Pilot Sponsors Grady Mobile News Lab

NAB’s Pilot innovation initiative will sponsor the Mobile News Lab project at the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication during fall 2017. The sponsorship will provide the lab with new equipment for producing virtual reality content along with materials for training mobile-media best practices. 

The Grady Mobile News Lab launched in Fall 2014 to provide students a forum to experiment with mobile production tools and design concepts. Students learn from Grady faculty, guest trainers and industry coaches as they engage in hands-on practice using mobile devices and applications to report and present news. This year, 18 students will work in three tracks: standard mobile video, social media and virtual reality video.

Pilot Executive Director John Clark said: “Pilot is delighted to support the work at Grady College and the Mobile News Lab students who are experimenting with VR to further develop next-generation storytelling.”

Skip Pizzi, NAB’s VP of technology education and outreach, added: “We’re proud to provide a Pilot sponsorship for this innovative program at the Grady College. It is a great opportunity to stimulate tomorrow’s journalists in learning about new tools that will help them better inform and engage their audiences.”

Ann Marie Jorgensen, a senior lab leader at Grady College, said the Mobile News Lab provides students with an environment to take risks and be creative with their story telling. “I’m grateful to work with my classmates in a fun and cutting-edge way,” she said. Charlotte Norsworthy, a third-year lab leader, will incorporate her lab project into an undergraduate research thesis about virtual reality. “I am so excited that the Mobile News Lab has provided students such as myself the chance to engage in projects we can be proud of,” she said. “It gives us the opportunity to test the waters, try new things and build off of the strengths of our peers.”

The Grady Mobile News Lab is an extracurricular experiential learning opportunity presented by the college’s James M. Cox Jr. Institute for Journalism Innovation, Management and Leadership.

Dr. Keith Herndon, director of the Cox Institute, said NAB’s sponsorship is vitally important because it allows the program to expand into virtual reality, a new area of training. “Students benefit greatly when exposed to emerging technologies in a lab setting,” he said. “It opens them up to thinking about what’s next. Students are engaged when they realize they will lead the next wave of innovation.”