 Welcome to CalTV News' second installment in an off-script where we talk about behind-the-scenes stories from in the field. My name is Tomas Manglunga, one of the co-directors of the news department. And today we have a full slate of reporters, a handful of them with us, Polina, Anna, Perla, and Michelle. And today we're going to be going over the stories that we've worked on since we last spoke to you about a month ago. And so Polina, we'll go ahead and kick it off with you. You did a story that was very relevant with regards to our media industry that we're in right now. You did a story in Oscars and kind of the under-representation of different folks in the industry. Do you mind telling us how you went about putting that story together? And more importantly, what angle did you bring? Yeah, so right before the Oscars, I came out with a video that talked about the lack of diversity that the Oscars has traditionally had, especially in acting roles. And I came up with that idea because a few years ago there was the Oscars So White movement really pioneered by a lot of African-American actors and actresses in the industry. And recently I saw an article about the lack of Asians and the lack of Latinx actors and actresses as well, both in front of and behind the camera. And so I really wanted to explore that. The Academy website had a full list of all of their winners from the very first Academy Awards and it is very striking to see the lack of diversity, especially in front of the camera. And it was very important to me, especially being a person of color in this industry and seeing so many people here at Berkeley who are also identifying as people of color and wanting to go into this industry as well. Thanks so much for that. As we often do with Offscript, we'll be posting the links to the stories that we discuss online as well. And so moving on over to Anna. Anna, you did two stories for us. The first one was on Chinese New Year. You talked to students on Sproul about how they celebrate it. You gave them a fun true and true or false test. And also you did a second video about the Equal Opportunity Program. And now let's move on to what Pulina explained. How did you go about finding the folks to speak to in those interviews and also what did you gather from that experience? Yeah, so for my Chinese New Year video, I wanted to do a more fun video on Lunar New Year that was coming up. So I went on Sproul and I asked people how they were celebrating Chinese New Year and what their favorite parts of Chinese New Year was. And for the EOP program, I actually interned at the EOP office and they were telling me about how like half of the first generation students don't even know that a resource like EOP exists. So that's why I really kind of wanted to highlight like their resources and the work that they do. And I learned for my video, I divided it into three parts, which represents the three department that EOP is made out of. Which is academic counseling and peer or the peer internship as well as the USP office. And like I learned a lot from the program, like while producing the videos, like kind of the misconceptions that people who of like people who can use like the undocumented office even if they are like a DACA student or if they're not a DACA student. So I just like learned how to, I learned not only more about the EOP program, but just about producing in general. Thanks so much for sharing that story and thank you for sharing that story as well. We had a lot of folks under the EOP program, you know, express their appreciation for that being articulated by Anna and the interviews that you did. Can you speak to more about who you spoke with and what do they tell you? I know you spoke with students and also you spoke with staff at EOP. What did they bring to the interview? So I spoke to three different people for the EOP interview. The first was a student intake intern who they're the first person who connects you to all the resources that you need for EOP. And they're the people who are interns that kind of like run the office and like run the administrative work. And the second person I spoke to was the academic counselor. And they're the people who you could go to not only for academic support, but like financial support or just advice or if you need any personal advising. So they're a big part of EOP. And the third person I spoke to was a USP academic counselor. And for the EOP video, there was a lot of footage that like I didn't get to use, but they talked a lot about like the misconceptions of what people think that or the misconception of what people think the USP office is. Like a lot of people are unaware that the USP office only helps like other students besides undocumented students. So I thought that was pretty interesting. All right. Thank you again. And again, all these stories will be posted online kind of a side note to what EOP offers. I believe now they have their gown lending program going through the month of April. And so if you're a student and need to borrow a gown, EOP is providing that. And so you can definitely check that out. We'll be linking it. We're going to go ahead and transition to Polina, who's one of our co-news directors now. Congratulations on getting that role you'll be taking on this role along with Polina next academic here. But you worked on two very in-depth stories. The first one on a very highly publicized arrest of one of the students here, Luis Mora. And then you also worked on another story about texting and texting while driving and then also drinking while driving. And so can you talk about first how you got in touch with Luis and you entered his home. You spent time with him in his class and at home. What did you take away from that experience? Yeah, well Luis, I got in contact with him just by Berkeley's email system. I was able to just type in his name and find his email through that because he is a Berkeley student currently. But hearing his story, I mean, a lot of different news outlets reported on his experience with ICE and Border Patrol in San Diego because he was detained in San Diego at a border checkpoint. And his visa expired a few years ago, but he decided that he wanted to stay in America because of the opportunities and education that he was getting. And he knew that that would be the best decision for him, even though his mom ended up going back to Ecuador, which is his country of origin. And speaking with him, it made me realize just the extent of the deficiencies with the immigration system in America, which is definitely, I think, a topic of important discussion for today where a lot of people are discussing these things, discussing people being deported and ICE raids recently going on on Berkeley's campus that you hear about a lot of undocumented students being sent back to their country of origin where it's unsafe. And it's heartening to hear that people are able to find refuge on our campus. But at the same time, these deficiencies need to be heard, and this needs to be a topic that is still up for discussion among students, especially at Berkeley. Yeah, so UCPD is sponsoring this program done, it's called Unite. The organization is called Unite and they started a program called the Arrival Live Tour where they go to campuses, they go to college campuses throughout the U.S. and raise awareness to students about the consequences of their actions. Driving under the influence, especially in college towns when people have their cars and they're going to their friends' houses and drinking a little bit too much and not realizing what's going to actually happen to them. And the serious background behind it where it's like there's been, it's a very high death rate in America and a lot of accidents happen because of drivers under the influence and it's a heartbreaking story to hear that this needs to change. And so this program, basically students got into this simulator that was set up on Sproul. The UCPD brought this car and they had this VR headset and they would put it on students and they would sit in the car and kind of visualize what it would feel, delayed reaction time, different things, consequences of driving under the influence. They also tested out what it would be like to text and drive, which is definitely also another major issue that college students have when they're driving and they're distracted. And one of our cinematographers actually, you didn't go through it, but I believe your cinematographer did, right? Yeah, so I, she was, she really, we had some moments where I would talk to the program directors and we still had some off time so the cinematographer decided she wanted to give it a go and she ended up crashing into a vehicle. I mean, every, I think every student who tried to do it was so caught off guard at how, like, really impaired their decision making time was and it was just, it was a fun experience to watch but to think that that happens in reality is definitely a sad reality, so. Alright, thank you for both of those stories. Again, we'll be linking them. Michelle, we can go ahead and move on to you. So it started right in front of Douanelle and it went throughout Memorial Glade and I think it ended on Spell Hall. We also went through Moffitt and the demands that were being made were for the divestment against the fossil fuel industry. Currently the UC Berkeley region system and the Berkeley Foundation has over $2 billion worth of investments in the fossil fuel industry. So they were just calling for the divestment against that. I think they were just trying to pinpoint the most popular places on campus. So they also marched in front of the Campanile, Moffitt, Sproul and they ended in front of the Sproul administration board thing and yeah. Alright, I want to thank Michelle, Perla, Anna and Polina for joining us in our second installment of Offscript. Don't go anywhere yet. After spring break we'll be coming back with our last Offscript. Again, bringing behind the scenes stories from in the field. You can find all of these stories on our Facebook page. We'll link it to you. And again, thank you to all of our reporters and of course our cinematographers and our editors who put these stories together. My name is Tamas Mangalanya and you've been watching Offscript. Thanks for joining us and we'll see you next time.