Catfishing Goes Under Lafayette Class 'Lens'

The scene was a classroom at Lafayette College's Pardee Hall, but Mark Crain sounded more like an editor than a professor.

Deadline was approaching for their news show, and the students still hadn't found an expert to talk about "catfishing," a term for people who set up false identities on-line to trick people into romantic/emotional entanglements.

The term comes from a documentary—which was later turned into an MTV series—which deals with the phenomenon.

But so far, no one was willing to talk to the Lafayette Lens, the school's new student-run news broadcast.

"They say it's too new," Karissa Ciliento, a junior from Mahway, NJ, told Crain. "It's a new phenonemon that they're all aware of, but they haven't studied it."

Ciliento and her classmates aren't journalism students. Many of them are economics or public policy majors. The class itself is called "Industry, Strategy and Policy."

But this semester, Crain's students have essentially morphed into a broadcast news crew, preparing a 60 Minutes-like program that will air on PBS 39.

Students teamed with the network last year for 50 States of Gray, a news program about the 2012 presidential election.

In addition to looking at "catfishing," the show will also explore how the Internet affects politics, how the Internet has affected newspapers and technological dependency.

A second segment of the show deals with fracking, Crain said. He said the students chose the topics at the start of the semester. (Considered, but rejected, were segments on immigration and health care.)

He calls it "learning by broadcast," a chance for students to get lessons in communication and teamwork.

"I hear from employers all the time, they're looking for someone with the ability to work with a team," Crain said.

With that in mind, the class has students hosting, writing and reporting, and even designing logos.

"We've all been thrown out of our comfort zones," Ciliento said.

And although it's meant as a learning experience, the students need to make sure the program is something that can find a wider audience.

"We all know someone who's had their ID stolen, or who is more comfortable with social media," Ciliento said.

Lafayette Lens' first edition—"The Cyber Craze and the Shale Age"—is scheudled to air on PBS 39 Tuesday, May 7, at 8:30 p.m.

It will be rebroadcast Friday, May 10, at 7:30 p.m., and again July 2 at 8 p.m. and July 5 at 7 p.m., according to the college website.