School of Journalism and Media students Carter Moore and Eliza Noell on set with WBIR anchor Brittany Bailey to discuss the Land Grant Films’ documentary Carving the Creative Vision on May 20, 2025.
Land Grant Films and WBIR Channel 10 are partnering to air student-produced documentaries on its streaming platform.
The first documentary—Carving the Creative Vision— premiered on WBIR+ May 20. As part of the partnership, a feature from Land Grant Films will drop every month on the platform. Land Grant Films is a documentary production program in The Media Center at the College of Communication and Information.
School of Journalism and Media student Eliza Noell, who worked on Carving the Creative Vision, said one of the most common questions asked when they make a documentary is where can it be viewed; so, this partnership provides an invaluable opportunity for students like her to showcase their work to the public.
Professor and Land Grant Films’ Director Nick Geidner said this partnership also helps enhance students’ resumes.
“These are projects that are respected and can stand in the professional marketplace,” Geidner said. “WBIR trusts our work enough to give us this space and knows that we can produce documentaries every single month that are going to be of professional caliber.”
Carving the Creative Vision tells the story of Greenville,Tennessee, native and woodworker George Wurtzel, who is legally blind. It won an Award of Excellence in the Mixed Pedagogical category in this year’s Broadcast Education Association’s Festival of Media Arts. Along with Noell and Geidner, Assistant Professor Ahmad Hayat and recent University of Tennessee, Knoxville, graduate Carter Moore (‘25) worked on the project.
Geidner said other projects viewers can look forward to this summer are Batmite, a short-film examining the history of the Knoxville skating community; Shooting for an A, a documentary on how a UT professor used the popular Red Dead Redemption video game series to teach American history; and a forthcoming documentary on the iconic Circle Drill performed by Pride of the Southland, UT’s marching band.
WBIR Assistant News Director Annie Carr said the station views this partnership as a “huge win-win.” The station gets to add beautiful, well-told stories to their streaming platform and the students have their work displayed on a widely viewed professional streaming platform.
“UT students are producing top-notch content, and we want to help them put that strong storytelling in front of more people by leveraging our streaming audience,” Carr said. “This also allows people outside of East Tennessee to connect with these student-produced stories because anyone can download the app.”
Carr said partnerships such as these also help the station meet its commitment to support advancement of the field of journalism and media. She said students learning today at UT are the next generation of journalists, and the television station is proud to be a resume mention or footnote in their successful careers.
Carr personally recognizes the impact such partnerships can have on an aspiring journalist’s career trajectory as she started working at WBIR as a UT student. She was also involved with Land Grant Films’ Medal of Honor Project, which was established in 2014 as a way to preserve and share the stories of various Medal of Honor recipients in partnership with the Medal of Honor Society.
“I loved my time at UT and I learned a ton from hands-on experiences, but students today are getting a whole different education,” Carr said. “The ‘hands on from day one” mantra is really reflected in the final product you see from Land Grant. Watching back these pieces, I can tell students are totally comfortable with professional skills that they’ll use for the rest of their careers.”
In addition to having their work premiere on WBIR+, journalism and media student Eliza Noell and Carter Moore, who worked on the documentary alongside Geidner and Hayat, were interviewed during the noon newscast May 21 about their work on Carving the Creative Vision.
Noell said she grew up watching WBIR and that visiting the station to talk about her work was an amazing experience. She is still soaking in the fact that her work will be streaming.
“It feels good to know that something that we’ve been working on is finally public,” Noell said.
How To Watch
WBIR+ is free to download on Roku, Amazon Fire, Apple TV, Android, and iOS products. In addition to Land Grant Films’ content, viewers can find WBIR documentary work, live breaking news, weather updates, and all of the station’s regular newscasts available on-demand.
Also watch Noell and Carter’s interview on WBIR here.