JRN 200: That's All, Folks

Most everything is in. Not much left to do. I'll finish the grading and let ANGEL do the math on your base grades, and then I'll make any adjustments based on extra credit, and that's that. Your grades will be locked in, and you'll soon be finding out exactly what you got.

The only thing left for you to do (if you haven't done it already) is evaluate this class via the SIRS online teacher evaluation site, to which you can link to right here. The site is live for a few more days. Please take a few minutes to let us know how JRN 200 went, what we should keep doing, and what could be better.

Plus, there's only one thing for me to do, and that's to thank each of you for spending a semester with me. I enjoyed working with each and every one of you. I really did.

Everyone comes into JRN 200 at a different starting point. Some have some journalistic experience; others don't. A few people have a natural talent; others need that talent cultivated a bit before it becomes apparent.

No matter where and how you started, I got to see improvement. Growth. Little everyday victories. Some defeats, but also renewed efforts to overcome those losses.

No matter if you did great in this class or just eked by, remember this is just one step in a larger journey: one toward the day after graduation. Between now and then you'll build on the skills you learned here. You'll improve. You'll get more comfortable doing this. Things will seem more natural as you do them (like AP style).

If journalism was easy to learn, it would be a two-week certificate class at the local community college, and not a four-year major. This is just an early step in that longer trip to your careers and independent lives.

You're on your way. Good luck to everyone in the coming semester, and one last time, thank you.

Cue the music.

Job Shadows: What You Saw, Part 3

Here's a sampling of some of the various job shadows done by you all (this will be updated as job shadow reports are turned in, so please check back frequently). Take a look and see what you can learn from everyone's visits. There's a lot of good stuff here to help you decide what you want to do with your lives; what you need to be doing to get there; and what to expect when you do get there.

Please give each one of these a quick read, will you?

*****

My job shadowing experience was that of a good one. I shadowed Al Martin, the Sports Journalist for WKAR Radio. Martin graduated from Michigan State University in 2012, and about three months later he began his career with Channel 6 News, where he interned during his senior year of college.

            When I arrived, Martin was actually on the air. I sat in the production room and was able to spend time with Martin’s assistant, Alex. We introduced ourselves, and we both shared our experience with broadcasting, and how we want our career paths to go. Martin knew I was coming so he instructed Alex to show me the basics of the audio table. There were so many buttons. Alex was trying to explain everything to me, but it was a lot to comprehend in one sitting.

            While Martin was doing the show, I was able to listen in on the show, and see how radio shows run. On this particular show, Martin was interviewing the head coach of the Girl’s Basketball Team of Lansing High School. Alex helped me prepare the coach for the interview that was going to take place during the show. After the coach was interviewed, I was able to talk to him, so that was pretty cool.

            There were students from The Big Ten Network’s Student U Productions, and I got the chance to talk and connect with them. The students were very welcoming. We exchanged numbers and they offered to help me get camera experience.

            Once the show was over, I was able to have one on one time with Al Martin. His journey as a journalist just started, and it’s been going quite well so far. He gave me great advice. He gave me suggestions for places to intern during the Summer and even offered me an opportunity to intern with him in the upcoming semesters. He seemed to have really liked me. I told him that I didn’t have much experience, and he seemed very interested in helping me getting that experience I would need.

            In all I had a great time. I was able to sit in on a real life radio show, and learn some technical things. It’s very similar to the podcast I do on campus, minus all the fancy equipment. I was able to meet a few students with promising futures, and I lucked up in finding a potential mentor to help me with my journey as a journalist.

*****
 

For the job shadow assignment, I shadowed Ashley Woods. She is currently the director of digital audience development at the Detroit Free Press. She started the job in May. Prior to the Free Press, she was a journalist at the Huffington Post, Hour Detroit, and she has also done some free lance.

            Ashley first introduced me to some of the early morning reporters and gave me a tour around the new office (which is very modern and 21^st century compared to the last). She gave me a run through of her morning routine, which was getting coffee and checking all the monitors to see which articles were getting the most attention. She gave me a tip to always learn to make a coffee at the office because people will always like you. Ashley then put me to work. She showed me the ropes of the Free Press’ tweetdeck page, then had me read stories and tweet them out scheduled in 10 minute time frames. She really liked my creativity with the tweets. 

We went to the 10am meeting where all or most of the editors and Ashley meet to discuss how the stories did on media overnight and to talk to about what would be submitted by that day’s deadline (it was 5pm because of Thanksgiving). The meeting was very brief as the day before Thanksgiving isn’t a big news day.

After the meeting, Ashley had me browse through all the thanksgiving and black Friday stories that were published and create scheduled tweets for Thursday and Friday. She said she loved my idea of being as creative as possible with the tweets. She showed me all the statistics and views on all the Free Press social media sites and the website. Then we went to the 12pm meeting where we prepared for the Thanksgiving parade coverage and web gallery. 

After the meeting we went to lunch (she paid!!!) and we discussed my wanting to be a music critic. After telling her I didn’t it had much promise, she told me how she started out after college and how hard it was for her being an English major. She gave me tips on starting small and standing out with something different. We talked about me starting a blog and doing freelance writing or an internship at some music based magazines or websites. She also shared with me to read more and to read anything that can help me become a better journalistic writer and to help find my own style of writing. Our lunch talk was probably the best part of the day.

After lunch she showed me how to pin suggestions on the mobile apps and websites. Then I was able to get a sneak peek of the layout for the big thanksgiving print edition (they told me it was top secret stuff).  Overall, I enjoyed my experience shadowing Ashley. She’s one of the coolest journalists I’ve ever sat and talk with. She really motivated me and gave me some great advice.

*****

I chose to do my job shadow with Claire Foddell; a part-time on-air reporter at news radio WOOD 1300 out of Grand Rapids, Mich. Claire is a recent graduate of Grand Valley State University, where she received a degree in Broadcast Journalism.

I chose to shadow Claire because I really didn’t know a lot about radio reporting. I did broadcasting in high school and had a bit of knowledge about newspaper writing from class, but I really had no experience with radio.

Mary Alderink and I shadowed Claire on Nov. 17, 2014.  Claire was working the afternoon shift that day which is 3-7p.m. She usually works this shift on various days during the week. During the weekend she works from 5 a.m.-12 p.m.

When we first arrived, Claire introduced us to her co-workers. There were only 4 other people working besides Claire, two daytime reporters, the producer, and the traffic reporter. I was really surprised at how few people were working. I knew it was a small radio station, but I still figured there would be more people.

After Claire showed us around the newsroom, she took us to her desk where she began to prep for the day. The daytime reporter gave her a list of things she had to do which included recording quarter-hour newscasts and then going live for two top-of-the-hour newscasts.  

Claire showed Mary and I how she created scripts for the newscasts. She started by finding stories that were interesting and relevant to her audience on the Associated Press Server. The server was really cool; it was basically a big bank of articles written by the Associated Press that was there for other news sources to use.

Claire went through and found stories that she thought the audience would like. On that particular day, there weren’t any big news stories besides the snowstorm outside, so the articles she found varied among random topics.

Once she found articles, she summarized them into 2-3 sentences and created a script for her newscast. Some of the quarter-hour reports that Claire recorded went to a radio station in Minneapolis. According to Claire, this is something they do on a regular basis. Because they did this, Claire had to change the name of the station she closed the report with.

During the down time, Claire’s co-worker Chuck let me record a fake broadcast. It was very nerve wrecking even though no one was going to hear it other than him and myself. I felt very awkward hearing my voice played back and I noticed that I sounded really flat when I spoke. Chuck gave me some advice about your broadcast being like a singer’s album- you don’t want all your tracks to sound the same. He talked to me about making sure that you don’t fall into the same routine with each story so your voice falls flat.

While we were there we also sat in on Claire’s live reports. Seeing Claire’s preparation and execution of the broadcast was really cool. She had her own routine and her own “reporting voice” that she began using when she went live.

Other than that, Claire showed us how she maintained the station’s social media and website, along with telling us about other things she does like film videos.

Overall, this was a really cool experience. I enjoyed being able to see this aspect of reporting in action and see what it is like in a real radio station. I don’t know that this is something that myself specifically would be interested in doing, but I really appreciate the opportunity to get some insight into this area of journalism. 

*****

 

I chose to do my job shadow assignment at HOMTV. The first thing I noticed off the bat was that I was, by far, the youngest student there. Most of the interns there were either seniors or 5^th years. Some were even graduates! It was slightly intimidating at first, but then I realized that I should use it as an opportunity to learn as much as I can from more experienced people. 

            In high school, I was heavily involved with our broadcast news station. Twice a week we produced live shows that all teachers were required to turn on for their students to watch. I held various positions throughout my years there, some of which included anchoring and technical directing. I got a feel for being on AND off camera, which I still appreciate to this day. I loved creating news packages and writing and recording voice-overs. Back then, I thought for sure I would want to pursue broadcast journalism as a career. But last year, I realized that my personality was more suited to entertainment journalism.  I became obsessed with watching late night talk shows and realized that this was more fun for me and was what I wanted to go into. 

            That being said, I was not TOO excited about this job shadow at HOMTV. I felt like I was reliving my high school days while producing the live show.  However, I hadn’t realized how much I had learned and how much I knew until I was put in the real life situation at HOMTV.  I have never done a job shadow before, so I didn’t know how much work they would have me do, if any at all.  It turns out that on the day I had my shadow, it was one of the biggest days of the year for them.  It was the day they had a live broadcast of Meridian Magazine. 

              Within ten minutes of being there, I was already editing the scripts and even re writing the intros that the anchors were going to read live in an hour.  I was confused as to why they trusted me, someone they barely knew and had just met, re write their scripts for a very important live show.  At first I doubted my capabilities and was afraid to show my work to the director when I was done with the scripts, but as I looked around the newsroom and saw the chaotic state some people were in, I realized that they were thankful I was there to help. 

              I finally found the nerve to show the director the changes I had made to the script and thankfully she liked them.  I sat in the dark behind the cameras during the live show and watched the anchors read MY scripts that I had written.  It was a great feeling of accomplishment! 

*****

JRN 200: Your Turn To Grade Me!

Student Instruction Rating System (SIRS Online) collects student feedback on courses and instruction at MSU.  Student Instructional Rating System (SIRS Online) forms will be available for your students to submit feedback during the dates indicated:

     JRN  200  005:  11/24/2014 - 12/24/2014

Students will receive an email from the SIRS Online system when evaluations are available and you may also direct students to https://sirsonline.msu.edu.

 Students are required to complete the SIRS Online form OR indicate within that form that they decline to participate.  Otherwise, final grades (for courses using SIRS Online) will be sequestered for seven days following the course grade submission deadline for this semester.

SIRS Online rating summaries are available to instructors and department chairs after 12/24/2014 at https://sirsonline.msu.edu. Instructors should provide copies of the rating summaries to graduate assistants who assisted in teaching their course(s). Rating information collected by SIRS Online is reported in summary form only and cannot be linked to individual student responses. Student anonymity is carefully protected. 
 
If you have any questions, please contact Michelle Carlson, (mcarlson@msu.edu, 432-5936).

Out-Of-Class #3: No Time For Fatals ...

... yet we had a bunch.

In one story, inside of a quote we spelled significant as significate. A misspelling inside of a quote that changes what was uttered is an automatic fatal.

In another story's quote, we wrote go when we meant gone. That again is a fatal. 

In yet another story's quote, we said, "there will students ..." when I think you meant, "there will be students ..." Dropping that word is a fatal.

In another story, we wrote that a teacher was walking down the isles, when we meant aisles. There is a difference that changes the meaning here; an aisle is a walkway, while isles are groups of islands. That's a fatal.

In another story, we identified a police sergeant as being with the Lansing Police Department. In fact, she was with the MSU Police Department.

Now, what are the solutions? You know 'em. We've gone over those time and time again. We need to be implementing those solutions, and never skipping a single step.

And that's no matter how well you've done to date. One person who fataled has been downright brilliant in this class sofar, and this person still fataled on something simple like a spelling.

One more time: avoiding fatals has nothing to do with talent; just vigilance.

Fatals: Just One More

Details here.

Job Shadows: What You Saw, Part 2

Here's a sampling of some of the various job shadows done by you all (this will be updated as job shadow reports are turned in, so please check back frequently). Take a look and see what you can learn from everyone's visits. There's a lot of good stuff here to help you decide what you want to do with your lives; what you need to be doing to get there; and what to expect when you do get there.

Please give each one of these a quick read, will you?

*****

While exploring job shadows opportunities, it was very confusing to decide what I wanted to do with this job shadow experience — I’ve already worked at a newspaper and at a radio station, so broadcast was the only one I haven’t explored. Omar happened to call me to his office one day at work and offered me to do a job shadow with freelancer Steve Friess.

I’m not going to lie; when Omar first told me about him I agreed because I thought it was going to be a challenge find a job shadow on my day off at work. Besides that, I had no idea who Steve Friess was, so my journalistic sense started to look on Google who was Steve Friess and what his work consisted. Steve Friess’ work has appeared in Politico, New York Times, USA Today, The Daily Beast and most recently in Al Jazeera America. Friess worked in Beijing as a correspondent too.

Friess picked me up at MSU on Sep. 18. We went to the Michigan State Capitol where we met with state Rep. Joseph Haveman of Holland, Michigan and the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. He is a Republican who is sponsoring legislation that might help alleviate the expenses of the prison system by finding ways to release elderly prisoners. Friess told me he was an interesting source for his in-depth story about America’s problem retaining older people in prison.

It was very interesting to go to the MI Capitol for the first time and see the dynamic between a real, famous journalist and a state representative. Friess was very straightforward with his questions and would not mind at all to ask follow-ups. He would analyze and listen to Haveman; he would then ask questions. Friess was not afraid either of asking for help — he asked the representative to help him go into one of the prisons with the highest population of elderly people in Michigan.

After the meeting with Rep. Haveman, we met with some groups of advocates for elderly people in prison. They were very helpful and they told us about their day lobbying in the Capitol. There, I had the opportunity to see Friess interact with some of the advocates and he even let me record one of the interviews. He would constantly ask me questions about the interviews, like asking me for feedback. He was really helpful and genuinely cared about my learning experience with him.

After the interviews, we talked about his journalism career and tips to become a better journalist. He told me he graduated from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. He told me the best thing I can do, as a journalist, is to ask questions and then, ask more questions. It was an amazing opportunity and I’m extremely grateful to have the opportunity to job shadow Steve Friess. 

*****

On Saturday October 11 the Detroit Red Wings played the Anaheim ducks at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit. While the teams were getting dressed in their respective locker rooms I was climbing the back stairs up to the uncharacteristically small press box with Helene St. James.

            Helene is the Red Wings beat writer for the Detroit Free Press. She’s been working for the paper since 1996.

            After emailing back and forth for about a month we finally settled on the Anaheim game for me to shadow her. For me even walking in the media entrance and picking up my media pass was amazing. I then got to walk in the bottom of the Joe past the Zamboni entrance, past the visitor’s locker room and met Helene in the media dining room.  I was excited and nervous. I know that I want to be in the press box for hockey games as a career but I had never been in one until that game. It lived up to all my expectations.

            While the teams below were warming up and fans were pouring into their general admission seats Helene and I talked about the career she’s had and exactly what she does for each game.

            Every game morning she attends the morning skate and after writes a summary of what to expect that night. During the game she writes a detailed outline of what exactly happens during the game. She details penalties, goals, and assists. Also during the game she writes her story. During the game she also gets an idea who she wants to interview after the game and what questions she wants to ask them.

During the game I just sat beside Helene and watched her and the other journalists work. Helene seemed to know everyone in the box. At one point Kris Draper, who had been in an adjoining room with Mickey Redmond and Ken Daniels broadcasting for Fox Sports Detroit, walked by and stopped to say hello to Helene. As he was walking away he said hello to me as well. I grew up watching Draper play for the Red Wings and so for him to see me and say hello to me was pretty amazing.  I wasn’t really doing anything during the game but it was still a great experience just to be in that atmosphere and get a feel for what I would be doing in the future.

One tip she gave me was that as a reporter you technically cannot root for one team or another but you root for the game to end in regulation. If the game goes into overtime and/or a shootout it messes with the 10:25pm deadline. That night all the reporters were big Ryan Getzlaf of Anaheim fans as he scored the game’s winning goal with about 20 seconds left in regulation.

            My favorite part of the whole night was when we basically ran to the locker room after the game for the post-game comments from the players and coach. Luke Glendening, Niklas Kronwall, Gustav Nyquist, Henrik Zetterberg and Coach Mike Babcock all came out to speak to the reporters in the locker room. Helene was the most vocal one, asking most of the questions. I was surprised to see how few reporters were actually in the room. There were only about seven of them. I was the youngest person in the room by about five years and aside from Helene the only woman in the room. After Coach Babcock was done speaking, Helene went back to the media dining room to add the quotes into her story and add the finishing touches before sending it in.

When she went to finish her story I left her to write and walked back to meet my dad who was waiting for me outside. As I passed the visitor’s locker room on my way out, Anaheim’s Ryan Kesler walked right in front of me. I realized I could be in this profession when I didn’t try to talk to him or ask him for a picture. It may sound like a small, obvious  thing but for me not to ask for anything from one of the game’s stars, or even cheer when the Red Wings scored that night, was a big accomplishment for me and I knew I could handle the professionalism that has to come with the job.

Shadowing Helene St. James was so exciting for me. I learned a lot and all my expectations were met and were exceeded.

 *****

OOC MM #3: Let's Look At Everything!

Here are links to all our preview and recap posts, and tweet streams, on order in which they were turned in to me (the first one is first, and the last one is last).

Let's compare the work of each other and see what we did well, and what ideas we can get from others. Also, examine how the mediums complement each other: the preview does just that; the tweet stream allows you to follow what was previewed, as it actually happens; and the recap wraps it all up. Here we go:



*****


Kelsey F.: community aid video and blog post and follow-up post and tweets #phsshoebox

*****

Jason R.: awareness campaign video and blog post and follow-up post and tweets #itsonusjrn200

*****

Laurel Y.: international students video and blog post and follow-up post and tweets #internstu200

*****

Emma-Jean B.: gay rights video and blog post and follow-up post and tweets #gayrights

*****

Romero H.: roommate assignments video and blog post and follow-up post and tweets #jrn200goingblind

*****

Anna S.: drinking on campus video and blog post and follow-up post and tweets #jrn200drinking

*****

Chelsea S.: drinking age video and blog post and follow-up post and tweets #jrn200wasted

*****

Asha D.: college stress video and blog post and follow-up post and tweets #collegeistoomuchjrn200

*****

Meg D.: social media video and blog post and follow-up post and tweets #socialmediajrn200

*****

Travis D.: sleep habits video and blog post and follow-up post and tweets #theneed4sleep

*****

Sergio M.-B.: study abroad video and blog post and follow-up post and tweets #educationabroadmsu

*****

Mary A.: nutrition in college video and blog post and follow-up post and tweets #nutritionincollege

*****

Alana E.: black/white parties video and blog post and follow-up post and tweets 

*****

Maddie S.: college drinking video and blog post and follow-up post and tweets #jrn200drinking

*****

Emily N.: student health video and blog post and follow-up post and tweets #jrn2health

*****

Fatals: One Last One

KCTV chief meteorologist Chris Suchan laughs and tells me that “sometimes you’re up against the clock” and type ASS when you mean AS. (That’s his colleague, Gary Amble, on the air this morning.)

Courtesy jimromenesko.com.

Out-Of-Class #2 Rewrite: A Great Example

 JRN 200

11/4/14

Slug: Social Media Benefits 

In a era of #YOLO and #tbt, members of the Michigan State University community say virtual communication has positive uses beyond trending hashtags and meaningless texting.

MSU students, professors and researchers said social media sites and other online communities aid education and information-sharing. 

According to Christine Greenhow, an assistant professor in the College of Education at MSU, online communities can be beneficial to student learning.

“Now, with low barriers to online participation and widespread adoption of mobile internet-connected devices students can seek and solicit help from their online social networks as well as readily share ideas and information,” said Greenhow via email.

In a study published in the Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, four sections of the same class used Twitter for class purposes and three sections did not. The Twitter using sections reported higher engagement levels and had a higher average GPA, beating the non-Tweeting group by about 0.5 points on a 0-4.0 scale.

MSU senior Mitchell Alpiner said he likes using Twitter for class activities because he hates “watching a talking head reading off a PowerPoint slide that's posted online. Reading and interacting and making snarky comments keeps me engaged in the material, and helps me feel like I have a voice in the class.”

Karl Gude, Graphics Editor-in-Residence in The College of Communication Arts and Sciences at MSU, said he uses social media in his classes as a way for students to collaborate and ask questions.

“It’s dynamite for online classes. Student can communicate when you’re not around and it even allows students around the world to collaborate with students on campus,” said Gude.

Beyond class use, students said they utilized social media to gather information about friends, celebrities and various businesses. 

“I just like to check to see what’s going on with people that I know” along with “musicians, and actors that I like and companies that I would like to find stuff out about,” said MSU freshman Nicholas Russo.

Russo said he checks Twitter every couple of hours throughout the day and discovers new information posted about events and business promotions.

According to Brandon Van Der Heide, an assistant professor and researcher of communication at MSU, the presence of businesses on social media and online customer reviews has increased customer knowledge and awareness.

Research from the Harvard Business Review Analytics Services said 50 percent of businesses that use social media claim their target customers have an “increased awareness of our organization, products or services” due to social media accounts. 

Van Der Heide said the availability of information on social media “is certainly different from the way we used to find out about a good restaurant. It used to be the case that you would either hear about it from a friend primarily, or advertisements or a mass media source.”

According to Van Der Heide, online communication is not replacing in-person interactions but is just a different way to give and receive information.

Van der Heide said, “Often people will tend to assume face to face communication is this gold standard where in really true interpersonal messages can be transmitted,” but online communication is an effective way to quickly share information.

MSU freshman Grace Hough said she prefers to meet up with people in-person but she relies on texting for a convenient way to arrange meeting times and places.

“It’s fun to meet up with people places instead of just texting them because you can do things like meet in a cafeteria and have coffee with someone, and it’s just fun to interact and be around people,” said Hough.

Alpiner said he also prefers to meet up with people in-person because “being in-person lets me react quicker and hear the inflection, as well as see the body language of the people I'm interacting with.”

Alpiner said though in-person communication has benefits, he also enjoys online communication because “being online gives me a few more seconds and minutes to think about what I'm going to say next.”

According to Van Der Heide, people use social media and other online communities to carefully craft messages and express their best qualities, but this is not a new concept.

“We’ve always had the hand written letter so we have always had the opportunity to carefully present ourselves, but I think the ubiquity and the ease of access to computer mediated communication has led to a more regular use of that kind of thing,” said Van Der Heide.

Van Der Heide said the availability of social media also helps people communicate with friends and family who are far away.

According to a Common Sense Media research study, 88 percent of teens with social media accounts said it helped them keep in touch with friends they cannot see regularly.

Hough said she uses social media and texting to communicate with her sisters who are in high school because she cannot see them in-person very often.

“It’s a nice way to keep in touch,” said Hough.

Word Count: 823

           

Christine Greenhow

Assistant Professor

Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology and Special Education

Ed.D., Harvard University

greenhow@msu.edu

http://www.cgreenhow.org/

513F Erickson

517-432-0425

Brandon Van Der Heide

Assistant Professor of Communication

(517) 432-1132

vdheide@msu.edu

Mitchell Alpiner

MSU Senior

alpiner.mitchell@gmail.com

Nicholas Russo

MSU Sophomore

810-860-8385

russo.nick.11@gmail.com

Grace Hough

Freshman

616-298-5899

houghgra@msu.edu

Harvard Business Review Analytics Services http://www.sas.com/resources/whitepaper/wp_23348.pdf

Journal of Computer Assisted Learning http://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/administration/president/sparc/meetings/docs/StudentEngagementArticle.pdf

Common Sense Media Research

https://www.commonsensemedia.org/research/social-media-social-life-how-teens-view-their-digital-lives

Job Shadows: What You Saw, Part 1

Here's a sampling of some of the various job shadows done by you all (this will be updated as job shadow reports are turned in, so please check back frequently). Take a look and see what you can learn from everyone's visits. There's a lot of good stuff here to help you decide what you want to do with your lives; what you need to be doing to get there; and what to expect when you do get there.

Please give each one of these a quick read, will you?

*****

I job shadowed Dan Ray, a photographer at WLNS. I first sat in on the morning meeting where Assignment Director Cheryl Fritze went over the news items for the day. Others at the meeting contributed ideas for news stories and reporters were assigned to specific jobs. Ray was assigned to go to the set of ESPN First Take at the MSU Union, ESPN GameDay, and the Ingham County Animal Shelter.

An intern reporter joined us at First Take and Ray took a variety of video shots of the show’s set, followed by interviews conducted by the intern reporter.  The reporter was trying to get an interview with campus security so we went several places on campus trying to get in touch with someone. She ultimately had to do without the interview, as MSU Police Sergeant Taylor could not be reached to approve any officers to speak.

We returned to the station with the footage and interviews and swapped the memory cards for new ones and dropped off the reporter.

We continued to the Ingham County Animal Shelter to report on an event they were having for Veterans Day. We spent about 20-30 minutes there in which Ray took video of dogs up for adoption along with other shots. He interviewed a man who was in charge of the shelter asking about the event.

By 3:30 p.m. we were back at the station and Ray had to edit the video on time for the 5:00 p.m. news. He uploaded the shots and briefly showed me the editing software they use. He had the video ready by 4:00 p.m.

One of the biggest things I got out of my job shadow was watching Ray and the reporter do everything in their power trying to get an interview with security. They asked several security officers in the Union who referred them elsewhere. They went to the GameDay premise and spoke with an officer who said he would talk but needed the approval of Sergeant Taylor. After a call and a persistent visit to the police station they discovered Taylor was gone for day but still called three more people in attempt to reach her. They were a good example of the “act like a 20-year-old trying to get into a bar” concept we discussed in class.

I also learned a lot about the daily processes of the WLNS newsroom and the day-to-day routine of a photographer there. I really enjoyed the shadow and it increased my desire for a career in photojournalism. 

*****

I spent the afternoon on Oct. 10 with Jason Colthorp at WILX TV 10 in Lansing. I met him at the studio and he showed me how he was entering teases for his segments in the computer. I walked around the studio and talked with other journalists and producers. While Jason was getting ready for the 5 o’ clock news, another journalist took me around the studio, into the control room and had me sit at the desk where Jason and Lauren Evans do their broadcast. I met Andy Provenzano, the weather broadcaster, and then the news was about to start.

I watched the 5 o’ clock news and it was so cool to sit behind the scenes. During news segments or during commercials I got to ask Lauren and Jason questions about where they went to school and how they got to be interested in this profession.

I learned that Jason and Lauren move the prompter with their foot because there is a pedal under their desk. Jason talked about never using the word continues in a teaser because then you are telling the audience that there is nothing new to say. He also talked about knowing when to add a funny teaser and when to be respectful of the subject. He had a funny teaser about Batman and Ben Affleck but then a serious one on the subject of Ebola. He really stressed thinking about what the most interesting facts of the story are and what the audience would want to know/hear about.

Lauren said that she wished she had kept in contact with the people she had done internships with in college. She said she thinks it is important in college to make connections and keep those connections throughout your life, not only when you need something, but just to get coffee and catch up. Jason said that in college he wished he had done more internships. He said he thinks he would have gotten his starting job at WILX faster. Jason started as a sports reporter, which he thinks his internship with the MSU hockey team helped with.