A University of Nebraska–Lincoln journalism student has created a new communication tool for the college’s statewide wire service.
Bacon started the process by going through a developing stage with Amazon. He taught himself how to complete the steps required by the company.
“It was actually a lot easier than I thought it was going to be,” Bacon said.
After the developing stage was complete, Bacon published the flash briefing on Anchor.fm, which synchronizes a couple of hours later.
Bacon is now focused on creating flash briefings.
“I was just excited to put out the briefings because audio editing is something I really like to do,” he said.
Bacon updates the flash briefing most days, excluding the weekends. Each briefing is 2 to 3 minutes long. He includes a mix of sports and news stories published on the Nebraska News Service website, spending roughly four hours recording a flash briefing.
Bacon, a senior, is one of 47 interns the College of Journalism and Mass Communications hired this summer. The program, which is supported by donor funding, was created out of concern for journalism students who lost summer internships because of COVID-19 disruptions.
The interns are working for several divisions that include Nebraska News Service, UNLimited Sports, Roper Lab for Data in Community Journalism, and Jacht, a student advertising agency. News reporting work is published at nebraskanewsservice.net and sent to more than 100 Nebraska news organizations that subscribe to Nebraska News Service.
To add the Nebraska News Service to your Amazon flash briefing, follow these steps:
Go to alexa.amazon.com
Click on “Skills”
Search for and enable the Nebraska News Service skill
Click on “Settings”
Under “Alexa Preferences,” click on “Flash Briefing,” where you can reorder your flash briefings skills
