Author bio:
RJ Pollock is the 2025-26 MNTV Video News Director for Mustang News. He spends most of his time carrying camera gear across campus, and when he’s not chasing interviews or editing late at night, he’s probably talking about theme parks or bragging about the Dodgers.
For the past four years, I have experienced Cal Poly through a camera lens.
Since joining Mustang News freshman year, I’ve spent countless hours carrying camera gear, setting up interviews, editing late into the night and developing a mountain of video journalism skills.
And somehow, after all this time, asking strangers for interviews is still awkward.
There is a very specific look people give you when they realize the interview is going to be on camera. You ask politely if they have a few minutes to talk, they agree and then the second the camera comes out, everything changes.
Suddenly people straighten their posture, fix their hair, laugh nervously or begin backpedaling entirely. Some completely freeze. Others suddenly forget how to speak. As journalists, we spend years learning how to navigate those moments, how to calm nerves, how to ask better questions and how to make conversations feel human even with a camera sitting between two people.
When I first joined Mustang News, I thought journalism was mostly about news, news and more news. I wanted to learn everything about video news. To some extent, it is about that. We’ve been taught a strange collection of skills that slowly become second nature over time.
I learned how to frame a camera shot and why tripods matter. I learned to charge batteries before leaving the house and double check that my SD card is actually in the camera. I learned how to shoot on my phone when equipment fails. I learned how to edit around bad audio and impossible lighting. I learned that no matter how prepared you think you are, something will probably still go wrong.
But more importantly, I learned how to work with people.
I learned how to approach complete strangers and ask them to trust you. I learned how to conduct interviews with empathy. I learned when to keep asking questions and when to simply listen. I learned how to lean on the people around me when I was overwhelmed.
And at Mustang News, that support system matters.
Some of the most valuable lessons I learned did not come from a textbook or a lecture slide. They came from sitting in the newsroom with classmates, editing projects together. They came from professors taking time after class or during office hours to help me develop my style. They came from upperclassmen teaching me how to survive my first live production without panicking.
Mustang News became more than just a student newsroom for me. It became the place where I learned how to communicate, collaborate and grow into myself.
Over time, I realized journalism was never truly about the equipment. Cameras, microphones and editing software are just tools. The real heart of what we do is the people.
As journalists, we have the privilege of giving people a platform to share their voices. Sometimes those voices are attached to breaking news. Sometimes they are attached to sports, features or community stories. Sometimes they belong to people celebrating the best day of their lives, and other times they belong to people navigating the worst.
No matter the story, every interview starts the same way: one person asking another person to be heard.
I think that is what Mustang News taught me best. It taught me that stories matter because people matter.
Somewhere between the deadlines, broadcasts, interviews and late-night editing sessions, I stopped seeing the camera as something that separated me from the world. Instead, it became the thing that connected me to it.
Through the viewfinder, I learned how to better see people and somehow, along the way, I learned how to better see myself too.
