And the Beat Goes On

Yesterday, I went out with Joleene Des Rosiers as I usually do on Fridays. This entire week, she's been covering the partially collapsed building on Route 81 as a beat. This way, we make sure to stay on top of the story and find out the latest.

After speaking to the building's owner, Tony, earlier yesterday morning, Joleene knew that the DEC (Department of Environmental Conservation) would be coming to the building during the day to check for toxic waste and materials.

But when we got to the building, Tony didn't have very much to say and wouldn't give us any details as to what the DEC was doing there. As far as we could see, the man from the DEC was just sitting in his truck outside the building.

So we went back to the station, Joleene made some calls, and we waited to hear back from the mayor or the state.

After receiving no word, Joleene decided she needed to get something. So we drove to South Salina Street, one of the few streets suffering from a lot of traffic congestion due to the detours from Rt. 81 near the building.

We interviewed two business owners. The owner of Rocky's said because the traffic was so bad, people were no longer willing to stop at his store during their drive if it meant giving up a spot in the line of traffic. But the owner of Vinomania told us that people are avoiding his end of the road altogether because they fear how bad the traffic will be.

We went back to the station, and quickly wrote and edited a nice little package about the business owners' perspectives about this collapsed building, Route 81, and the traffic brought on by all of it.

I also edited the majority of my package from Wednesday. Unfortunately, I couldn't finish it since the tape with all the interviews and soundbites went "missing." I'm hoping that'll turn up soon though.

After all this editing, Joleene, Ben (the photog) and I went back out in the field to shoot a live hit on the other side of 81 so viewers could see the collapsed building in the background. Joleene went live at 4:30, and I shot a live tag out that I edited into my package when we got back to the station. Joleene helped me fix a few parts of it, but other than that, it was pretty good.

I'd say it was an overall successful day, with lots of editing, writing, and shooting. I love going out with Joleene also. She always helps me and makes me feel really good and skilled about what I'm doing.