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?
Please give each one of these a quick read as they come in, will you?
On my job shadow at WXYZ Channel 7
Action News, I shadowed senior anchor and reporter, Dave LewAllen. Dave
introduced me to many people at the station in order for me to understand all
the people and jobs that go into putting the news together.
When talking to Dave, he explained
what it is like in the everyday life of a reporter. They will go into work and
have no idea where or what they will be doing that day. After they receive
their assignments, they get into their assigned news trucks with their crew,
and are gone for the whole day. He explained that there was a time where they
required all reporters to learn how to operate cameras and equipment because
they would have to go out into the field alone and shoot their own stories.
Dave showed me around the station
and I was able to see where every department works. I also was able to see the
two different stages. After the tour, Dave sat me down with others who worked
at the station so that I could see what everyone does.
First I sat down and talked to the
people behind the news desk. This seemed like a nerve wrecking job to me
because they have to listen in on the police radio scanner to find out about
breaking news situations as they were happening. What seemed difficult about
this was that they had to figure out the codes that the police use in order to
understand what is going on. After they catch something on the scanner, they
call into the station and hopefully they can get some more information on it.
The people behind the news desk alert the station of breaking news situations
such as murders, fires, arrests, and so on.
Next I sat down with the producers.
Something I found interesting was how they would have to continually shift the
schedule of the show on Saturdays due to the football games. For example when I
was there UCLA was playing USC and the news was suppose to start at 7 p.m. but
considering the game went over by around 15 minutes, the producers had to move
segments around in the show and “kill stories” in order to fit the time limit.
I feel that their job is difficult because they have to make decisions and
change things around even at the last minute. Everything they do is basically
written in pencil because it can change so quickly. When I asked them about the
stress of this, both of the producers agreed they enjoyed it because of the
adrenaline and the ability to make decisions.
After the game finished up, it was
time to go on air. Dave was the only anchor that day. I sat on the side and
watched as he was on air. One of the things I was amazed at was the technology
involved. For all I knew, prior to this job shadow, there was one camera and
someone behind. However, I learned this wasn’t the case. There were multiple
cameras and to my surprise, no people behind the cameras. With new technology,
the cameras actually move on their own, according to codes. This was one of the
more interesting things I learned on my job shadow. It was very intriguing to
watch Hally Vogel do the weather because of the use of the green screen. I
always knew they did that but it was a different experience to see it in
action. I also got to watch Brad Galli and Kacie Hollins do the sports segment,
which was especially cool because Michigan State had just beaten Penn State
that day!
Half way through the show I went up
into the control room to get a different perspective. Being in the control room
certainly opened my eyes to all the work that goes on behind the scenes. It was
interesting to see the last minute decisions that were made in the control
room, but they were so calm about everything. In the control room I was
watching the teleprompter on the screen and although they change the speed to
go at the pace you are talking at, it still seemed to be moving fast, to me. I
was trying to read it to myself as if I was on air and I now know that is
something I will need to work on if I ever expect to be on TV.
I learned a lot on my job shadow and
it got me very excited, and slightly nervous, to be in the field of journalism.
I learned about how important accuracy is because if you get something wrong,
people will call in and complain a lot. I also learned that I can’t expect to
be put behind the camera right out of college. I need to start from the bottom
and work my way up. I saw that there is so much that I still need to learn and
according Dave’s advice, I need to get as much out of the classroom experience
as possible. Every person I talked to at the station mentioned working on
holidays, early mornings, and moving out of state. I realized that in order to
fulfill my dream of becoming a journalist, it would be necessary for me to make
some sacrifices.
********
For my job shadow, I went to WXYZ
Channel 7 in Detroit where I met up with Alexandra Bahou, digital reporter and
web producer. I chose to contact her in the first place because while I have
shadowed reporters in the past, her position seemed a little different and I
wanted to get another outlook.
Alexandra Bahou has various jobs
that she does at the station, but mainly it is her job to post news updates and
breaking news to the Channel 7 website in addition to social media. She keeps
track of the engagement and ranks stories higher or lower based on that
engagement. Her job is a collaboration with her team (digital reporters) and
also field reporters. For example, she expressed that for a lot of the stories
they need an original photo and that is hard to get sometimes. So the reporters
out in the field will take a photo at the scene and send it to the digital team
to use. This is just one part of the job that she does. Another part of her job
is to broadcast a short live segment in the mornings about the latest tech biz.
After seeing how she works for a
little while, I got a tour of the station. At the time I was thinking I want to
meet all the anchors I have watched with my mom on those early high school
mornings. And I sure did! I saw almost every one that I watched in the mornings
and it was so cool. I also got to see the studio and sit in the anchor chair.
It is funny how television makes everything look bigger because in reality, the
studio and anchor desk are so small in person.
Later on, Alexandra talked with me
about Michigan State University as she is a graduate of the journalism school
here. When she asked who my favorite professor was I told her, “Bonnie Bucqueroux,”
and she immediately smiled! Alexandra graduated from MSU in 2008, so Bonnie was
one of her journalism professors as well. We talked about how great of a
teacher Bonnie was and while I only had Bonnie for one semester in 2014, she
inspired me to be excited for the changes coming in journalism and the world of
media as a whole. We then started talking about internships and where she had
her start. One thing that was cool to know was that she met Diane Sawyer, one
of my idols on the national level.
Overall,
I had a nice learning experience with my job shadow at Channel 7! I learned the
other side of things besides the traditional TV reporting. After this
experience I think that I really want to be a field reporter though. I do not
like sitting in a building all day long. Being a television reporter is
exciting and full of surprises, discoveries, so on. But while saying that I am
willing to start anywhere I can to work my way up the long long ladder.
Alexandra Bahou
Digital Reporter/Web Producer – WXYZ Detroit
********
I had the privilege to shadow Ken Palmer, a breaking news
reporter for the Lansing State Journal. The day was pretty slow because it was
a Friday and many of the staff didn’t have to work or took the day off.
Starting
off Palmer had let me know that the building was mainly empty because the
Lansing State journal isn’t what it used to be a few years ago. I went on a
short tour around the building where I saw their library with a bunch of news
papers that were written many years ago. I was able to see where the
photographers worked and a few other rooms with lots of paperwork the office
had collected.
There were
some rooms as well that I saw that were totally vacant. This was because of all
the people they have lost over the years and there was simply no use for them.
I was informed that the LSJ is actually moving to a smaller space in downtown
Lansing because they don’t have enough people to fill the space and the
building is extremely old. Once we arrived
to the room where Palmer and he other writers worked, I was able to see him and
the others at work. The first thing I saw were two big TV screens that
displayed how many people were actually on their site, how many were viewing
each story and how long they were viewing it. Palmer said that it was their way
of keeping track of what people are interested in.
Since
Palmer is a breaking news reporter he has to be alert at all times to make sure
he is aware of what is happening so he can figure out what story he needs to
write. That is checking his emails, calling out to verify information and
sometimes listening to the police radio they have in the office. On a day to
day average he writes between 7 and 8 stories. For breaking news, he strives to
get the news out before the competition but he noted that although it is the
goal he aims to give a better story that is more complete. Just like we are
told in class that we have to get everything right he said that he has to make
sure he attributes everything.
I watched
as he wrote a story following up on a previous story he had written about a
year ago regarding bomb threats at a local high school in Lansing. I was told
that they make sure to be precise anytime there is something dealing with
threats to make sure the audience knows what’s going on to there isn’t any
fear.
One thing
that stood out to me was having a conversation with him about they way
journalist there really have to do it all now. Since their add-funding went
down they no longer have a copy desk or a coach/editor to over see things
before they are published. Palmer said that we are in a time of rapid change
and that now they have to not only get the information right without an editor,
but he has to get the visuals on his own. They used to have about five to six
full time photographers but they now only have one. When he writes a story he
has to have an image so when a story he is writing breaks, he has to get the
image on his on rather than waiting on their photographer.
They have a
meeting every day at 9:30am and then 4pm to discuss things they want in the
paper and website for the following day. When I was there I was able to sit in
on the 4pm meeting and was able to see them communicate with each other about
how far along they’ve gotten on stories, what stories they were planning to
write and what issues they were having regarding stories as well.
Palmers
advice to me was to make sure journalism is something you really want to do
before going into the business, because although there will be good days there
will also be down days. We talked about many different things that you can get
into through journalism and that branching out is always a good idea. Palmer
mentioned that you shouldn’t come into journalism thinking you’re going to be
rich because that just isn’t the case. Of course when you have been in the
business you will be able to make a decent living but but normally it is the
people who are over the whole entire thing that are the money makers.
Although
the day was very slow I can say that I learned a lot. I was able to see all the
steps it took to get a story written, edited, published and sent out to be
printed for the daily news paper. Since I am a student who has just gotten
started learning about all things journalism, I was glad to be able to see some
of the things I would be doing as I get further in my journalism career.
-Ken Palmer
517-377-1032
*********
For my job shadow, I chose to shadow at ABC 12 in Flint.
Originally I was going to shadow meteroliogist Christina Burkhart, but she had
the late shift that day and we came in during the morning shift. Considering
this, when we got to ABC 12, they let us follow a few different people so that
we could learn about different jobs specifically. We went to the reporters
early morning meeting where they all
bounced around different story ideas that they could cover because they were
having a slow news day. We spent the most time with Mike Mcpherson, a
photojournalist at ABC 12. He took us out to cover the story of the Flint
police department receiving a dog for their K9 unit donated by a local company.
While we were there Mike had the job of videotaping b-roll for the news segment
and also interviewing the chief and company owner. Much to our surprise, Mike
threw us right into the job and asked us to come up with questions to ask the
chief and company owner and interview them ourselves. After that, Mike went
outside to get some b-roll of the dog and allowed us to videotape some b-roll
also. He then took us back to ABC 12 where he showed us how to edit his video
for the upcoming news segment.
I learned such a
vast amount by doing this job shadow. During the reporters morning meeting, I
learned that there is a big pressure to always keep ideas on hand for new
stories. I also learned that you always have to be ready and prepared because
you will get sent out to cover the story on the fly, so you always need to know
your facts. While going out to cover the story with Mike, I learned to always
be thinking of questions to ask a subject wherever you go. In our case, Mike
told us to come up with questions on the spot and it really taught me to always
be prepared. Overall, I learned that the news is extremely fast-paced and you
have to be fast-paced with it too, our you will be left behind. It was a great
experience that prepared me for my future!
Mike McPherson: 810-233-3130
For my job shadow
assignment, I got to interview Chuck Goudie from ABC 7 Chicago. A Michigan
State University alumnus, Chuck Goudie attended the school from 1973-1977.
Goudie has worked with ABC 7 since 1980 and currently has the role of head
crime investigative reporter for the station.
My
day began upon arrival at the studio around noon the day before Thanksgiving. I
already knew that this day would be filled with hectic behaviors throughout the
newsroom as a Chicago police officer had been charged with murder of an African
American teenager the day before my shadow. The station had released the video
of the shooting the previous day showing the officer taking 17 countless shots
at the suspect, as he lay on the ground helpless of his own life.
I
checked in with the front desk and they sent me through security. The lady at
the desk told me to have a seat in the lobby and that Chuck would be down in
five minutes to get me. I sat in a lobby filled with awards that the station
had gained recognition for throughout the years. I knew it was going to be an
exciting day.
The
elevator doors to the lobby opened and out came Chuck Goudie. I could already
feel a presence of fame upon myself. He has a very distinct deep voice and it
projected amazingly throughout the lobby. We greeted each other and he brought
me upstairs. The first thing I saw was the newsroom that was filled with around
50 men and women. The phones were ringing off the hook and you could feel the
sense of a hectic environment floating throughout the room. Chuck introduced me
to the desk and newsroom editors and had me hang out with them for an hour.
The
two ladies showed me all the awesome gadgets they had to use to help them
obtain news materials throughout the day. They had many different computer
programs, police monitors, news boards with slugs on them, walky-talkies, and
many other ways to get news tips. In one case, I observed one of the ladies
receiving a phone call from an anonymous subject saying that a SUV had jumped a
curb and hit two girls walking home from school. After the phone call had
ended, the ladies called in for the station’s helicopter to go and see if they
could go get a visual confirmation of this event. This was a very exciting time
for me as I got to see these people constantly on their toes trying to obtain
information. They definitely always have to be on top of their game with this
job.
Next,
Chuck introduced me to the station’s head editor and then took me into the
video editing room where they created packages for the news segments. I spent
about two hours in this room as Chuck had many voiceovers in which he had to
add to the newly obtained videos of the shooting that was made public the day
before. ABC 7 planned to release this newly obtained video during that nights
broadcast. It was an unreal experience to see how they received this video,
edited it so it could be viewer approved, and set up the entire package. I was
watching a video that the entire city of Chicago had not seen yet. Being one of
the first definitely was such a cool feeling to have.
As
Chuck quickly tried to make it through his day by typing numerous scripts in
which he would use, filming voiceovers, sharing news via social media, and
interacting with his co-workers, the time really flew by quickly. It was
already time for the special 6 p.m. broadcast that they had planned for that
day.
While
Chuck went to the makeup room to get ready for the show, I sat in the studio as
the reporters and anchors came filing in, each introducing themselves to me.
This was a surreal feeling as I had watched them all on countless occasions
report breaking news on ABC 7. It was so amazing and they were all great
people. As the broadcast began, I was the only person who was allowed to stand
behind the camera to watch the broadcast. During one of the commercials Kathy
Brock and Jerry Taft asked me questions about my life and what my goals were
and gave me great advice on never giving up. I watched as Chuck gave his
segment of news and directly after the broadcast he showed me via his personal
Twitter on how many people were instantly reacting to the news of the breaking
new videos.
Overall,
this is one of the most amazing experiences I’ve ever been a part of in my
life. It was truly amazing to see all the elements and hard work put in to
create a single news show. This definitely made me so excited to continue
learning and getting stronger in all aspects that my major bring. I am very
excited for the furture!
*******
For my job shadow, I went to ABC
12 News in Flint, Michigan. We started the day by attending the morning
meeting, and observed the employees go over the schedule for the day. This was
interesting to me, because right away I started to notice little things and
vocabulary that I have recently learned in JRN 200. For example, on the top of
their schedule, there was a category named “story
slug”, and it was very intriguing to see everything come
full-circle.
After
the morning meeting, we shadowed Mike Mcpherson, a photojournalist at ABC 12.
We went with him to cover a story about the Flint jail receiving funding from a
company to add another dog to their K-9 unit. Mike had us help out a lot, and
had us learn everything by actually doing it. We were asked to carry the
tripod, sign us in at the police station, etc. After Mike was done filming the
press-conference, he decided to do a few one-on-one interviews with some of the
subjects. Mike said that they were short on reporters for the day, and he
actually had my sister and I ask the questions/conduct the interviews, which
was something that I totally did not expect to happen, but it was an awesome
learning experience.
Following
the one-on-one interviews, Mike went outside to shoot some B-roll of the dog
from the K-9 unit playing in the grass. Once he was done getting some shots, he
had me give it a try. It was very cool learning how to work the very large
camera that they film with, because I am only used to working with smaller
cameras.
When
we got back to the station, Mike then had us help upload the footage, and he
taught us how to edit the footage in the editing room and make sure to hit the
deadline because this specific story was supposed to air on the 12 o’clock news that day.
Overall,
I learned so much by job shadowing at ABC 12 News. It was a wonderful
experience, and it has really taught me that the skills I am learning here at
MSU in the Journalism school are skills that will be extremely useful to me in
my future career as a journalist.
Alexandra was very busy that day
and did not have time for a job shadow to follow her, so she me to two
reporters who had enough time to talk to me.
Neha Sheth and Alexis Rosado were both working on their assigned
packages for the 5 o’clock news. In the
broadcast news language, packages mean their story in an allotted time
slot. From her editor, Sheth was given
one minute and 20 seconds.
Sheth’s story was about the East
Lansing Police Department preparing for the possible riots in Cedar Village
following the Michigan State football game on Saturday. Sheth spent the whole day putting together
her story. I found it interesting that
she had to shoot the footage herself on her own camera. When she did stand-up in the footage, she had
to film herself independently. When I
arrived, Sheth was editing her footage on a program called Edius, which most news stations use to edit their films nowadays,
she said.
Edius,
to me, looked similar to iMovie but was more high tech and used more buttons to
piece together footage. You never know
how much work goes into one minute of footage.
When Sheth was finished with piecing together the footage she shot, she
had to write down everything she heard as a script and then she had to track
her voice for the voice over, which took her about 20 minutes. Sheth said it’s always best to give yourself
one hour before your deadline so you have enough time to edit and perfect
everything.
The amount of pressure in the
newsroom was very high; even I was getting stressed out, considering it was
4:35 p.m. and everyone had to get his or her stories in by 5:00. Many people were running around all over the
place trying to finish their work on time and get approved by their editor and
sending it off to the control room
After I watched Sheth put together
her piece, she led me to the studio, where the magic happens. I was able to sit in and watch Jane Aldrich
anchor the 5 o’clock news. After the
program as over, I was able to talk to Aldrich and ask her questions about
being an anchor. She showed me around
the entire building; the dressing room, the editor’s office, and the control
room. I got to talk to Norm Stangland, one of the editors of WLNS.
Blair Nelson, a cameraman, showed
me around the control room, showing me how much work actually gets put into what
you see on television. From the moving
of the cameras to the switching scene to scene of the different stories and
working the commercials and whatnot, it seems like a ridiculous amount of
work.
Jane Aldrich invited me to sit and
watch the 6 o’clock news from inside the studio, this time Aldrich co-anchored
with Sheri Jones. Jones was also able to
answer many of my questions too. Jones
does that 11 o’clock news so she has to stay in the building all day and most
of the night.
One thing I found funny was while
watching the 6 o’clock news; one tag line had the word Letter in it, spelled
“Leter” which, in terms of Journalism, is considered a fatal.
The entire day was definitely
learning experience. I knew preparing
for a broadcast would be stressful, but I never knew how stressful it could
be. Everyone was running around and the
tension was incredibly high. There were
some times when I didn’t think they would be able to finish their work before
the deadline. They said that this sort
of tension happens everyday, which seems to me a little too much. I would love to be in broadcasting, but I
think before I get to that point, I’m going to need to learn how to control my
stress level. Journalism is all about
stress and working hard, which I know I can accomplish, but I need to be able
to handle it at a professional level.
In hindsight, this experience was
amazing. I am so happy I got to
experience what exactly goes into preparing the news for viewers. I never would have thought how much goes into
just one minute of footage and information.
I hope to learn enough in my journalism classes to prepare myself what
is ahead in the broadcasting/reporting field.
I am very excited to see where this can take me and looking forward to
learning more as times passes.
*******
I
did my job shadow at WLNS news station right in Lansing, Mich. The original
plan was to meet with news reporter Alexandra Ilitch. Unfortunately, when I got
to the station, things were very hectic. Due to this, she did not have time to
work with me. Instead, another news reporter and producer named Neha Sheth, had
me come to the editing stations and have me watch her and another reporter
named Alexis Rosado put all the magic that happens together.
Watching the two of these girls work
made me stress in place for them. They were editing different segments they had
filmed and put together themselves on a program named EDIUS. It looked very
complicating, compared to the editing software I use (Windows Movie Maker). You
could feel the anticipation levels raising in the rooms from everyone working
because they all had a certain deadline to meet. Also, I noticed while this was
all going on, there was always a lot of commotion occurring. This reminded me
of back when we would be working on our story assignments and had to have them
finished at a certain time before class ended. Omar would purposely make noise
to distract us because he said that is how it is in the real journalism world.
Being at this news station showed me that this was indeed true.
Sheth also talked to me about the
difference between her soundbites she had and the tracking she had to do. Her
soundbites were the clips of her interviewees talking and the tracking is the
speaking of her own script she would then do after the video was all put together.
I asked her about all the b-roll she got and she said that this was the most
important thing to get when recording. Once she went to go track, a news anchor
named Jane Aldrich came and brought me out to the news set itself. This was a
cool experience for me due to the fact that I have never been on an actual news
set before. I got to see how everything works behind the scenes; all the
different cameras they have displayed, the teleprompters, the bright lights,
etc.
The first news show I got to be behind
the scenes for was the 5 p.m. news. For this, Aldrich was reporting by herself.
I liked how she could distinguish between her normal talking voice to her
“on-air” voice. Also, it was interesting to try and keep up and watch the
teleprompters as she read along with them. It seemed like it was going at a
fast pace, so it was cool to see her be able to handle reading it at the pace
that she had to read it at.
After the 5 p.m. news was over,
Aldrich took me and showed me all of the different control rooms. All of the
equipment they had look very complicating as well, as to be expected. After
that, Aldrich then took me and introduced me to the 6 p.m. anchor named Sheri
Jones. They asked me to stick around for the 6 p.m. news as well. In this news,
I would be able to see the segments I had previously been watching Sheth and
Rosado working on just an hour and a half earlier.
In my opinion, although the 6 p.m.
news was very similar to the 5 p.m. news, it still seemed more interesting to
me because there was a lot more going on. Both Jones and Aldrich were the
anchors together this time. Also, Ilitch was an anchor as well and then Jay
Sarkar was the sports reporter. Everyone just seemed like they were having a
good time and really enjoyed their jobs. In between commercial segments or when
the camera was airing off the scene, everyone would just talk about arbitrary topics
and seemed really close. It was really entertaining seeing this.
Overall, coming to this news station
made me quite confident that this is the profession that I want to go into.
Being on the actual set just gave me a sense of security and it was like I knew
I belong in a field like this one. All of the different reporters and producers
I talked with were very helpful towards me and made me feel welcome. Hopefully
in the future, I could possibly do an internship with WLNS news as well.
*******
For my
shadow experience, I observed Judy Putnam, an advocacy columnist at the Lansing State Journal. After I had arrived, she introduced me to the staff there, and then I joined their morning staff meeting. They reported their
processing work to the editor and coach. She took me to the Tim Horton’s and met a
veteran. It’s a vet who is upset with the state for denying long-term
disability. It’s a difficult story for me, but Judy said she understands. Judy
said she hoped I can join the conversation and ask the questions instead of
just sitting there and listening. Finally, the vet explained to me his problem
with a vivid explanation: If you go to a restaurant, what you ordered is free
but the restaurant only offers you the cheapest one but not the expensive one.
Judy then told me she would have another
interview in the afternoon and asked if I want to join the event. I said yes.
It’s a meeting with Mrs. and Mr. Santa. They have a lovely house in the
Christmas style. From the interview, we learned their love story and the life
after choosing to be Santas.
What surprises me is I meet the Matthew Dae
Smith, a great photojournalist, who taught me in JRN 310 for one week. It’s an
honor to learn how he made the film and took photos during the interview.
Before the interview, I asked Judy a
question: before the interview, would she feel nervous? She said,
sometimes she will because there are
people they will be mean to you in person.
I also learn a new phase: “off the record.”
She said politicians know the rule.
If they
tell the journalist something, but they add “off the record,” journalists may
still report it because they cannot take the words back and they understand the rules. But if someone doesn’t know the rules, journalists may help them keep
the secret.
When I arrived at the LSJ, Judy showed me
some materials she is working on. Even though she is the Sunday columnist,
she still can publish her work on the website because of “Digital first.”
She was thinking how to get more people
reading her pages and get more attention. She sent the link on her Twitter and
Facebook. She told me a journalist should promote
himself or herself.
I learned a journalist should ask questions 0n all aspects because you may miss critical information by missing one
question. Judy chooses to record the simple stories by her pen. She said when
she meets a major issue, she would record the conversation with voice
memos.
I also have learned from two interviews is
a journalist can know many things from different people. We can use our pen to
help people or to expose an unfair phenomenon. It’s crucial to us to get
information from various aspects.
There is a sad thing; Mr. Santa is not a
professional Santa. He chooses to be a
Santa
because he likes children and wants to bring happiness to everyone. He did most
of his work for free, but now he has a severe disease. Matthew is the one who
brought the story to Judy, trying to help the old man. However, Mr. Santa told
us he hopes Judy doesn’t report his disease. He hopes to be a Santa in everyone’s
heart forever, and Santa would not get an illness. Sometimes, we just cannot
help others because we have to respect their wishes. The truth makes you heart-broken.
For my job shadow I went to WLNS-TV 6
News, I was able to meet a wide range of different journalist and reporters. I
got to learn how professional journalist went about developing their articles,
and videos for their sections of the news segment. I did not have a central person that I was
assigned to shadow however, I was given the chance to just go around, and see
what everyone did.
One of the News Anchors I meant was
Jane Aldrich who allowed for me to go with her on set when channel 6 went on
air. Aldrich along with her co anchor Sheri Jones told me that for news anchors
reporting on live television you don’t have to worry about messing up. There
are prompters that have the dialog that can be read from so you don’t forget
your place. I also got to meet Alexis Rosado who was also there during the live
shooting of the show. After her piece for the show was done she showed me how
to put together packages for stories that would be shown on air.
I was also their when they got word
about the shootings that happened in San Bernardino, California. Their sister
channel in California was covering the story live and everyone in the station
stood quietly watching the events unfold. The channel 6 team had to make sure
that they were ready to go on air after the national coverage of the tragic
events. Rosado told me that it didn’t matter if they were told they might not
have a show they still had to be ready.
Before my visit to channel 6 I was
still on the fence about the journalism world, but after visiting them I
remembered why I wanted to do in the first place. I know that I still have a
long way to go and many things to learn but I am excited about the journey.
On October 17 I had the opportunity
to job shadow Koco McAboy of Grand Rapids’ WOOD TV8, and it was an experience I
will never forget.
My morning
started out not so bright and early as I arrived at the station in downtown
Grand Rapids just before 7 a.m. Koco is both an anchor for the weekend morning
show and a reporter so I wanted the chance to get to see her do both. When I
arrived, the associate producer met me at the door and brought me down to the
studio where McAboy was on a commercial break so I was able to sit with her for
a few minutes and introduce myself and meet a few other people.
Seeing how
anchoring works was such a cool experience. I watch it on TV all the time, but
never actually see how it’s all put together. It was even cooler to be able to
be right there watching it all and seeing it on TV at the same time. I watched
Koco anchor for about a half hour then she took me down to the newsroom and sat
me down at a computer.
I met even
more people in the Newsroom and Koco showed me all the programs that WOOD uses
and where all the scripts are and how to edit them. I didn’t fully understand
it all, but it was really cool to see how it all came together.
After about
an hour, Koco and the photographer were ready to go out and do some reporting
and I was more than excited to be able to ride along with them. We stopped for
Panera before leaving Grand Rapids which was an added bonus to my already
awesome day and then the three of us hit the road in one of the station’s vans.
The story
that Koco was covering that did was in the city of Vicksburg, which is just
south of Kalamazoo. There is a Christmas tree farm there that was closing down
for good because the growing deer population decided that the trees were a nice
food source.
It was about
an hour drive so I was able to ask a lot of questions and both Koco and the
photographer gave me some great advice.
I learned
that Koco went to Central Michigan University and graduated with a Broadcast
degree with a minor in Spanish. She started working part time for WOOD when she
was a senior and her Spanish minor is what landed her a full time job after
graduating. She told me that internships help a lot and to not be surprised if
when you do land a job that it’s totally different than you think. You have to
be very dedicated, expect no’s and have a really good demo reel.
Koco also
told me that one of the most important things to remember in the Journalism
field is that time management is huge and be early with deadlines. She also
said that writing is super important. Also, you won’t always be working with
your own story but you need to always seem interested and make it worthwhile
for the audience.
Both Koco
and the photographer gave me advice on internships and some of the key things
included don’t interrupt, know when to be quiet, ask to shoot stand-ups, make a
video reel, talk to other photographers, get to know how to speak to law enforcement,
and get to know police jargon. They said the only way you’ll get better is to
keep doing it and to be comfortable about how you are because there will always
be someone who doesn’t like you.
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