EASTHAM — English dept. head Selena King is teaching herself Final Cut Pro, the video editing program used to create Nauset News, Nauset Regional High School’s student-produced weekly news program.
King is taking a page, so to speak, from Katie McCully, whom she replaced this fall as Nauset’s video technology teacher, helping students who take the elective to produce news reports that are aired on Lower Cape TV and on the school’s YouTube channel.
Helping produce news reports isn’t new to King, though. Thirty years ago she was the faculty adviser for the high school’s print newspaper, which Nauset stopped publishing about the same time the student news operation went to video.
“We’re in a transition period right now,” King says. She wants to be ready when the school’s renovations are done next year. At that point, her students will have access to a three-camera studio of their own.
When McCully started teaching video, Nauset News had its headquarters in the school’s now-gutted “B” building. It was 1994, a time when, she said, there was a push for educators to spice up their classes with technology. “It was taking off nationally,” she says. “Video is wonderful because it forces kids to get out there and interview people, and boy oh boy, do we need that today.”
McCully didn’t have experience in video production at the time. She had started at Nauset the year before as the school’s swimming coach. But she was as game for the assignment as she was for others: besides teaching the video class, McCully taught courses in advertising, criminology, and personal finance, as well as coaching the school’s mock trial team.
The first Nauset News episodes, which still survive on VHS tapes in storage at the high school, were filmed on giant camcorders loaded with magnetic tape. Over time, McCully says, the equipment evolved. She remembers when CDs replaced the VHS tapes and when digital camcorders came along.
McCully worked with students on their stories, then drove every Friday to the community television station’s studio in Orleans to deliver the show on VHS tape. “Nauset News never sleeps,” was McCully’s motto. “If there was a vacation, we would make the episode before the students left. If we didn’t have a story, I would tell the students to take a camera and find one.”
It was never the goal of the program, McCully says, to do serious investigative reporting; the class was always more focused on helping students learn communication skills. The show had a segment called “Fashion Police,” student musicians carried out “Talent Search of the Week,” and one year there a sketch comedy segment called “Break Room.”
When she started as the faculty adviser for Nauset News, McCully says, she promised then-principal Thomas Conrad to present the school in a positive light. “If we were going to do a TV show,” she says, “we needed to show the positive side of the school, the students, and the teachers. I loved the school, so why would we ever try to dig up dirt? There were too many good things.
“Occasionally,” McCully admits, “the students would want to do a story where, maybe, it would possibly, potentially, make Nauset not look as good.”
Student complains about the MCAS tests were one such story, McCully said. Passing the test was a state graduation requirement until it was repealed by Question 2 in the 2024 election.
“I would always say that we can’t do that,” she says. “I’d tell them, ‘We need to make it a little more fluffy.’ ”
Nauset programs haven’t been all fluff. McCully remembers civics teacher Michael McNamara, who retired in 2023, producing “We the Students,” a talk show where students from his Advanced Placement government class debated contemporary political issues. The twist was that students didn’t get to choose what position they argued for.
One of the most memorable programs produced by McCully’s team, she says, was “Half Hour With Jack Our,” a weekly political commentary show hosted by the 2018 Nauset graduate who is now an events manager for U.S. Senator-elect Andy Kim, the Democrat from New Jersey.
Current episodes of Nauset News run between 15 and 25 minutes. Rock music plays at the start of each episode as students and faculty — some enthusiastic, other visibly nervous — wave to the crew of guerrilla cinematographers.
This year’s episodes open with anchor Reese Daley, a Nauset junior, wearing a suit jacket over his T-shirt. He introduces viewers to the week’s lineup: there are interviews with athletes, teachers, and contractors who give updates on the ongoing construction project.
King says production can be a bit chaotic at times — maintaining McCully’s tradition of producing an episode every week can be difficult while the school is under construction and there isn’t a dedicated television studio to work in.
Regardless of the hardships, McCully and her students always made it work. Now King will do the same, McCully says. In the weeks before she retired, the two worked together on everything.
“She’s dedicated,” McCully says. “The program is in good hands.”
