Finding stories...

As a reporter in a very small town I often find it difficult to find stories to report. Our news program, The County Line, is weekly which makes it hard to do spot news. I like doing features, but even that seems like a daunting task in such a small town. Either people never respond to your emails or phone calls or they just don't want to be on camera. Sometimes they've already been interviewed for another story and don't want to help out again.

Another problem is that I'm a full-time student on top of it all. My schedule is super busy so finding the time to go shoot is hard. In addition to finding the time to shoot, I think the title of "Student Journalist" gives people the impression that we're not serious. We've talked in class about different ways to combat that stereotype such as saying we are a legitimate news/radio station. But for some people that still isn't enough. "Student Journalist" implies we're just some college kids playing reporter. How do we convey that this is what we want to do with our lives and we need practice? The only way to get practice and gain experience is by doing. It's vicious never ending circle that I hope one day comes to an end.

It's all about who you know...

Up until last week, I always thought people said that just to feel important about the "famous" people they knew. But I've come to realize...that's really the best way to find a job especially coming right out of college.

Last friday, I was working at the info desk and a man stopped by to talk to me in passing (like most people do.) He asked my year and major so I told him. Then he asked what kind of things I've done, I told him. Then he asked me if I wanted to go to New York. I said, "YES!" He then tells me that he lives in New York, knows the producer for Katie Couric's CBS Evening News, AND he lives next door to Stephen Colbert! He hands me his card and says, "Send me an email with your resume and I'll see what I can do for you." I asked him how he knew about Westminster and he told me he graduated from here and he is now a trustee at the college!

I tweaked my resume and sent it off to him on Wednesday. All I can do now is wait and see if anything comes out of it. So it really is all about who you know. So really with 2 degrees of separation...I know Stephen Colbert!

Real World Experience??

So I was an anchor for this weeks edition of The County Line with my good friend, Chris Norris. I was really excited about this week because I love working with Chris; we get along well and work well together. Those good feelings didn't last long. We got to the pre-show meeting and were going over the rundown. We only have two play back machines, but we wanted to run a VO and a VO-SOT back to back. Needless to say this required precision on everyone's part to work well and look good. During the run-through we didn't run the tapes all the way through for that particular transition, we just went through the script. So, when it came time to go live Chris and I were confused and the packages didn't go well and we looked like idiots. During our post production meeting Chris and I, along with a couple others, were called out in the middle of the meeting for being responsible for the failure of this transition. Initially, I was shocked and a little appalled! That's rude to call somebody out in the middle of a meeting, especially for something that wasn't entirely their fault. If you have a problem with them pull them aside and talk to them privately.

But the more I think about the situation the more I realize this was a valuable learning experience. I'm sure things like this happen in a real newsroom all the time. I need to learn to take responsibility for my mistakes and be willing to admit when I've done wrong. While there may have been other ways of handling the situation I think it happened this way for a reason and I'm a little wiser for it.

Expanding my Media Literacy

One class I'm taking this semester is called Mass Communications and the purpose of this class is to help us understand and expand our media literacy. To help us begin this journey our professor brought in an episode from an 80's show called Max Headroom.

The concept of the show is kind of cheesy and the actual production is totally bad 80's, but the underlying message still rings true today. The episode we watched was called "War." In this episode there are two TV stations fighting for the top ratings during the all important "Sweeps Week." One station is a network station while the other (I'm assuming) is the equivalent to a locally owned station. The network was using a dog show for their lead while the local station was using war stories; clearly the local station was winning the ratings war but this was only because they were in league with the "bad guys" who started the war.

While this may not sound like it would relate to our world today, what I took out of it was this: don't worry about the ratings. Worry about telling both sides of the story and getting to the truth. Even if it means you suffer a bit in the ratings.