Jennifer Ream

What is Inside JMS?

In response to the Covid-19 Pandemic, the faculty and staff of the Hank Greenspun School of Journalism and Media Studies began working from home and teaching online. Now that faculty and students are returning to campus and having more opportunities for face-to-face interactions, we almost feel like we need to re-introduce ourselves to our colleagues and students. The same is true for other schools and departments in the College of Urban Affairs and across the university. Since we boast a new podcasting studio and classes in podcasting, audio announcing, audio production, and audio storytelling, we believe that the best way to introduce ourselves is by sharing the personal stories and backgrounds of our faculty and staff. The goal is to introduce each of our faculty and staff members to students, the public, and each other. Starting with these podcasts, we hope to build a podcasting network devoted to helping students and the public meet the people who teach the classes, conduct the research, and manage media operations. We also hope to get to know each other better and build a richer academic community. So lend an ear to the personal stories of the faculty and staff preparing students for a promising future.

Kevin Stoker 0:00
Welcome to Inside JMS podcast featuring the faculty and staff of the Hank Greenspun School of Journalism and Media Studies. I'm Kevin Stoker, and here's my co host, Dr Dave Nourse,

Dave Nourse 0:11
always pleasure to be right next to you, and in this case, right right next to

Kevin Stoker 0:14
you. Yes, we have today a great guest in Jennifer ream, she is the executive producer of UNLV TV, and she's been here a very long time.

Jennifer Ream 0:26
I have do I have to say how long it

Kevin Stoker 0:30
will give away my age? Let's talk about that. And I think that's my first question. Jen, you started here as a student, and you've never left. What is it that is caught. What made you decide to come to UNLV in the first place, and why broadcasting?

Jennifer Ream 0:46
Well, I didn't come here by choice. Originally, I had picked another college and my Jen,

Dave Nourse 0:53
that's it. The interview is

Jennifer Ream 0:54
over. I know my my father, my father told me that if I went to unlv, he would pay for it. And if I went to the other school, then the one up Nourse, I got to pay for it. No, it was not. It was one further north, different state understood. And so that was an easy choice to make. And so I ended up here at UNLV. And it actually all worked out. I originally, I was a political science major, wow, and I was enjoying that, but I don't know what it was, something sparked my curiosity in journalism, and actually, at the time, it was the school of communication. So there was a split that happened later between communication and in journalism. But at that time, it was the school of communication, and I really loved my communication class, and so I decided to switch my major, and I just stuck with it and and I really enjoyed it, and I the reason I stayed here at UNLV, that's kind of a long story. Well, I don't know if it's that long, but

Dave Nourse 2:05
fortunately, this is a podcast. We're made of time. Yeah?

Jennifer Ream 2:10
So after my first year of college, I met my husband, fell in love, of course, you know, he was not my husband the time, but we met, fell in love and decided, let's get married. Why wait till we graduate? So I got married after my first year of college, and then we made the decision, as poor college students that, you know what, let's start a family. So kind of a non traditional path we decided to take, but we decided to, decided to start a family, and so we were blessed with a beautiful daughter, and I ended up slowing things down a little bit. So I was on the six year plan because I was also being a mom and raising a child. So I graduated after six years and had a beautiful little

Kevin Stoker 3:10
girl. How did how did you end up shoot you chose journalism or communications at that time? Yeah. And then, how did you choose broadcasting? Did it just pull you in? What happened? It did?

Jennifer Ream 3:23
I think that I was always interested in news, and I think that stemmed a lot from being a political science major. Initially, I like news. I like politics, and so it just seemed like a natural fit for me to take that path.

Kevin Stoker 3:41
Tell me about entering into your first broadcast class, what inspired you, what kept you going, and did you start working for UNLV TV then too.

Jennifer Ream 3:51
So I didn't start working for UNLV TV right away. My first broadcasting class, I believe, was writing for broadcast, if that counts. And I do remember that class I had my one like claim to fame, that at the time, the professor was Erica Engstrom, who taught here for many years. I think she's in Florida. I think she's Kentucky now. Okay, so I remember in that class that she was a tough, tough professor, and she required a lot of the students. And I remember I wrote one story, and I got 100% on it, and I do remember her in class holding it up, saying, It is possible. And that helped motivate me think, okay, maybe I can do this. That's great. So So I, I found myself, I just really enjoyed broadcasting, and then, you know, all the classes that came along with that, with editing, you know, although back in the day, I was still on reel to reel, so it was a different world back then. And then, once we. Finally got into the studio, just fell in love with it, and loved everything about production.

Kevin Stoker 5:06
And I've seen photos of you and Paul Gutierrez as anchors of the studio G news. Or was it called studio G I

Jennifer Ream 5:14
know at that time it was news center four and and we, we broadcast a weekly show that was actually on Cox cable, on Channel Four. Well, at the time, I think it was prime cable, but we were Paul and I were co anchors. So, so we were co anchors on the newscast together.

Kevin Stoker 5:37
And it's kind of neat that Paul now teaches for us, and he is, he's been a reporter with ESPN, and then went on to now work for the Raiders,

Jennifer Ream 5:47
yeah, Paul. I mean, just had an amazing career in sports journalism, and it is so incredible to have him here now.

Kevin Stoker 5:55
But you've had an amazing career, so you stayed with it, and then how did you end up working for UNLV

Jennifer Ream 6:01
TV so well? I, you know, completed my studies in a short six years time. Just flew. It did, but, you know, I had a little one I was chasing around at the time, and when I graduated, I was going into news, and I was doing some freelance stuff as well, and I quickly discovered that the broadcast news didn't work well with a family life. And it was something that my husband and I talked about, and so we had been talking about different things. And the great thing about a degree in journalism is broadcasting, is you don't have to go into news. There are a lot of opportunities out there. I did some work with a nationally syndicated talk show and was doing that, and it was interesting, but not something that I necessarily, necessarily wanted to do forever and UNLV came back knocking on my door saying, Hey, there's this position that's opened up at the university, and would you please apply? And I thought, well, you know, just so happens I'm I'm looking for a full time position, and so I applied for the position, got it, and I never left no,

Dave Nourse 7:22
and you're still here. Still here. Jen, you've got, in terms of longevity, you've got a lot of longevity. You've kind of grown up, in a way, with the school. You were here when the School of Journalism and Media Studies was founded. As you talked earlier about the split from Communication Studies. I think one of the things that people oft forget is before we had this beautiful building, UNLV TV was somewhere else on campus talk to us a little bit about life in FDH, because I know we take for granted these beautiful facilities. And even as equipment gets older and is aging, we still have it somewhat better than we had at FDH. Maybe talk about, kind of your early days at UNLV TV, and kind of the lead up to when we moved into Greenspun Hall, and kind of what that meant for you. Because, I mean, the technology changed in that amount of time, the industry changed in that amount of time, and you kind of were right in the middle of all of it, and would love to hear

Jennifer Ream 8:25
Yeah, so it was really interesting. I mean, I look back fondly on my days in FDH. It's kind of like when you're, you know, a young college student, and you're poor, and it seems so tough. And then you look back when you get older, you look back on those times, and it's like, remember those good old times when you're living in the apartment or the dorm or whatever? I kind of feel like that about FDH, not luxury accommodations, but it was fun. You know? It was a basement studio, and I believe that the studio in FDH is actually a fallout shelter. Here on campus, it was like the designated fallout shelter, which everybody who, I guess is, you know, wasn't born in the 50s or 60s, could not know what that is,

Dave Nourse 9:10
but, but just in case of a nuclear war, it was, it

Jennifer Ream 9:13
was a fallout shelter. And so one of the fun things about FDH, I don't know if it was fun. Challenges is that, because it was in a basement and it was lower every time it would rain, it was prone to flooding. And so there are many times what expensive equipment needs, yes, so there were many times that the studio would flood. And one of the worst instances happened. There was actually no rain, but there was a huge water main break on the other side of campus, and all of the conduit, like the Nourse center, for all of the technology at UNLV, went into FDH, and so the pipes, and I want us. Might have been somewhere over by the law school. I can't remember exactly, but those pipes filled with water and ran all the way into FDH to our basement. And so it happened, you know it, I think it was over a weekend, and our engineer went down into the studio and stepped down. It was like dark. It was usually dark going into the studio, went walking down and stepped into probably four to five inches of water on the studio floor. I mean, there's a lot of, you know, cameras, a lot of electrical things plugged in. And that was quite a surprise. So we got to deal with things like that, but somehow we survived, and we were able to, you know, be blessed with this facility. But as far as the move, you know, one of the challenges with broadcasting, but also part of the fun is using the technology that you have and making it work. And it requires a lot of creativity. And I mean, it's something that you deal with here, you know, at UNLV a lot, and really everywhere, because nobody has unlimited resources. And so it's figuring out how to do the most you can with what you have. And so it was, you know, we went from there where we had very little, to when we moved into this building, suddenly having everything. And it was a lot of fun to be able to suddenly have all of those resources. Of course, there was a huge learning curve there too, to learn how to, you know, to make that shift into the digital world.

Dave Nourse 11:47
And what a shift that was. I mean, really, overnight, seemingly, you know, you move into a new building, and then you go from this analog based world to a digital based world. Jen, you teach classes for us, and you've been kind of integral to the operations of UNLV TV, either as in a producer role or in your executive producer role. How do you keep current? The technology is always moving. How do you stay up to date?

Jennifer Ream 12:14
Well, first of all, I surround myself with people who are way smarter than I am.

Dave Nourse 12:20
Well done. Kevin. Well, no,

Kevin Stoker 12:23
it's Sean and RT, right,

Jennifer Ream 12:24
yeah. Well, Sean, RT. You know, back with Dan, our former engineer, as long as you're surrounded with people who are really smart, because, I mean, I am the first to acknowledge I do not have an engineering, technical brain, but I've tried to learn as much as I can, and I'm very much an operator. I rely on on the smart people to make everything work. But yeah, it's just something that you have to continually train and look into and and work on

Kevin Stoker 13:00
very recent upgrade as well. Yeah, we, we've

Jennifer Ream 13:03
been really fortunate to be able to do some upgrades in our studio yet. I mean, we've been here in Greenspun Hall now for 15 years, 15 years, which seems so crazy that it's been that long. But, yeah, I mean, the equipment ages, and so we've had to do some upgrades. And it's, it's really great to be able to do that and continue to provide our students with, like, great equipment and facilities.

Kevin Stoker 13:29
How is the mission of UNLV TV changed across over the years?

Jennifer Ream 13:35
You know, at its core, I don't think it's really changed that much. I mean, UNLV TV came into existence to provide students with hands on learning opportunities, and that's really still what we're doing. I mean, the core of what we do is providing our students with the opportunities to to get that experience while they're here in school. Because, you know, that's one of the challenges, right? You you go to school, you graduate, and you have on your resume, you know, graduate, but to be able to add that work experience is really important, and also just the opportunity for the students to get the reps in. I mean, no matter how big the production. It could be a single camera production, a multi camera production, but just showing up and doing it, you're learning every time, and you can tell a difference between the students that get fully engaged and take advantage of those opportunities and those that don't talk to

Dave Nourse 14:39
us a little bit about teaching. So when you came to UNLV, obviously the job at UNLV TV sounded really appealing. Did you ever think you'd be a teacher? Do you enjoy the teaching element?

Jennifer Ream 14:49
I did not think I would ever be teaching. I mean, the just working with students, there's that element of teaching, and that's something that did appeal to me, the opportunity, opportunity to work. With students. And so that was something that I've always enjoyed, is just the energy that the students bring. It makes me feel young and old at the same time. I think that I'm young because the students say to stay the same age. So in my mind, I do as well. No, but, but I never thought that I would be in a classroom teaching. I always thought it was more, you know, in the field, working alongside them in more of a mentor type role, but, but being in the classroom has been really fun, and it's great to see the excitement that the students have, you know, in the academic side, yeah,

Dave Nourse 15:43
when it's not always 830 in the morning, yeah, Everyone's tired. So what is so, as you've you're so you teach journalism 202, which is our video production and journalism one course. And it's a core course for the for the program. It's the optional core we only need to get to in the weeds over here, but tell us a little bit about kind of what your classroom is like. What's your philosophy in the classroom? Kind of, what the what's the expectation of the students, for somebody who may never have an opportunity to take a class in video production before, why would they want to take it with you? Jen,

Jennifer Ream 16:20
well, I think the great thing about journalism 202, is that with it being an introductory course, we're able to cover a lot of ground in terms of not only journalism, but just video production. And the most important thing for me, for students to walk away with are the number of opportunities available in with a degree in broadcasting or production. And there are the students who go into that class and they know they are going to be a reporter, producer, whatever it's going to be, and they have that focus. There are others that come in thinking, I kind of like this, but they're not sure, and just providing them with the opportunity to see all of the different jobs involved with broadcasting. I mean, it's most people think of an anchor reporter, because those are the faces we see on the TV, right? But they don't see the hundreds of jobs behind the scenes, and just opening them up to everything, that all the opportunities and career possibilities available behind the camera is what's most exciting to me. I mean, I started thinking I wanted to be a reporter, and then I quickly decided that, you know, I had a face for radio, but I don't have a voice for for radio either. So that's why I ended up behind the camera, producing more. But you know, I was actually a videographer for a time. I was like the main videographer for UNLV TV. That wasn't something that ever thought I wanted to do, but a position opened up, and I stepped into that role, and I found that I really loved it. I love the creativity behind, you know, composing the perfect shot. And so that's been kind of fun for me personally, just to be able to take advantage of all those little opportunities and and discover, you know, my passion in and it's changed throughout the years. But that's, like I said, one of the great things about broadcasting is there's so many opportunities there. Well,

Kevin Stoker 18:29
tell us how it's evolved. What, what? So you were a time you you did that, but what else did you do while you're here?

Jennifer Ream 18:38
Well, I've been here. Well, I started more as an assistant, a production assistant, and then worked in that role for quite a while. And then I started producing. I did some hosting. So I hosted a show for the university, and so I was still in front of the camera a little bit, but then I found myself moving more and more into producing, and that was kind of where I spent most of my career. And again, opportunities opened up, and so I became a director, and so I was the main director for UNLV TV for quite a while, and like I said, I was also a videographer, and so that's kind of where my role has been. The one thing that I have never really fully leaned into is editing. And as I teach the students, though. I mean, you have to know how to do everything, especially in today's media landscape. You have to be able to do everything. I do not have the patience to edit. I give so much credit to editors, just the monotony of listening to things over and over, I can't do it. I can if I. Have to but, but you prefer not. I prefer not to.

Dave Nourse 20:05
Jen, as you have stated already, you know you started your family relatively young, but I know your family is a big and important part of your life. Your grandmother, you have grandkids on the other side of the country. Tell us a little bit about life outside of UNLV. I know that you have a husband and you've got you've got some great kids and some grandkids. So tell us about kind of who Jen ream is when she's not wearing the UNLV TV executive producer hat. Yeah. Well,

Jennifer Ream 20:35
well, my kids are part of the reason I think I stayed here for so long. Every time I think maybe I should move on and do something else. There was like, okay, but my kids could go to school. So, so that was appealing, so and kind of funny. None of them ended up going to UNLV, but, but they could have. But they could have. They did go to other universities here in Nevada, but no my family is really important to me, and that really is, is one of the reasons why working here at UNLV has been such a blessing in my life, is because it's allowed a really good balance for me, for my family, I have a daughter and two amazing boys, and they are now all married, which makes me feel so incredibly old. And I have three beautiful granddaughters, and they all live in South Carolina with my daughter and her husband, who's in the Air Force. So it's a long distance, but it gives us a lot of excuses to go, fly across the country and visit it's right, yeah,

Kevin Stoker 21:47
how have you handled the work life balance? That's that's something a lot of students ask me about, so I wondered, how have you handled it?

Jennifer Ream 21:55
For me, I part of it was finding a job that fit my lifestyle, and that was one of the reasons that I chose. I made a very conscious decision not to go into news, just because, at the time, I just knew that wouldn't work for me. Personally, had I made different life choices, then I think that I probably would have followed a path into, you know, traditional broadcast news. But for me, it was just not something that was going to work. But again, there's so many opportunities out there. And then I just, you know, when I'm at work, I'm at work, and then I've always found myself when it came time to, you know, go home, then I was fully invested in my family. And I, you know, I had some friends that stayed home and were full time moms, which is a very noble choice and amazing for them. I would always laugh, because they would always be so excited for, you know, school to start back after the summer break, or, you know, for the kids to be gone. And I felt the opposite every day when I got home. I was so excited to be home. And so I never, ever felt like, Oh, I wish my kids were in school or gone. Every moment that I got to spend with my family, I just absolutely treasured

Speaker 1 23:20
that's great.

Kevin Stoker 23:21
That's great As you ponder back on your time here at UNLV, and maybe even as you think about the contribution of UNLV TV to the university, not just our program, but the university. What gives you the most satisfaction?

Jennifer Ream 23:41
For me, I think it's just the stories that we've been able to help share about the university, because there are some really incredible professors and researchers here at the university, and being able to help share their stories and the work that they're doing has been something that gives me a lot of joy. And just, yeah, just just sharing those stories, and sometimes it's just connecting people. You know, one of the fun things about this new world we live in is the ability to stream. You know, back when I started, if it wasn't over the broadcast airwaves, I mean, you didn't get to see it, it would be pre recorded. And now the opportunity to live stream and be able to connect people has been fun, so that even if somebody is on the other side of the country, they still can watch, you know, their you know, son or daughter graduating from the UNLV law school or something like that. So that's, that's something that's nice.

Kevin Stoker 24:47
Did UNLV TV? How did it become kind of the key production facility for the university itself? I mean, most of your clients are campus clients, and. That. When did it make that transformation from May? I don't know if it ever was working with external clients, but you know, and now it's become one of the key arms production arms for the university. How did that come about? Yeah, well, we

Jennifer Ream 25:16
don't really have time to get into all of this, but we actually started the way UNLV TV really started was recording city council and county commission meetings, and that we did that for a number of years, and then the the agreement that we had ended. And so at that point, UNLV TV kind of shifted in starting doing work for the University as a whole. And, you know, at one point, it was just like recording different shows and things like that. And then it wasn't until a little bit later that we really got into live streaming. And then that really exploded during covid, because suddenly everything was virtual. And so that's when we really the live streaming took off like it hadn't before. Before that, you know, we would still record events, but, but covid definitely prompted the live stream.

Kevin Stoker 26:21
Interesting, interesting.

Dave Nourse 26:24
Jen, as we just about wrapped this up, because we told you we had about a half hour or so, got a couple of fun questions for you that I think would just, you know, keep you on your toes. All right, we were talking, we were joking about your your kids before we started shooting this. And you know, if one said I want McDonald's, the other one said I want Panda Express, or vice versa, favorite food or favorite restaurant to go to in Las Vegas. Oh my

Jennifer Ream 26:49
gosh, that is really tricky, because I never get to pick. I picky eaters in my family. So they always pick our

Dave Nourse 27:00
Yeah, oh no, no, I get it. But it's just like, if somebody said, Jen, it's, it's time for you.

Jennifer Ream 27:04
I get to pick, wow. I really, this is terrible. I know I really don't have any place, okay, I would say we eat a lot of Korean barbecue in my family. So there you go. I like that. I think it's top Korean barbecue, sunset, okay,

Dave Nourse 27:25
okay, most fun vacation that you could go on at any point in time, because I know you guys do get a chance to go out. You go on to the lake, do different things. What would you get to do? If you could do anything?

Jennifer Ream 27:34
My I am a water girl, so anything with a beach or water, so I'm a big fan of Hawaii, yeah, or any type of beach gate vacation with a lot of sun. But if I meet if, but if I have to go to Europe, I'm happy to go to Europe

Kevin Stoker 27:51
as well. And I think you're quite the water skier too, right? Well,

Jennifer Ream 27:55
I don't water ski anymore. I had a little incident year ago where I ruptured my hamstring water skiing. So I've, I've given up water skiing. I do water wake surf. Okay, wake surfing is my thing now,

Kevin Stoker 28:09
well, Jen, we usually end these up, these podcasts, with the question, is there something we haven't asked you that we should have asked you, that you can think about, that you think our audience would be really interested in hearing, even if they're not interested in hearing, what is it?

Jennifer Ream 28:28
I don't know that the audience would be interested in hearing anything from me. Just that I'm grateful to UNLV for the opportunities that I've been given, and it's been, I guess the thing that's fun is just to see the excitement and see the students and their success. That's the one thing about, you know, a teaching environment is that you get to kind of live through your student success and to see our students go on and do amazing things is just the greatest

Dave Nourse 29:07
man. We couldn't have picked a better way to end Great. Great. Andy Jennifer, thank you so much.

Speaker 1 29:13
Thank you. We appreciate you. Do it.