My first time in the A block

On December 3, I went into KOMU not knowing that I would do my most serious story to date later that evening. When we got into the story ideas meeting, I was, surprisingly, the only person who pitched the Kahler vigil. And so, unsurprisingly, I was the one who got to cover the vigil. I must admit that I was a little surprised. I couldn’t believe that they were letting me cover this story when there were other older, better, and more qualified reporters on the same shift. I set my mind to doing the best job I could on the story- both for my own peace of mind and for the memory of Emily, Lauren, and Karen Kahler.

Brooke Hasch was doing a live shot about the vigil at five and six so I spoke with her to get some background on whatever she had already found out. I also read Elizabeth Billingsley’s story on KOMU.com about the vigil that she posted earlier that day. Once I felt adequately prepared (and was so anxious and nervous that I couldn’t just hang out in the newsroom anymore) I headed out to the ARC, where Karen Kahler worked for a year before she was killed.

The vigil was scheduled to start at 5:30pm…outside the ARC. It was so cold outside that my fingers started to tingle as soon as I got out of the car. As I began to set up, I realized there were a number of challenged associated with this story that I had never faced before:

· The topic- Until then I had never done a sad story. This requires extra care, compassion and understanding…and sources that may not want to talk to you at all. Some of them were downright angry

· The temperature- These were the worst weather conditions that I had ever reported in…and it was my first story where most of it took place outdoors.

· The time of day- Nightshooting presents its own unique set of challenges. Turning on the gain, white balancing, and focusing are particularly important (interestingly enough, I focused all my shots manually because someone changed the setting on my camera and I neglected to check them before leaving the station…a mistake I will NEVER make again!)

I learned two very important and very different lessons. The first one is to check everything one the camera before heading out. Luckily, I knew how to get the camera to zoom manually so I could focus my shots and zoom in for tight shots (which was especially important with this story so that I could get the close, detailed shots I wanted without being intrusive). If I hadn’t known how to zoom manually, I would have been totally sunk.

The second lesson I learned was the importance of sensitivity towards sources. I have always known how important it is to be sensitive to my sources, but this story really put it to the test. Even in an ordinary story, sensitivity is important. Sources are sensitive about how they look and sound, in part because they don’t understand that they won’t be on TV long. But this story brought in the added element of tragedy. Karen Kahler’s workout group at the ARC organized the memorial but they were unwilling to go on camera. I think their interviews would have been the most compelling but they were the least willing to talk with me. I had to use my best judgement to try to guess who would be the most willing to go on camera. I had to approach people with extra care and sensitivity toward the subject. When asking questions, I had to be extremely careful with my word choice and the with which questions I asked. I felt like I was walking on eggshells. I also had to be careful not to invade their space and interrupt them in a moment of grief during the vigil.

I am really lucky to have gotten the opportunity to cover this event. I hope that the people who loved the Kahler’s and their great-grandmother feel that my story did them justice. The way I see it, that is the most important thing.

Watch on YouTube!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqFsrbLgyrU

Climb Every Mountain

Now that I am on to package four, I have realized that no matter where I shoot, every single last location has its own set of unique challenges. My fourth package is about increased gym membership despite the economy. First, I went to a traditional gym (weights, treadmills, etc…) and found myself surrounded by mirrors and windows. Hello backlighting and my own relflection. I’ve made both of those mistakes one too many times.

After getting stood up by my source at that gym (yet another inherent challenge of broadcast), I went to a second location at an indoor rock climbing gym. No mirrors and no window. Score. Not quite… Because the gym does not harness the climbers, they have padding all over the floor that is about four inches thick. This means when I put my tripod on a padded area, I have to move to a different pad or the camera will shake horribly if I move at all.

The way I see it, every different story I cover and each different location I go to is a learning experience. There is never a story that goes 100 percent perfectly. Each story has its own unpredictable hurdles for me to figure out when I get there. This is one of the reasons that I love broadcast so much: every day is different from the one before and I am constantly learning new things.

I Wanna Be a Producer! Or do I...?

For my night side producer shadow, I shadowed Becca Habegger and Alex Carbello. I worked mostly with Becca but I also spent time with Alex while Becca was busy doing other things. When I asked Alex what the responsibilities of a producer are he simply said “everything.” And then when he stopped to think about it, he decided that a producer is really responsible for almost everything. And as I paid attention to what Becca did, she really had a lot of responsibilities. Becca had to keep track of reporters, which ended up being more of a challenge than I expected. They called her all night, and if they didn’t she had to call them and make sure everything was going okay. She had to make sure their story ideas were good enough. Two reporters had their stories fall through so she had to help them find better story idea.

Another major responsibility of the producer is creating the rundown. This is very important because it determines what the newscast will be. The producer decides what news will go in the newscast. Especially when it is a late cast, the producer has to decide which older pieces from earlier newscasts should be run again. The producer decides where the different news stories go. She/he has to put them in the order that they will appear in the newscast, and it has to be a logical order. The only thing that Becca really didn’t have to touch was the sports block. She didn’t worry about it. Sports decides how they want to use the time they are allotted. Becca also did a lot of writing. I had no idea that she was going to have to do that.

During the newscast, back in the control room, the producer’s job becomes really stressful. The pressure is really on. The producer has to make sure that the newscast is running at the right time. If the newscast is over time, the producer has to decide which stories to drop. Then, she/he has to communicate these changes to the anchors. Becca changed the newscast so that Eric Blumberg cut to break instead of the anchors, and they got a little confused. If you are a reporter and you are in doubt of what you are doing, you can go to iNews. The producer puts the reporters jobs in iNews. Or if you are still confused, just ask!

Alex said that the most important thing he learned since coming to the station is to not be afraid to speak up, in terms of asking questions and expressing your feelings. If you have a certain stance on a story, you need to be able to let the producer know, in a polite way. And you need to be able to ask questions. Lauren Styler also emphasized this. They both said that being able to ask questions is important. Becca said that it’s better to ask a question that you think is stupid than have something stupid go on air. The most common mistake the reporters make is not asking questions and not communicating. Alex said the hardest part of his job is dealing with a different set of reporters everyday. Because of this, they require more attention and you don’t know them as well.

The producer has a big job and a lot of people to keep track of. The best way for reporters to help producers do their job is to stay on time. This doesn’t just mean arriving at the station when you say you will, it pertain to the length of your package. If you are allotted 1.10, then you should stick with it. But, if you should go over or under your time, let the producer know as soon as possible.

So how does one know whether or not they should be a producer? The way I see it, you have to gauge this for yourself. If you are very uncomfortable in front of the camera, then you would be better suited for producing. Producers have to be “control freaks” said Alex. The other thing to consider is which you like more- reporting or producing. I found my producer shadow very interesting, but I think I would rather be a reporter.

Just me and my shadow

On Thursday, September 3, I went to shadow a reporter at KOMU. Christine Slusser and I went to Centralia, Missouri to report on one man’s struggle with wheelchair accessibility in his town. It was an amazing story and I had a great time covering it. The people that we needed to interview were all very willing to speak with us, which made it a lot easier. They were really friendly and open in sharing their stories. It was an extremely visual story, which made shooting very interesting. One thing that Christine taught me was to start and stop the camera between every interview question. It makes uploading the video into Avid a lot easier. This also helped when we did the subclipping. Subclipping is when you take one of your clips and put in and out points on it before you export it into Avid.
The one thing she said she wishes she knew before she started working at KOMU was that she wanted to know how to work the cameras. The most important thing that Slusser has learned since she got to the station is to check your camera; make sure your sounds was on, etc… I had a scare about this the other day while filming my package and I’m so glad I had this tip from her. Another thing Slusser did a really good job of was keeping in contact with her producer. We called the producer when we were on our way, when we got to Centralia, in between two of our interviews, and on our way home. Slusser said that when she had a confusing story that needed clearing up, she asked her producer for help and they walked her through it.

When we got back and went into iNews, in Slusser script, it said that they had made her a graphic. They were going to put up a map to show the location of Centralia. If you need to have a graphic made, she told me that you should go ask a producer and have in mind (or a drawing) or what you want it to look like. Two other new things I found out about are bins and NRCS. To check your bin, go to Avid then hit today’s date, create a new bin and look under your name. If you want to use NRCS, go into the toolset, find the NRCS tool, click story, and export! All in all, I thought this was a really good experience and I had a lot of fun. I learned a lot of things that I will definitely apply in Broadcast II and beyond. The way I see it, it is important to do shadow shift and take baby steps before jumping right in!

Here is the link to the online version of the story Slusser and I worked on:

http://www.komu.com/satellite/SatelliteRender/KOMU.com/ba8a4513-c0a8-2f11-0063-9bd94c70b769/82ed259c-80ce-0971-0145-bdc177350ce3