Headlines

“Seattle Live”

by Diane Cooley

Stand around and wait seems to be what live TV is all about. At least that’s what the Outreach Unit of Student Fiscal Services discovered on the morning of October 7, 2004. Seattle Live, the morning news show on KONG - TV, was on campus to do a segment about students and credit card debt. The SFS Outreach Unit had been contacted several weeks prior regarding our “Money 101” sessions and we were excited about sharing what we offer to students to help them better understand personal finances.

“Money 101” sessions are customized to the audience and may include any or all of these topics: credit cards, earnings and savings, investments, loans, credit reports, fraud, budgets. We offered “Money 101” to incoming students during Dawg Daze and “Seattle Live” sent a cameraman to record our session on Monday, September 27. Students were interviewed just prior to the session and part of the training was filmed. Excerpts from that tape plus live interviews aired October 7 on “Seattle Live”.

So what about the waiting? I arrived on campus at 7:00 a.m. and met the “Seattle Live” TV crew by the statue of George Washington. The crew consisted of the cameraman and the interviewer, Mirtha Vaca. When By George opened, we went for coffee and a discussion. The TV folk were in constant contact with KONG and after our coffee we stood around their van with the extended antennae and waited for our chance to be on TV. We had invited the students who attended “Money 101” to show up to be interviewed and Aspasia Bartell and Nathan Broome took us up on the invitation. Mirtha did a quick teaser on the show about our upcoming segment. We watched the action on their monitor and talked about student debt. Mirtha got some background information and did a couple more teasers. She showed some statistics and the excerpts from the “Money 101” sessions. Finally around 8:40 we were interviewed. It was all over in less than five minutes.