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! 

*****