Job Shadows: What You Saw, Part 6

I got in contact with Detroit Free Press photojournalist and videographer, Eric Seals, after he was on a panel in another class of mine. I knew he was a journalist--otherwise he wouldn’t have been on the panel--but when he told me he was a photojournalist and a videographer and asked if that was fine, I thought, “This is perfect.”

Seals gave me his contact information and I contacted him later that day.

            Via email, we discussed dates for the job shadow and Seals shared a link to his Vimeo page so I could check out his storytelling ahead of time.

Seals’s email signature revealed that he is an Emmy (Michigan chapter) winning videographer as it included links to three winning videos. Jackpot.

I met Seals in Novi and from there we headed first to a Starbucks--where I asked him questions about how he got into journalism--and then to the Detroit Metro Airport for his assignment with the Free Press.

We got to the airport early--at least an hour--as Seals emphasized the importance of being early. This importance was demonstrated later when the plane we were waiting for arrived ahead of schedule and had we not been early, we could have missed the story.

But as we waited for the plane to come in, Seals told me how he was mentally setting up and preparing to catch the story. He told me about how he was supposed to collect video, primarily, but also photographs. He made a point of saying it makes you a more valuable journalist if you can do both--as we’ve discussed in class.

Seals tells me how he’s mentally prepped the scene to anticipate the shot and ensure that he catches the moment we’re here to get. He’s keeping tabs on the airport lighting, the natural light and their changes. We double-check that we’re in the right spot. We introduce ourselves to the family members as they show up.

We wait.

The story we’re here to get is that of a woman who is going to get off a plane, walk to where we are and meet her birth father for the first time after being adopted as a baby almost 50 years ago.

From the airport they’re driving up into the Thumb of Michigan to meet her birth mother. But we’re here only to get the moment when father and daughter see each other for the first time in 50 years.

To capture the moments of their first embrace. To tell the story of the smiles on their faces.

So Seals tells me how he expects the shot to go: Daughter will deplane and exit the security wall to where we are. She’ll be looking for her father.

Be early. Pay attention to the light. Shoot in manual and know what changes to make to the cameras. And fast. Don’t interfere with the story as it’s happening. Be prepared to get good audio. Be prepared to get the shot. Get the shot.

Seals told me this assignment is special to him because he was adopted too. Joy Myree-Mainor was put up for adoption because she was born to a black father and a white mother during a time when a marriage or keeping the child was illegal. Seals, only two years younger than Myree-Mainor, was put up for adoption for the same reason. Only Seals hasn’t located his parents; he was hoping this assignment would give him the nudge to start the search.

Myree-Mainor’s plane arrived early. There was a second reporter, Bill Laitner, working with Seals--writing the story to go along with Seals’s photos and video--he was just barely on time.

Be early.

Myree-Mainor walked out and Seals got the moment as her father, William Daniels, and the rest of her new family received her.

Don’t interfere with the story as it’s happening.

Seals got photos and video as the moment unfolded.

Be prepared to get good audio. Be prepared to get the shot.

Then, as emotions settled more, Myree-Mainor and Daniels started interacting with Seals and Laitner, telling them their story.

Slowly it came to light Seals’s connection to the story and he and Myree-Mainor began bonding over the details.

Laitner said to wait for it. That they would embrace. Then, he told me, to get that shot. He’d write about it and use that photo.

So I did.

Pay attention to the light. Shoot in manual and know what changes to make to the camera. And fast. Be prepared to get the shot.

And he did. Laitner wrote the story. And they used my photo. It went up on the Free Press site.

Get the shot.

Seals when on to take posed photos. Of father and daughter. Of the whole family. Seals didn’t need those photos for story but he wanted to be able to give them to the family.

Help everyone be involved.

Afterward, we went back to the Free Press offices and Seals edited his video and captioned his photos.

Seals worked with Laitner, putting the story together, with him.

Laitner interviewed Seals about his experience and feelings on his assignment, and wrote that story.

My photograph was used.

Later in an email--because I forgot to ask in person--Seals said, “I wish I had known in college that minoring in a foreign language, Spanish or Arabic and being fluent in it would have been very beneficial in my career.”

*******

For my job shadow, I met with radio reporter/producer Katie Cook, who works for Current State, a news program from the public radio station WKAR. I arrived at 9:30 a.m. on Monday, April 17, for their morning staff meeting, which was in their office in the CommArts building, right around the corner from our classroom. It was a small group, just six people present. They discussed upcoming events and leads, deciding who would cover what and how many minutes long the story should be. They also talked about transitioning to a “digital mindset,” which meant having a greater online presence and more interaction with listeners through social media.

Katie started working in radio just a few years ago after working at Whole Foods for nine years. She knew she wanted to do something different, so she bought her own microphone, started practicing recording family members, and signed up to volunteer at the Third Coast Audio Festival, which is a conference for audio storytellers. She said she went to the conference with a lot of business cards and a drive to make connections, and came out knowing people who would later help her get an internship at PRX, the Public Radio Exchange in Boston, which then led to her current job at WKAR. It was surprising, but impressive, to hear how she was able to advance in her field without a journalism degree, but with a lot of passion and a willingness to jump in and work hard.

A tip she tries to remember is to ask people to say and spell their names before you start interviewing them. Because it’s radio, you have to have the pronunciation correct as well as the spelling. Another tip is to record 30 seconds of “room noise” wherever you’re conducting the interview. She said every room has a different sound, and that neutral noise can be used to soften the space between jumpy cuts. Also, she said to always wear headphones while recording so you can pay attention to the levels.

She likes public radio because it isn’t about attracting people to just click on a link. It gives you space to pursue things that make you and people in your community curious.

Katie Cook

Email: kcook@wkar.org

Phone: (517) 884-4786

******* 

 

I job shadowed the host of WKAR’s weekly TV show and daily radio show, “Current Sports” – Al Martin. Al is a great person and has a personality that can reach you from the other side of the building. He was interviewed and later employed by WKAR just six months after graduating from Michigan State University, while he was working at WLNS Channel 6 news. Al’s predecessor was Earle Robinson, who worked for WKAR as the host of Current Sports radio show for 39 years. Al said that this was the hardest part of the job, living up to someone that had so much respect and praise around the East Lansing/Lansing/Okemos communities.

            I arrived at WKAR studios around 12:30 p.m., where I was first directed to the production studio, right next to the recording studio where Al was. I was first greeted by his production assistant, student at Michigan State University, Isaac Constans. Isaac gave a brief introduction on to what he was working on – he was cutting audio clips and pulling audio clips from the internet for that day’s show. Typically, Isaac gets to the studio at about 12:15-12:30 p.m., depending on the amount of content that is needed for that days show. Immediately after Isaac showed me around the production studio, I went to go in to chat it up with Al. While our conversation before the show was brief, he made sure to give me a quick rundown of how things worked for the show. He explained to me how he would prepare for his daily show. Isaac and Al share a google doc together, where they create the days topics – they also have interns help with collecting and contributing to the compilation of information. Considering Al has a live show at 1 p.m. every day, he has only a few hours to prepare for each show. On top of preparing for shows, Al discussed with me how he had to be a one-man show and made sure to put an emphasis on the need of being a well-rounded journalist. During the show, Al had me sit in the Production studio where Isaac ran the operation board and Al would have him chime on the show every once in a while. Something that I noticed while being in the studio, was that there were not any callers besides their scheduled guest. I asked both Isaac and Al about this, and they explained how that with such a local radio station, there is a way smaller window of people who are regular listeners to the show – yet, they did mention that they had regular callers, some that they even had inside jokes about. During the show, Al actually had a fact error while talking to a guest. He mentioned that his nickname was “What’s Reality” but in fact, it is “What’s Gravity”. I asked Al and he said that stuff like that is preventable, but when it does happen, that you can laugh it off and chop it up for experience. Yet, in the print journalism world, there is not as much room to back track and clarify your mistake. The information that Al received was from MLive, he did not go to the source himself when he was originally looking for the nickname – he said that was a big mistake, but at the same time, when you are live, you have to be calm and not freak out. I ended up job shadowing both Isaac and Al basically, which was a cool experience, considering for the Al’s radio show, Isaac is the one plugging away at all the technical aspects of the show – they have different hand motions and cues to each other through the glass that connects the two studios.

            Something that Al said that really stuck out in my head, that really was not explained in class, was that rarely, but in his case, you could be taking over for somebody that was considered to be a “legendary journalist” as Al put it, and this makes it a lot harder for you to be accepted as the new host of specific shows. I never really thought about the fact that you can be disliked by just simply taking a position that a former host once had, and the reason being, simply, you are not that other journalist/host. Al also mentioned a couple of times about the importance of having a full skill set – something that has been talked about in class on multiple occasions. Al said that being well-rounded in all aspects of Journalism from the way that you speak on the radio or on TV to the way that you shoot b-roll is all extremely important and factors in to the perception that you receive from your audience.

            I really enjoyed shadowing Al and being able to see how him and Isaac work together to create a daily local sports radio show. Before my job shadow, I ended up applying for an internship with Al that had been recently posted on the MSU sports JRN website – so, luckily, my job shadow turned in to an internship interview afterwards, which was great timing and luck that I had set up a job shadow and ended up being interviewed as well.  

*******

For my job shadow I luckily had prior connections to obtain the shadow. I ended up job shadowing, David “Mad Dog” Demarco, a sports talk radio host in Lansing. My end goal is to either get in radio or TV journalism. I wanted to know more about the radio profession so I was excited for the opportunity.

            Going into the job shadow I didn’t know how much of the skills I learned in class would actually translate to sports talk radio. As I learned a lot of the skills learned in class also translated to the studio.

            I arrived at the studio about an hour and a half into the show during the commercial break. He had me come into the small studio and sit and watch. I never knew that some radio booths were that small, it was barely bigger than a broom closet. From watching radio simulcasts I see large studios on TV, but in reality a radio station in the media market of Lansing is pretty small.

  I put on the headset to listen to the show not expecting anything but observing. About a minute after he comes in from break he introduces me and starts asking me questions. I was caught off guard but quickly regrouped and just had a natural conversation. From that situation I learned I need to be on my feet in journalism and prepare for anything. I found myself having a good amount of airtime for my first time in a studio. I ended up talking about the Tiger’s bullpen, Pistons Management, MSU and even my high school.

            Having a natural conversation is something that I have tried to have when interviewing people and I noticed that David also stressed that either when he was asking his producer, callers on air, or me questions. He tried to turn a natural conversation into a story with an interesting and relevant topic. He would bring up a broad topic and throw it to either producer or I and then find the most relevant information and build off of that.

            I also noticed that a lot of writing needs to be put into radio. A lot of writing was all over the studio with either ad reads or show info. He writes a lot of his on air ads, at times he winged the ads but tried to put an interesting spin on the ad. He also had a rough outline of what he was going to talk about on that day’s show written out so he could follow a script.

            Reaching out to people was also important. Him and his producer were thinking of people to have on the show and researching them and trying to contact them. That particular day they were trying to find a representative of the Baseball Hall of Fame to speak to. They also had Rob Rubick a former Lions player now analyst call in and want to schedule an appearance on the show.

            Another important aspect was fact checking. For example, David believed that Miguel Cabrera was 34 but he also had his producer look it up and verify the fact. He also had his producer look up the age of Matt Stafford.

            I really enjoyed the job shadow and I believed I had a good insight in what a professional radio show is like. I enjoyed the personal vibe of radio and now may actually want to go into radio more than TV journalism.   

*******

For this job shadow assignment I tried to contact several journalists for weeks and was unsuccessful in doing so, until about two weeks ago when my dad was able set up a meeting with Norm Stangland, the assistant news director at WLNS Channel 6 News in Lansing.

I arrived at WLNS to meet with Norm on Friday, April 14 and explained what I had to do for my assignment. I was hoping that I could do my shadow that day, but since it was Good Friday and he didn’t have any reporters in to meet with me, we scheduled the shadow for Tuesday morning the following week.

I arrived at WLNS again on Tuesday, April 18 at 9:15 a.m. to once again meet with Norm. This time we went to his office, which lead through the news room that held the work stations of all of the reporters and anchors at the station. He introduced me to everyone in the room, as well as the lady who received all of the news stories that she gives to the reporters. Along with getting news stories through email, there were also police scanners in the room to report the breaking news in the local area.

In Norm’s office, he talked to me about their partnerships with other news stations in Michigan such as FOX 2 News in Detroit, and the internship opportunities they had available as I told him I was an aspiring sports journalist. He then told me that I would be job shadowing Blair Nelson, a videographer at WLNS, who was going to be covering the Metro Lansing Procurement Summit for the noon news; which was a big conference held to help a large number of Michigan suppliers grow their business.

Immediately after I was introduced to Blair, I helped him put his tripod and camera into the trunk of his truck and we were off to the Lansing Center, which was where the conference was held. During the car ride, I asked him a few questions about his job duties and his journalism background. He said that as a photojournalist, his job is to go out every day and cover whatever news story he gets assigned. He conducts interviews and captures b-roll, and I found this interesting because it’s exactly what we have been doing in class recently. Everything he told me sounded familiar.

We arrived at the Lansing center at around 9:45 a.m. and rushed into the conference as it had already started. I observed as Blair set up his camera and started to record, he gave me tips on how to record properly, such as making sure the subject has enough head and talking space as well as making sure the lighting is correctly applied and to use as much natural light as possible. A lot of what he said was similar to what we have been learning in class throughout the semester.

The person that Blair wanted to interview at the summit was Trevor Pawl, the group vice president of the Michigan Economic Development Corporation. As Pawl was giving his presentation to the entrepreneurs in attendance, Blair went around the room and shot b-roll of the summit. After Pawl’s presentation was over, we stepped outside of the room to do the interview.

We then drove back to the station, where I followed Blair into his work station and observed as he edited the clips he shot to prepare them for the noon news. Blair and other editors and videographers at WLNS use Edius to edit video packages. The only software I have used to edit is Adobe Premier, and this particular software was very similar, as Blair explained that all video editing software will essentially be the same aside from minor differences in design and tool placement.

I didn’t stay around for the noon news broadcast because I had a class, but I definitely learned a lot on top of what I already knew coming in about interviewing, shooting, and editing from spending time with Blair. He gave me some meaningful advice about becoming a successful journalist, including joining student organizations such as the school newspaper, as he did so when he was at Central Michigan. He also told me it was important to get internships to help build my resume and experience in this field.

Job shadowing Blair was an overall educational experience that allowed me to observe news reporting from a new perspective. It was cool to see the material we’ve been learning in class be put to use in an actual professional news environment.

 Blair Nelson

Email: bnelson@wlns.com

Phone: 517-372-1300

*********

On April. 14, I shadowed Karel Vega, a WKAR news reporter and a host of ‘All Things Considered.’

At 9:30 a.m., at the second floor of the WKAR station, there was a news meeting. I thought the news meeting required a specific suit or clothes, but everyone was wearing comfortable clothes, and the meeting was held in a relaxed atmosphere. They started deciding which news topics to report for a week, and they specifically set what news to report on a particular day. When one person suggested the news topic to cover, others gave feedback and advice, and they encouraged each other. When they had a problem, they discussed and found solutions together, and I felt a good teamwork was important. It was impressive that everyone expressed their opinions freely. The news meeting lasted about an hour and a half.

After I had lunch, I went to the WKAR radio station at 3 p.m. This time, I started to shadow Karel Vega and he was recording the news script for, ‘All Things Considered,’ which is going to be aired from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. Vega said he is always searching for the news stories and I felt this situation is familiar because I usually looked for the news topics to cover the ‘Out-Of-Class’ topic. He said if he speaks wrong when he record the news, he needs to start over from the beginning. Because the specific time was assigned, he had to keep the time precisely when he recorded the news reporting. Even though he got a break time after doing recording, he prepared for the news. He used every minute and second, and did not spend time without doing anything.

Since he was preparing for the live news, shadowing him was so dynamic. “Don’t have much time,” Vega said again and again. Although everything was in a fast-pace, he didn’t forget to check the time. Checking time was the most important work.

“Radio News is different from TV News because I have to do everything by myself. I have to control the machines, adjust the volume, gather the news stories, and write the news script, at the same time,” Vega said. “And because it is live news, I have to adjust the time of the news and keep the time in mind as well. It is tough, but it is rewarding. You can be better and better.”

Vega said, “The key to success is one in getting a job in the field, be patient. Just get in the door of WKAR took me almost two years. Now, that I am working here, I would say that the key to success here is opposite, be impatient when you are waiting for somebody. If you are a reporter, don’t wait on your stuff. If you have a story and if you have a deadline, don’t set your side on one source. Set your side on 10 sources and hook yourself in to the one that respond to you, because 9 times out of 10, the person you have in mind for a story is not going to be the person that ends up being the story. You have to be willing to seek out more than one source. In a lot of time, people won’t respond to you.”

I could understand what he was talking about. When I find some sources for my out of class stories, I don’t rely on one source, rather I found more than three sources, in case people can reject my interview request, or they can ignore my email or calling. I felt that journalist should be prepared for any situations.   

This assignment made me to experience the real world of journalism. I could understand why the time was the most important element in this field because I realized that breaking the time is breaking the promise with the audience and it is the most irresponsible attitude as a journalist. This shadow was so exciting and I was able to realize what I really want and what I want to do in the future.

Email: kvega@wkar.org

Phone number: (619)-203-9823

*******

For my job shadow, I observed Fred Heumann, the director of Sports News at WLNS Channel 6 Lansing and Jackson. Fred Heumann studied at Central Michigan University and graduated with a degree in Journalism and a degree in Broadcasting.  He began his career at Channel 6 in Lansing, moved to Detroit, then to Flint, and is now back at Channel 6 WLNS and has been there for 15 years. His 37 years in the business of Sports News has brought quite a name and successful reputation for himself.

            Heumann says that each and every day is different for him because sometimes he needs to go out and get his own footage for his show, sometimes his staff in sports news does it for him and sometimes outside people will send him footage. This varying schedule changes every day and thus changes the times he needs to be at the studio till every day.  He is not supposed to work weekends, however states that sometimes he is required to depending on the upcoming week and what needs to be shot for his show. He covers mostly Michigan State athletics and High School sports in the Lansing area.

            When I arrived at the studio for my shadow, Heumann was just beginning to prepare for his 6 o’clock p.m. sports news broadcast. He had the master time schedule for the day and was required to put in his different segments into the agenda for the director to see.  He began with covering an arrested football player, then covered the MSU Women’s Golf Big10 championship and finished by covering some info on MSU Hocket and UofM’s new hockey coach Mel Pearson.

            He was working on his sports show for that night and had to create a 4-minute segment to be broadcasted.  However, he was in a time crunch and only had two hours to complete the entire segment.  He spent much of his time rushing and working very fast while looking at the clock every 5-10 minutes.

            In the process of preparing for the show, he began by pulling all the footage, pictures and audio clips he had for the topic he was going to cover.  Although sometimes he did not have the best footage or pictures he was forced to work with what he had. He then wrote a short lede for the topic introducing its’ segment. This was tentative to change later though, if he felt there was more important information he found later that should be included. Then began the editing process where he put together the video to be shown after he spoke the lede. He included B-Roll footage as well as audio, interviews and pictures. After he spent some time editing and putting together the video, he had to create a script for the video. 

           

            In editing the videos, he cut out every “uhm” and “uhh” because he said every second of TV time is precious. He made sure though to not change the meaning of what the people were saying in the interviews because that would be unethical. It took him a total of 50 minutes to edit one segment and had to complete the other two segments faster because he only had 70 minutes left before it had to be broadcasted.

            Overall I thought it was really cool to shadow him because I got to see what he does on a daily basis which was create the 6 p.m. sports broadcast.  Everything was super-fast paced and I got to watch him actually broadcast the show at the end of it all. He was forced to in the middle of his sports segment to cut a portion out because he was over his 4-minute time requirement.  This means that he had to act fast on his feet and determine what was the least important segment of the show. After I left, he then began working on the 11 p.m. sports broadcast.

**********

This past Saturday I had the pleasure of job shadowing Paula Wethington of the Monroe Evening New in Monroe, Michigan. Paula is a reporter for the newspaper and manages their social media. She studies the best times to post on social media and tracks what posts gets the most views, likes, or comments. Monroe Evening News is on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. Paula was also a successful blogger, but has decided to close her blog to focus on other things in her career.

            I arrived at the Monroe Evening News headquarters at 10 a.m. to begin my day with Paula. We met and she gave me a tour of the newsroom and the rest of the building, which has been recently renovated and was added on to. It was interesting to see an actual newsroom not in the movies because it was nothing like the movies. All the offices were open and they were all connected or had half walls so it made it easy for Paula to communicate with the other reporters in the newsroom. Unfortunately, she was the only one there so I didn’t get to see how the other reporters work, but I did get to focus on how to manage social media and Paula’s tactics to manage it for a company.

            After the tour, we sat down and she gave me some advice for managing social media on a large scale. Paula told me to track the times that are most active on all social media. Everything from Facebook down to Twitter. She explained how it’s important to know when to post and time your post accordingly.

            After we talked about social media for a while and Paula showed me her strategies on organizing tracking things, we headed out to the Monroe County Police Department. Once we got there Paula went through the police reports and wrote down which ones she was going to put in the paper. As she was going through the reports she was looking for stories that she could get a paragraph or two out of. Unfortunately, she didn’t find anything worthy of a paragraph.  

            Once we got back to the newsroom we went through the Saturday newspaper and clipped articles that we thought would be interesting on the website. We planned what times each story was going to be posted on Facebook and made sure the article was on the website. Once we filled all the time slots on Saturday we began to knock out the Sunday schedule. It was interesting to see a professional writing social media posts for an actual company. It made me excited for my future and managing social media.