The 2023 Broadcast Awards for Senior High were held at Hofstra University May 15 and the Central High School District was well represented with students from Mepham High School’s Bellmore-Merrick Broadcasting program and Kennedy High School’s Cougar-TV.
BMB students took home five awards, winning first place from Newsday for the new category of Best Multimedia Story for Thomas DiSalvo, Greg Gallo, Ryan Marr, Nicholas Jimenez and Ruby Mattes’ story about how local businesses impact the supply chain and the need to recycle.Mattes also took home first place for Best School for her story on the school’s Poetry Out Loud competition.BMB took second place for Best Broadcast with Morning Announcements, second place for Best Sports Package with Matt Natof, Kyle McQuillan, Jake LoFrese and Ariel Boodhram’s story on the district wide all-female flag football team, and Lily Yepez and Haley Hepworth were awarded third place for best anchor team on Long Island.
Kennedy’s Preston Bowman and Samantha Schneider received second place in the category of Most Entertaining with their film, “Love’s Better Blind.”
BMB co-produced this year's awards with News Director Sean McQuillan serving as co-emcee and BMB Senior Producer Hannah Broxmeyer working behind the scenes as the event’s technical director.
The event featured a keynote address from WABC Channel 7 Chief Meteorologist Lee Goldberg and a panel discussion led by Newsday TV.
“BASH Live provided an interactive stage show where students from schools across Long Island demonstrated some of the skills they’ve learned in their schools in the pursuit of broadcast excellence,” explained BMB Program Director Stu Stein.
Alex Dollin, a former News 12 reporter who runs Bay News Now at Oyster Bay High School, led a session on producing better standups which included student volunteers performing mock standups in front of the over 700-person audience.Students from Mattituck-Cutchogue’s WHTV-News employed BMB camera operator Anthony Ciuffo to demonstrate the best ways to record B-Roll.Students from Westhampton Beach’s Hurricane Watch demonstrated the best way to record an interview, students from Southold High School’s SOHO-TV explained how to sequence B-roll once it’s been recorded and BMB’s Hannah Broxmeyer showed clips from an episode of Midweek Update that featured work from Manhasset High School’s Manhasset Broadcasting Company and Mattituck to explain how schools from across Long Island could work together to create content.
This year’s BASH awards were the biggest yet— featuring more than 700 students from over 40 schools from Nassau and Suffolk counties and for the first time two schools from Westchester attended (Ossining High School and Peekskill High School).As big as this year’s BASH was, it almost did not happen as in January BASH’s previous home Stony Brook University announced it could no longer host the event.Over the span of 48 hours, teachers from across the island exchanged hundreds of emails and arranged a steering committee made up of teachers from Manhasset High School, Mattituck-Cutchogue, Southold, Westhampton Beach and Mepham to find a new home for BASH and to save the event.
Mepham senior Thomas DiSalvo said he is grateful to all the teachers who stepped in to make sure this year’s event became a reality.
“Every year, we look forward to BASH,” he explained. “It’s a chance for us to compare our work with the rest of the schools in the area and to get to know some of the other people creating media so we can work with them.”
Plans for BASH 2024 are already underway when students from Mattituck Jr.-Sr. High School will take over as the event’s hosts.
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Date Added: 5/17/2023