Podcasting comes to UNCP via student newspaper ‘The Pine Needle’

Many of the more than 42 million iPods sold have made their way to The University of North Carolina at Pembroke. Now, students at UNCP can do more than listen to songs on their iPods. They can keep up-to-date with the latest campus and community news.

The Pine Needle, UNCP's student-run newspaper, debuted the first-ever news "Podcast" for students, faculty, alumni and anyone interested in the latest news from the University.

Photo by Adam Fenwick Students can now listen to news briefs from The Pine Needle on their Apple iPods.

A Podcast is an audio file that may be downloaded into any of Apple's popular iPods or other compatible device and listened to at the convenience of the users.

UNCP's new Podcasts are scripted and read by the newspaper's Managing Editor Adam Fenwick, from Polk County, N.C., a junior Mass Communications major.

The Podcast is available for download from The Pine Needle's Web site at www.uncp.edu/pineneedle. The audio files can be downloaded into an iPod or can be played directly from the website.

This is the latest innovation for the paper created by the students.
           
The Website also features videos, shot and edited by students, who illustrate campus and community events such as Homecoming 2006 and the Miss UNCP Pageant. The paper's home page has a link to videos.

The Pine Needle Editor Scott Ammons' vision for the newspaper was to expand its coverage beyond the confines of the campus, making it a newspaper valuable to the Pembroke community as well as the surrounding region.

"Students at UNCP can honestly say they work for a regional newspaper," Ammons said. From Scotland County, N.C., Ammons is a senior mass communications major concentrating in journalism and public relations.

The Pine Needle is distributed at 15 locations in downtown Pembroke, including Pizza Hut, McDonald's, Burger King, Sheff's Seafood Restaurant, Huddle House, Lumbee Guaranty Bank, Dial Insurance, Pembroke TrueValue Hardware, N.C. Farm Bureau, Palmer Prevention, A New Beginning, COMtech, Robeson Community College at COMtech, Pembroke Chamber of Commerce, City Hall, Lumberton Chamber of Commerce, Scotland Memorial Library in Laurinburg and community college campuses at Sandhills, Richmond, Robeson, Fort Bragg, and Red Springs.

"Scott's ideas to increase the number of pages in the paper, to increase the circulation of the paper, to increase the number of Web videos, and now to provide Podcasts has created many more learning opportunities for the students working on the paper," says Dr. Judy Curtis, journalism professor and faculty adviser to The Pine Needle.
For more information about UNCP's student newspaper, contact Dr. Curtis at (910) 521-6238 or jcurtis@uncp.edu

--UNCP Newswire