Students discover the Paley Center
The Media Living Learning Center visited New York City on a networking and experience trip over the Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend, Jan. 16-19. During the trip, they met with alumni and toured the offices of New York’s famous media sites.
By Jesse Pasternack
The Paley Center For Media was founded by William S. Paley, the legendary CEO of CBS, and its purpose is manifold. As explained in the tour video we watched, the Paley Center has archives containing hundreds, if not thousands, of episodes of TV and radio shows. This preservation allows our episodic cultural heritage to be enjoyed by future generations at the Paley Center’s viewing stations.
In addition to encouraging these private viewings, the Paley Center hosts public events. These events include festivals and screenings attended by TV showrunners, actors and journalists. The two sides of the Paley Center — to entertain and inform — were on display in what we watched. They were the hilarious “Lucy Does A Commercial” episode of I Love Lucy and an informative montage of TV commercials that perfectly captured changing American attitudes.
As I sat watching these episodes, I thought of how this could only happen at IU. While some other schools sponsor trips, none of them are pouring such resources into media programs. IU has wonderful faculty and excellent resources to support them. Indiana University is committed to building a great Media School, and it feels good to be in on the ground floor.
Read more student reports from the Media LLC’s experiences in New York.