankless job, but we are there to enhance the service and glorify God. If that is our goal, we don’t need any thanks.”
