Job Shadows: Wha You Saw, Part 7

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 as they come in, will you?

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I shadowed Karen Podrasky who is the News Operations Coordinator of WXYZ-TV. When I arrived, Karen was very kind to me and she immediately introduced me to everybody and showed me all around the newsroom. Everyone was extremely nice and seemed to be genuinely interested in whether or not I’d like to go into that field.

After showing me around the newsroom, Karen began to place me with different people around the office so I could see what went into a typical news day. The first station I visited was called the Assignment Desk. This is where people came to either get their assignments for the day or confirm sources for already existing stories. They listen to police scanners and watch for anything to verify as an actual story.

Next, they showed me where they kept all of their news vans and jeeps for reporters who might need to do live reporting in the field, of photo journalists who needed to go and take their photos and videos to get them back to the studio as soon as possible. I had never seen the back of a news van before today and it was very interesting. It is basically a mini newsroom in the back of a van.

I then went to sit with a man named Max White who was the digital producer. Max handled all of the social media and video editing for the station. He kept track of how many people were on the website, the mobile app, individual stories, etc. I had no idea so much went into the digital media portion of news. It was really interesting to see how everything came together. Max has to have at least 12 different tabs open everyday and keep up with all of them to make sure his job is done correctly. Max keeps up with competition and verifies news tips that people may tweet of put on Facebook.

After my visit with Max, Karen let me watch The Now Detroit live. This was probably the most fascinating part of my shadow. I am absolutely amazed at how different it is from watching on a television screen. It was fun to see the anchors run around to their different marks, read their stories in between 60 second breaks, and even go back and forth from the studio, to the newsroom in 20 seconds.

Everyone is constantly working at WXYZ-TV and I loved the atmosphere. Everyone was extremely nice and gave me a lot of tips about getting into the field. I even got a couple of business cards from people who offered to help me find internships in the future. This is actually a place I might consider working at when I graduate. I really enjoyed my visit.