JRN 200: More Job Shadows!

Here's the latest job shadow reports I've received; they will each be posted as I receive 'em.  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?

*****

At Michigan State I am majoring in Journalism and News Broadcasting, so when I got the opportunity to job shadow a Reporter at a News Station I was thrilled.

For my job shadow I worked with Alex Jokich at WWMT News Channel 3 on June 11^th.

Alex and I were required to be at the station at 3am until noon for her broadcast schedule. Alex broadcasted five times during the day, with two different news stories.

When I arrived at the studio, I was stopped at the gate and was paged in by security to get the “OK” from Alex. Alex met me at the door and I was surprised by the high-security at the station.

When we entered the studio Alex first gave me a tour, and then we started writing for the broadcast. Alex showed me the newsroom that consists of desks and computers for reporters and editors, in the middle of the room, the producers worked together at one large desk.

Alex explained to me that the producers select her news stories and she has to turn the story into a broadcast for viewers. Alex and I both worked to write the stories in an hour period before her first broadcast at 4am.

Alex is responsible for two separate stories to be broadcasted two hours apart from each other during the morning.

Alex printed the articles given to her by the producers for both of us and as we worked separately at writing the stories. After we were both finished we compared notes and edited them.

After the scripts were final, we sent them to the producers to be put on the teleprompter for the broadcast.

Before going on air, Alex did her hair and makeup, and then prepared the camera and microphones.

I was semi-surprised that Alex’s job was so independent from the news station. Even though Alex isn’t able to choose her news stories, she still is in control of most of her job in the morning.

Alex did all of her broadcasts in the newsroom with people moving around her. The main news anchors and meteorologists did their broadcasts in the studio with the green screens and decorated desks. For Alex to go on air the news anchors, which were already broadcasting, introduced her.

Alex did her broadcast independently and talked to the teleprompter that had the story we wrote earlier. Some of the broadcasts Alex had an editor watch and control the camera, but for others, Alex set up her microphone and positioned the camera by herself for the broadcast.

After we did the first few broadcasts, Alex and I were able to sit down and talk about Journalism and her experience.

Alex studied Journalism in California, interning every year, and then moved back to her hometown in Chicago after she graduated. Alex first started her career at a small station in a small town that broadcasted for an hour once a week.

After two years at the small studio, Alex moved to a larger station and built a portfolio, and then was recruited by an Executive at WWMT.

Alex’s main advice is to start small, and get as much experience as you can. Alex described that to get airtime and experience, small stations are best. A large station doesn’t necessarily trust out of college reporters without as much experience. At a small station, new reporters are welcome to learn and become involved in the station as much as possible.

The news station setting promotes and encourages reporters to work hard and gain experience to work towards something greater.

After my job shadow I am more determined than ever to pursue a career in News Broadcasting. Seeing the behind the scenes at the station and the work that goes into Journalism, motivates me to work harder to gain experience and make connections that I will use in the future. 

*****

For this assignment I chose to shadow Lana Walker, Communications and PR Manager at Beam Global, the corporation my dad works for.

Lana graduated from the University of Minnesota with Journalism major, and used her knowledge to land her job at Beam.

On Thursday, May 29^th, Lana had a lot on her plate because Lana is taking over for another woman’s job while she goes on maternity leave and is giving all her duties to a woman named Liz who works at Beam as well.

So, from 8a.m. to 11a.m. Lana did “knowledge transfer” for Liz, which I witnessed. This transfer was basically Lana teaching Liz all of her new responsibilities that come with Lana’s job and the goals Liz should be hitting for the company between now and March 2015 while Lana takes over another woman’s job.

Just some of those responsibilities are handling internal relationships between all of the departments of Beam, and running a blog for Beam where each week they feature people who are doing great things for the company. Also within those features Lana runs, she interviews key players in the company and reports on this blog.

Lana talked about how her journalistic background has helped her create and execute this blog. She also noted that due to her background she really uses her tools she learned to be simply a great writer and communicator.

Lana also thinks that these are skills that will benefit me as well as I dig deeper into journalism. She even told me that she has the AP stylebook on her desk and still uses it frequently. I thought that was amazing and probably something that makes her so great at what she does.

I could tell just from shadowing her for a short three hours that she is an expert at what she does and I’m not surprised that she has done well in the corporate world as journalism major.