Junior Taylor Frank prides himself on his impressive “broadcast voice,” an ironic asset since he spends most of his time writing in-depth articles for a print newspaper. As Frank takes the helm of the normally “silent” Lamron next year, he hopes to expand the paper with his honed newswriting alongside his on-air narrative talent.
The communication and American studies major is currently The Lamron’s sports editor, and he noted that media played a large part in sparking his love for all things athletic. Frank started attending sports broadcasting summer camps in middle school and has completed broadcast internships with WROC-TV at the 2013 PGA Championship and the Rochester Americans hockey team. His broadcast skills complement his goal to bring more digital content, particularly short news videos, to The Lamron’s website.
Frank, who grew up in Pittsford, New York and transferred to Geneseo from the University of Alabama last year, described the 90-hour workweek he dedicated to interning at the 2013 PGA Championship at Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester as among the best weeks of his life.
“It was so intense and so tiring, but at the end, it’s just like, you had a product every single night that you got to see something that you put into it,” he said. “We did a national broadcast every single night. It was cool to see your efforts reflected and people were so appreciative.”
Frank will continue his foray into the exhaustive journalism profession this summer through an internship with the Buffalo Bills, writing stories for the team’s website and reporting from its two preseason home games.
While he has built his burgeoning career reporting on sports, Frank explained that he looks forward to expanding to other journalistic subjects. He said he enjoys writing about sports because they “inherently don’t matter. No matter how you slice it, it does not matter who wins a game.”
“I want to do more,” he added. “I want to report on things that do matter.” He aspires to work as an international correspondent for a large news outlet.
In preparing for such a demanding career goal, Frank has become accustomed to international travel. He has done service in Haiti and Palestine and will study abroad in Prague this summer. Frank has also worked at a camp for impoverished children in Jamaica nearly every summer since his sophomore year of high school. He said he continues to return to Jamaica instead of traveling to other places because “everybody you meet [in Jamaica] is passionate about something.”
“I feel like in the [United States], we tend to get lukewarm about things very easily where in Jamaica, if someone’s passionate about something, they’ll carry that passion for a long time,” he said.
It seems as though Frank feels that same sort of passion for media.
When the previous sports editor first approached Frank to take on the position a year ago, he said his response wasn’t yes, it was “not no.” Now, after months of immersing himself in Geneseo news, his dedication to media extends beyond sports to the campus community.
“The Lamron has taught me that all students on a college campus, no matter how marginalized, deserve a voice,” Frank said.