By Mitch Holt, Staff Writer

Students can now watch Optimist video news segments for free on the digital media player, iTunes.

The Optimist began offering the news segments in the beginning of the fall semester on its Web site, www.acuoptimist.com. Now, with iTunes, people can watch Optimist videos more easily because they only have to visit the Optimist video Web site one time to subscribe. From there, new videos will automatically show up on users’ iTunes.

Students can download iTunes for free from the Internet and, if connected to the university network, listen to other students’ music and upload their own music to the program, along with watching Optimist videos.

At the Optimist online video Web site, users have the option of a one-time download using QuickTime media player, or they can subscribe to iTunes. Once they subscribe to the iTunes feature, each new video will automatically be downloaded to their iTunes whenever a video is posted.

“Subscribing through iTunes makes for an easier way for students to watch videos we work hard on each week,” said Dustin Reid, junior electronic media major from Rockwall and videographer for the Optimist.

Cade White, instructor of video and photography, said this new feature is an effort to make the department’s video index more user-friendly.

The project began last fall with short video reports on the Optimist Web site created by university video students.

The iTunes feature is a joint collaboration between the Optimist, Prickly Pear and PawTV, White said. Because of this feature, anyone, Macintosh and PC users alike, can now subscribe to these videos.

The Journalism and Mass Communication Department began the project because of the rapidly changing media landscape in society, White said. Media consumers want their information through a variety of technologies, he said, and many are using the Internet as their main information hub. New projects like Optimist videos on iTunes prepare journalism students for working in this new hi-tech landscape, he said.

White said the department considers the new iTunes addition as part of the natural progression to make the JMC department better.

“This is just another way for students to learn about the people and activities that make up their life at ACU,” White said. “And it’s another way for our journalism students to tell the stories.”