Job Shadows: What You Saw, Part 5

I had the opportunity of shadowing Erica Murphy from the WWJ radio station. Erica is in charge of reporting on traffic for WWJ, which is a relatively new position as, up until April 1^st of this year, WWJ outsourced traffic. Murphy was excited to have me shadow her and we set up the shadow for April 16^th.

I arrived at the radio station around 5:30 p.m. and Erica immediately gave me the grand tour of WWJ. The station houses not only WWJ 950, but also 97.1 The Ticket, 99.5 WYCD, 98.7 Amp Radio, and others. I enjoyed seeing the different areas for each station, as they each had their own flare. For example, 97.1 The Ticket, a sports station, had mini basketball hoops everywhere and lots of sports signs. 99.5 WYCD, on the other hand, showed off its country roots with chairs made of blue jean material and a wall of famous country records. I also was introduced to a few producers and hosts on this tour at the different stations, however most everyone was not at the station as it was Easter and a Sunday night.

We then went back to Erica’s desk and she showed me what she does. WWJ announces the traffic and weather every ten minutes on the 8’s. Therefore, Erica has 10 minutes in between her broadcasts to plan her next traffic report. She showed me the few resources she uses to give an accurate traffic report. It was also interesting to see how many people called in to alert her to traffic in the area so that she could announce it. Sometimes the websites she uses couldn’t keep up with everything and the callers were more on top of things. I didn’t expect traffic reporting to be interesting, however it was actually more exciting than I expected. Traffic is ever-changing, and therefore her reports have to be updated right up until the last second when she goes on air. While she would plan her report at the start of the ten minutes, it would look completely different by the time she actually went on air.

Although I was there to shadow Erica, I ended up shadowing almost everyone that was working at WWJ that Sunday night. I spent a lot of time with Jason Scott, who was on air from about 6 p.m. to Midnight. Jason was great – he showed me the ins and outs of his on-air reporting. WWJ uses the program News Boss which allows the producer to be inputting information while Jason was reading it. I enjoyed sitting with Jason, although our conversation was broken as he was on-air and could only talk during commercial breaks and recorded audio clips.

I then got to sit with Lauren Barthold, a producer for WWJ. Lauren graduated from Oakland University not too long ago, so her and I got along very well. She showed me how she was finding and creating content for Jason to say on air. She walked me through the programs they have access to, and allowed me to help her write teasers for the stories. One thing I found really interesting that she explained was how written ledes are different than radio ledes. In writing, we want to put all 5 W’s in the lede so that our reader gets all the important information outright. However, in radio broadcast, they tease the story so that people continue listening. She showed me how she would pick a few of the important details – enough to give the listener a good idea of what happened, but not too much that they turn the radio off right there because they know everything already. Otherwise, though, the teasers she was writing for the stories were similar to our ledes.

I also got to be in the booth with Jason when he did sports with Dan Leach. Dan, a very animated guy who made fun of me for being a Spartan, was interesting to watch while on-air. He did the interview off the cuff, having a legitimate conversation with Jason. Jason also did not know what Dan was going to say, so he had to think proactively to anticipate another question for Dan. Afterwards, Jason told me he loves working with Dan because Dan loves to talk and Jason doesn’t usually have to ask very many questions.

In all, I had a great time at WWJ. I learned a lot about how radio broadcast works and the similarities and differences there are between broadcast and print. I was definitely impressed by how each person worked together so well and how everyone’s jobs intersected. I liked seeing how quickly everything went together, with some breaking news being added only seconds before the broadcast began. It was also great to see how, because WWJ is a well-respected station, the community interacted with the station. So many tips were called in, whether it be for traffic or something else, and the source contacts were always gracious in helping provide more details.

I don’t know if radio journalism is what my future holds, but I am thankful that I had this opportunity to see how everything works and to talk to professionals with real-world experience and advice.