Com 420 -- PORTFOLIO PREPARATION

4-7-2000 Lecture by Dr. Avon Edward Foote, University of North Alabama, Florence

Dr. Foote used examples of what has been happening with the Disney Corporation to point to how the growth and development of the Internet offers exceptional opportunities for Communication and Theatre majors in all options.

Disney has been hit with resignation of Patricia Fili-Krushel, president of ABC-TV and, until her resignation, the nation's top-ranking female executive in broadcast TV. Fili-Krushell said last week that she was joining health-oriented Internet company Healtheon/WebMD.

Other Disney executives have left the company for Internet opportunities, including Geraldine Laybourne, former president of Disney's cable networks, and Jake Winebaum, Disney's former Internet chairman.

If top-level employees of a giant entertainment/broadcasting company are leaving for Internet slots, then shouldn't entry-level media and PR graduates be looking toward the same kinds of firms for their first employment after graduation?

But, students who are looking for the broadcast tv, cable, and radio jobs should also find encouragement in these important employment trends. When top level people leave stations and networks for the Internet, they often take a number of lower level employees with them. Those lower-level openings must be filled. Or, when employees don't move with the former boss, they may be the first in line for a promotion to the opening created by the boss's departure. In either case, jobs become vacant, trickling down to the entry level positions.

Dr. Foote maintains a Disney site, which was ranked one or two for both Disney's America and Disney CEO Michael Eisner searches at Disney's GO Network portal from February to October, 1999. He watches for Disney openings to be advertised in national media, such as the one for a Disney Television Producer which appeared in the December 13, 1999 issue of Broadcasting and Cable.

Broadcasting and Cable, published weekly, carries hundreds of job-opening ads in electronic media and associated businesses each month. Another ad was for a anchor reporter to "capture and present a story that truly touches, effects and involves people" at a television station in Joplin, Missouri.

Students from every major option in Communications and Theatre can find a niche position in electronic media that is a just-right "fit". These trends make it easier.