This is Me, Ready to shine

News Anchor raps with Paul Wall ft. Interns

An amazing experience to be part in this summer internship.

Keep the Health, UHD

This video was made for our group public relation campaign on University of Houston-Downtown Fitness Center. Hope you Enjoy it!

Bilingual sports journalist working for ESPN

By: Vanessa Olivares

Antonietta "Toni" Collins is a Mexican-American sports commentator at an English worldwide leader in sports. She joined ESPN and left Univision in September 2013, as part of the digital media team. She anchors news and analyzes video segments in every sports category for ESPN.com, as well as enterprise reporting and interviews for features. 

Collins explained her experience with sports not only as a Latina, but as a female in a male-leading industry. 

"I grew up in a bilingual home. Spanish was my first language and I learned English when we moved from Mexico City to the United States in 1992," Collins said. 

It helped her a lot in her professional life when she simultaneously became a reporter for Univision in Spanish and Fox in English in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. The advice her parents gave her was to believe in herself. She said that it was hard having to read and speak in different voices in a news environment. 

"You realize that it won't be easy and you will see things that you never imagine, but at the end of the day you will grow as a person, Collins explained. 

"That's what makes a difference. If it's your passion, you will fall in love with it," she continued. 

For most college students, finding a passion is hard at first. When one finds a passion for something it will be worth it in the end by seeing all the accomplishments that have been made along the way. 

"Being a Latina sports reporter is such an honor and a privilege. I feel blessed and lucky to be a second-generation Mexican-American living my dream and being able to tell stories not only our Hispanic athletes, but of all athletes."

Collins described that there are also big misconceptions when it comes to women and sports. The public underestimates the professional skills of a female sports reporter. 

"We are just a pretty face and we are here because it's what's 'in' right now. Women in sports are used to attract male viewers, but we know our sports too," said Collins.

Prior to joining ESPN, Collins was a sports anchor for Univision Deportes' morning Despierta America (Wake up America) and for the network's magazine show Primer Impacto (First Impact). Previously, Collins was also a sports anchor and reporter for Univision's Dallas, where she covered the NBA post-season and finals, Major League Baseball's ALDS, ALCS, and World Series, the Dallas Cowboys, FC Dallas, and the Dallas Stars. She is the daughter of Maria Antonieta Collins, a freelance correspondent for Univision network. She said the people she gets to call colleagues and learn from is a dream come true. She works amongst her idol, great journalists, anchors and athletes to hopefully one day be able to be part of the Sports Center. 

Apple pledges to make Emoji more Ethnically Diverse

If you have use emoji regularly, you might have noticed something unfortunate about the adorable and surprisingly expressive pictures. Because current Emoji are usually featured as Caucasian,  Apple is working on bringing diversity to emoji icons. 


 “ Emojis around the world had to be updated sooner or later,”  said Rick, a UHD Alumni.

Emma, a UHD sophomore, also agree that she can’t wait for the update because she loves to use emojis.  The tech company hopes an update can include diversity found in the people.

“There needs to be more diversity in the emoji character set, and we have been working closely with the Unicode Consortium in an effort to update the standard,” reads a statement from Apple to MTV.
Apple explained that the emoji icons are based on the Unicode standard, which is used by many types of programs to display text and icons the same as one another. But because it is in the hands of a consortium and not solely in Apple’s control, the company can’t simply issue an update. Instead, it must first accept any changes to the Unicode standard. 

John Morales, UHD business major replied, “I think it enables us to express ourselves more and they help the person we are texting with to understand better what we are feeling.” as an example a love face emoji can make someone feel more loved than a simple “I love you”

Emoji icons continue to be extremely popular among users who include them in their text messages, Instagram comments and in their tweets. The current icons include images of food, vehicles, animals, flowers and other options. Celebrities like Miley Cyrus and Tahj Mowry weren’t the only to complain about the lack of diversity. Numerous online petitions exist that call on Apple and other tech companies to add diversity to their emoji icons. 

The petition also shines light on the keyboard’s debut of same sex couple emojis included in the iOS6 update. In fact, many emoji’s have duplicates and multiple versions, yet, there is still no Black, Latino, or Asian emojis. There’s no firm date for an emoji upgrade until the Unicode issue is sorted. 

As always, Apple is keeping us in suspense, but here’s hoping it’s sooner than, say, the iPhone 20. With the new iOS7 reportedly launching this fall, people want Apple to consider adding more people of color to the popular text message characters.  

KPRC Morning Team; (left to right) Anthony Yanez, Owen Conflenti,
Rachel Mcneill, and Jennifer Reyna

 Houston's Favorite, morning Anchor

by Vanessa Olivares 

Dateline Downtown: Staff Writer

Well, let just say how can a person be up so early and have an outgoing personality at 4:30am? As this is how KPRC morning anchor Owen Conflenti brings out the charm, who manages his confidence and good sense of humor on-air and even likes to joke around with his buddy- meteorologist Anthony Yanez on weekday mornings. When many others are still sleeping in, others who are up will say that he’s our go-to guy.  A lot of people will describe him as a fun guy and full of life and energy and really great to hang out with. 

As his work colleague, Anthony Yanez, replied, “It is fun working with him because he always makes it feel like not working at all.  He is really smart and has great jokes and is also aware of what’s going on around the world and has something to add.”

So, any who doesn’t know who is Owen Conflenti. He joined 2005 as a morning anchor at 4:30-7am each weekday mornings. Before his move he came from Greenville, N.C., where he was a weekend anchor and reporter at WNCT-TV. He also enjoy listening to everyone and have a great way to start a conversation. John, a UHD sophomore told  me that while watching him in the morning gave him  a reason to wake up with his quirkiness and how he address the news in a totally different from other stations. It make him feel positive when he heads to school or work. John is not the only as ten different viewers, men and women commented that they both agree when they watch the morning news to get updates on news, weather and traffic, they enjoy how Owen get along with Anthony, Rachel and Jennifer. With the chemistry he gives on-air and off how much he show the community by supporting different organization and also getting to communicate with viewers on social networks or at public events. 

“Try to relax and focus. It’s not easy but you must try as you find the strength somewhere inside you,” Conflenti said that to a viewer who was struggling for an exam. 

He sometimes have a great way to help people with his advice. As helping with the community with his two work colleagues, Andy Cerota and Anthony Yanez had joined the BP MS 150 bike ride from Houston to Austin last year to spread the word on the multiple sclerosis movement and they’re doing it again this year as they want to help the National MS Society fund research, advocate for change, and help people with MS and their families lead powerful lives. As they believe in the work they do and want to be part of it. 

His advice to journalist student  have given many students by saying, “ to start practicing of finding something a reporter said on camera and memorize it, and then ask a friend or family to record it. As you can watch it back and record it again.”  

 
He always have a positive things to say to make the other persons feel good about themselves as a great role model to anyone as he just adopted a puppy from the Houston Humane Society. 

Q&A: Reporter Marathon Runner Mark Boyle

KPRC-TV reporter journalist Mark Boyle

was one of the 15,000 or so runners who was scheduled to run the 13.1miles ING NYC Half Marathon, a month ago. I recently spoke on the phone with him and he discussed his reason to run, upcoming marathon and how he trained for the marathon. 

by University of Houston-Downtown Comm 4302 Public Relation Media Campaign 

                                  courtesy of Mark Boyle

You just recently finished the half marathon. What is your main reason that you run? 

Mark Boyle: The main reason that I run is for health reason, as I work a pretty strenuous schedule with my reporting schedule as so I figure running is a good way to released stress and personal time alone and not with other people, so I can focus. 

Even running just 25 minutes or 30min or so. I’m able to maintain a healthy lifestyle and also training for the longer races like the half marathon or a marathon. 

Has running affected your work in any unexpected ways? 

MB: Yeah, I would say that working out in general or running in my case as I do most of my time. It makes me happier at work because i’m as more physically fit and sleep better at night and turn more energy of going to work. So maintaing a healthy lifestyle is eating healthy, having a workout routine and overall balancing your life that is going to make you have a better career... you are able to balance things better and not just do one things. 

How did you train, in terms of just running, for the half marathon?

MB: For training you start out small and run 2 miles or 3 miles, and increase the milage as you go. Maybe 2 miles on a Monday, 4 miles on a Thursday and on the weekend you can do a long run maybe a 8 or 10 miles even 11 or 12, so you just build up the mileage over time and that comes over practice.

Do you have advice for new runners?

MB: I would just said is very mental as when I say mental I say that when you get out there and run 1 mile and will feel winded and exhaustion, and I think it normal for anyone starting out that doesn’t have built-up of ability to run long distances and if you go out and run 1 mile and say you feel winded, take a break and go home and two days later go out there and do it again. eventually your body will become custom to it and you will get used to it.

As I started I didn’t run 26 miles and now I’m able to run a full marathon just a constant practice and take an IPod with you and have some music for distraction and get out there and your body will recover. 

What was the last race you did, and how’d it go? 

MB: NYC half marathon that is 13.1 miles and I did it a month ago and went really well and the most challenging about that race is the wind as the one I ran to Central park for first 6 miles there is a lot of hills, so that for me was not used to being from Houston and living in Florida before as i’m used to all flat surfaces. So when you go somewhere out of town and there’re hills even like the race in Austin that kind of thing can be a challenge. 

Are you planning to run another marathon?

MB: I’m in the lottery in NYC Marathon, which is in November and will find out this upcoming Wednesday (3/26), if I get in the New York marathon.

I’m also sign up for Honolulu Half Marathon and that’s a month for now and heading to Hawaii, and I think that will make an a pretty amazing experience. Destination races is something that I enjoy as you can make a weekend out of it.

There you have it, I want to thank Mark Boyle for being so willing to do this interview with me and for doing so well at the marathon. Also, congratulations to all the participants that ran the race. You all did amazing! That’s all for the blog today! Remember to eat smart, train hard and enjoy life.