By MARK F. GRAY, Special to the AFRO

In the second act of an Emmy Award winning career former, WUSA TV-9 sports anchor Dave Owens is working with high school students in Prince George’s County on a video project that is grooming a new generation of high school broadcast journalists by producing a weekly show.

Through the lens of their peers, stories of P.G. County student-athletes are brought into focus weekly with the web based series “PG-13.” Viewers are taken behind the scenes while students are preparing for and competing in athletic events throughout the county.

Former, WUSA TV-9 sports anchor Dave Owens. (Courtesy Photo)

This marks the third consecutive year that Owens will advise students. The students are developing their own style of short form programming.

These vignettes, between four and seven minutes long, allow the students to go in depth for more than just scores and highlights from the past week’s games.  Owens is developing the lost art of broadcast storytelling in students who are accustomed to fast pace shock value content on the Internet.

“Our ability to produce longer form pieces allows viewers to see the depth and multi-dimensions of our subjects, giving them a deeper understanding and appreciation of their experiences,” Owens tells the AFRO.

The show is a public private partnership between Owens’ company – Visionary Media Productions – and Prince George’s County Public Schools.  Last year they produced 25 episodes chronicling fall and winter sports.  The students produced 13 football episodes featuring Wise High School’s run at a perfect season. They also produced an episode on Eleanor Roosevelt’s tradition of excellence in class and in competition and the grassroots restart of the Bladensburg athletic program.  Production has already begun for 25 new episodes that will start being posted September 10.

“I think these relationships will become more important for municipalities to take control of the narrative in their community in the future,” Owens said.  “There just aren’t as many resources at local TV stations as newsroom staffs continue to shrink with companies downsizing so it’s becoming more difficult for them to get out and find those good stories to tell these days.”

High school and sports coverage have been hurt the most by corporate downsizing of local TV news operations.  Prince George’s County athletics has been virtually absent from television unless on the local community access or public school channels that few cable subscribers watch. Owens recognized that audiences who are engaged by this programming are getting their information via smartphones, tablets and computers in this new era of communication. This is why he established “PG-13” and focused on a digital distribution model.

“I just felt like we had to meet the audience where it is these days,” Owens said.  “People are thirsty for this type of programming and this allows the audience to access it when they want to.”

Owens settled on the name “PG-13” because he initially wanted to focus on the 13 most important stories in the Prince George’s County beyond high school sports.  However, with over 100,000 views over an entire production season, it has begun changing the perception of P.G. County’s school system through its local acclaim.

“It’s not like we’re “Hard Knocks” but we know that people are watching and there’s value in our program,” said Owens.  “We’ve got to convince parents they don’t have to pay private schools for their kids to get a quality education.”