#j-school

As National Entrepreneurship Week continues, for today’s Q&A, we caught up with 2004 Broadcast Journalism graduate Caletta Harris-Bailey who owns Reel2Real Productions.

 Briefly describe your business and what drove you to start it?

I own Reel2Real Productions, a full service video production company.  We direct, produce, film and edit TV commercials, promo videos, TV/web shows, live events, create marketing materials and more. I was driven to start my own company because I wasn't very good at taking authority in the workplace, especially when the employer took advantage of the employees.  I had about ten jobs before I was eighteen and decided that I was not made to work for anyone and that "one day" I was going to own my own company.

 What was your major and why did you choose it?

I chose Broadcast Journalism because I thought I wanted be an anchorwoman, but soon discovered my passion was behind-the-scenes working with video cameras and editing software.

What experiences at USC helped to foster your entrepreneurial drive?

I gained much experience by filming my own news packages and being able to create (through writing and editing) stories that aired on television.

How did USC prepare you for opening your own business?

During the last semester of my senior year, I was given options to explore and shape my skills for the industry through audio mixing, writing, filming and editing my own projects.

What student organizations helped you the most?

WUSC 90.5FM

What advice do you have for students who may want to pursue a similar path?

I would tell students to learn as much as you can, especially after you graduate. Technology is changing everyday, so you need to do your own research and gain hands on experience to get ahead at an early age.  Also, take classes or learn how to do conduct business.  If you want to be an entrepreneur, you need to know more than just your craft. You need to be able to wear many hats!

There’s absolutely nothing that I can find about this - the portal alleged that the experience described is far too grave a subject for them to even fabricate, and asserting that it’s absolutely true but the author wishes to remain anonymous. I can’t find it, but posts seem to indicate that she’d revealed her story after another woman had described her experience of almost being raped by the same man.

It’s important to note that contextually, a lot of women in East Malaysia are underprivileged in socio-economic standing, especially if they stay there for work. The alleged employer in comparison holds a doctorate and has multiple published works, he does research out of there although I think he might be from West Malaysia.

Here’s the thing - I couldn’t find shit when I typed in his name and possible places of employment (local universities), but when referenced using proper APA referencing and using Google Scholar, every single hit came up. So in the academic world he does exist, but everywhere else he does not. I’ve never seen such a strange result hit even when it came to relatively unknown Malaysian academics, which led me to believe he’d had some of his information online removed professionally. I don’t know this for sure, probably just a weird Google result, but he’s a ghost in this regard, when every one of my local Malaysian lecturers show up, along with their picture, and a link to download a pdf of their doctorate thesis.

I’m at a loss, I honestly can’t tell if the story is real or not, and of course there isn’t any way to - the woman has been urged strongly to contact authorities but she seems insistent on remaining anonymous. Despite everything my training says: that there isn’t a story if there isn’t one, that the news portal looks iffy, that no official reports have been made, nor has any other news portal picked up on this, that there’s absolutely no information anywhere, this is entirely posted without investigation, the story itself is so horribly vile I can’t help but feel there isn’t any way a woman can imagine such a story. For what? Sympathy, or web hits?

I just need to know, is there absolutely any way to find out if the alleged rapist in question even exists? Or did they just slap a picture to a name?

I dug a bit further and found that he might have graduated from my very own university in the graduate programme... http://www.nottingham.edu.my/GS/documents/ResearchQ2010Issue1pub.pdf

Article about alleged man here, in Bahasa: http://bobohizan.com/?p=1633

There’s multiple, multiple articles on this on this one website, but they’re all in Bahasa.

Happy Back to the Future Day! Here’s a documentary piece I put together for our radio show, Midweek.

I haven’t even officially started school yet (I’m still in orientation) and Im the most scared and excited I have EVER been in my entire life. We’ve been having all these talks and workshops, from which I have gained that the next 5 months will be a self-inflicted hell with an overwhelming workload that I will relish in when its all over. I thought nothing could top that crazy nervous-excited feeling I used to get right before a big race back when I ran track (and that would sometimes be in front of hundreds or thousands of people) but this is way worse, or better maybe, Im not sure. Its like feeling like I have this huge pit in my stomach, but its filled with bubblegum flavored pop-rocks. like its a good kinda scary.