ASU journalism students build home studios to report remotely

ASU Cronkite students continue to bring news to the homes of their viewers despite not having access to the Cronkite News studios on ASU’s Downtown Phoenix campus. 

From their homes to the homes of viewers, these students tell the stories they’ve worked on during this time of social distancing and continue to broadcast on Arizona PBS. 

Cronkite School journalists Brady Klain, Marcella Baietto and Scott Gange are a few of the many students who have created home studios. These three students decided to bring the term “working remotely” to a whole new level.

Each has made a home studio to fit the needs for the work they are passionate about.

Gange, a senior studying sports journalism, is a student in-game host and sports director of Blaze radio. He has designed an at-home studio for his daily morning talk show, Scotty G in the Morning, which is filmed live on Twitter.

“I was doing a morning show on Blaze radio,” Gange said.“I still wanted to do stuff, and I was kind of in a spot where I didn’t know exactly what to do. I thought it would be kind of a fun project to make my own studio.” 

Gange’s talk show covers all things sports, including discussions about ASU and professional teams. 

Gange built his studio in his bedroom at his home in Phoenix and decorated it with … socks! 

According to Gange, socks are his thing; he has more than he needs and decided that he wanted to give his studio an at-home feel. 

“I have 300 or 400 pairs of them,” Gange said. “I thought, hey that would be kind of cool if I could kind of design it and make it look a little fun and very much at home.” 

While students have been creative with the creation of home studios, they have also kept in mind the importance of professionalism.

Brandy Klain, a senior studying sports journalism and photographer and reporter for Cronkite News, wanted his studio to mirror the professional environment he had worked in before social distancing. 

“I wanted to try to keep a similar level of professionalism that I had in the studio when I came home during this time,” Klain said. “It really inspired me to build a studio at home when I started anchoring a lot more at Cronkite and doing the news show where I anchor for PBS.”

Klain built his studio in an office space at his home in Indianapolis. Klain was able to use his equipment from photography to help enhance his home studio. He even added a feature where he could change the color of his lighting to add certain effects to his work. 

“I’ve worked in sports for a long time,” Klain said. “I’ve been super lucky to cover a lot of cool events.” Klain took sports memorabilia he had collected and used it to decorate the background of his studio. 

Some items he used to decorate include a sign from the NFL Combine from his work with ESPN, programs from when he worked the Indy 500, and his own book filled with photography of ASU football. 

He also has fun sports memorabilia such as bobbleheads, a football helmet and a sculpture of a fat dog just for laughs. 

Klain shared that his biggest challenge when using the studio, besides the occasional issue with WiFi connection, is keeping his dog, Mia, out of the room.

“My dog really likes to come and start pounding on the doors whenever it is closed, which is really really loud,” Klain said. “The biggest [challenge] is keeping my dog away to make sure she doesn’t run in here and jump up and try to be on TV.”

Balancing work in a home environment is an important skill to learn when working remotely.

“I think the hardest part of working from home has been the emotional aspect,” said Marcella Baietto, a master’s student studying journalism and mass communications and Cronkite News reporter, anchor and weather reporter. 

“I’ve tried a ton of different set-ups throughout these weeks,” Baietto said. “At first I was working from my bedroom.”

Over time, working in the same place she slept was not going to work, said Baietto.

“It’s intense. You are now working and living and socializing and eating in the same exact place where you do all those things,” Baietto said.

Baietto uses her mother's craft room and the living room at her home in Anthem, Ariz., to build her studios. Baietto has three different set-ups that she uses depending on if she is anchoring, stand-up reporting or reporting on the weather. 

Baietto takes her studio down every day after using it, so as not to be an inconvenience for her family members who are also working from home during this time.

According to Baietto, having boundaries between work and home is an important part of being a journalist. 

“I’ve always tried to really set boundaries just because, as you know, journalism is such an intense life,” Baietto said. 

Taking her studio down after using it and not working in her bedroom gave her a stronger boundary between work and home life, said Baietto. 

One of the challenges Baietto faced outside of balancing her work and home life was not having the technology available that she had in the studio she used to work in.

As an anchor for Cronkite Noticias Baietto must speak in Spanish. Since Spanish is not her first language, she needed a little extra help. Normally Baietto would read Spanish from the teleprompters in the studio, but without studio access, she had to get creative.

Baietto crafted a homemade teleprompter using an old shoebox, duct tape, the glass part of an old picture frame, and an iPad. 

“There’s no right way to work remotely,” Baietto said. “We are all different. It’s all going to come to us in different ways at different times.”