Last Thursday, I did my first package for KOMU. Needless to say, I was pretty nervous. When I got to the station, Jenilee turned down all of my ideas. She gave me one about a grant given to the school of agriculture. When I called them, they said they couldn’t comment at the time. The second idea was about elementary schools but none of the principals involved in the story nor anyone in the superintendent’s office who knew what was going were available. They were all doing things for parent teacher conferences.
The third idea finally took flight. I was going to cover a meeting about the bridge repairs on the I-70 overpass at Midway. Kathryn Lopez did a story early that day about the bridge and how business owners in Rocheport are affected. Jenilee told me to make my story different from Kathryn’s and focus more on the meeting than anything else. This made the story a lot more difficult because I had to make sure my story was different but still conveyed the important ideas.
One really difficult thing about this meeting was that it was people circled around boards. This was difficult because it made not crossing the axis very challenging. I think one of the most important lessons that I learned while making this package was that I really need to work on my interview framing. I have found when I start an interview people are generally sitting up really straight. As the interview goes on, people start to slouch and then the framing gets even worse.
The way I see it, it is critical to remember that if at first your initial story idea falls through, keep trying and keep calling people.
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