Reporters: The Love/Hate Relationship

In the life of a reporter, everyday is different. Each day, we cover different stories in different places and interview different people. That's the beauty of the job. It never really gets old because the day-to-day routine is never exactly the same. This is a common reason why many people in this industry choose to be in this industry. That being said, each day leads to a variety of feedback from viewers.

Depending on the story or the coverage, people seem to have a love/hate relationship with reporters.

For instance, in my two months of work, I have received two emails from different people, thanking me for doing a "wonderful" job on my story. People who emailed me to say my story was well-balanced, included all the details, and that I am a "great" reporter. I am not telling you this to brag, but to explain the "love" part of this love/hate relationship.

And then there's the hate:

Now luckily, nothing this serious has ever happened to me. And I sincerely hope it never does. However, as many times as I've received positive emails about my reporting, I've also had people come up to me, yelling that I should "find something better to cover" with my time. People have questioned where I've gotten my facts and sources. I've been given dirty looks, watched, and stared at.

It's not a good feeling when things like this happen, so when they do I remind myself of the good emails. I think about what I'm doing and how my role as a journalist gives me the right to cover important stories and sent out crucial information to the public. No matter how unnecessary some people think it is for me to cover a particular story, as long as it better informs the public, I know I'm doing the right thing. And their dirty looks or middle fingers won't stop me from doing my job, and doing my job well.

The Standup Struggle

You know when you're watching the news, and the anchor says "Our reporter so-and-so has more on this" and then you see a story that a reporter put together that day? Well, that's a package. You hear the reporter's voice, telling a story, you watch a bunch of video, see interview clips, and somewhere in the middle, you see the reporter. He or she motions to something, thereby telling us something while simultaneously showing it. That's a standup.

It's the reporter's shining moment within the package. An opportunity to be on camera and get creative with his/her story telling.

However, sometime's shooting these standups can get difficult:

See what I mean?

This happened to me last weekend when I covered the Wine Festival at Watkins Glen International. It took me more tries than I'd like to shoot a good standup, and that's when I realized a group of people had surrounded me. They were laughing...but not at me. Some guy behind me was in my shot dancing with his shirt off. Thanks, rude guy. I yelled at him as nicely as I could. As a reporter, I can't afford to be seen as a mean person, but at the same time, I have a job to do. And I can't have my work hindered just because some guy tasted too many wines.

So that's my rant, people. Respect a reporter when they're shooting a standup. After all, we don't bother you while you're at the office, right?

TV Station Competition: Friend or Foe?

I've read countless articles about TV network competition -- the inherent rivalry between ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox. And then there are the cable stations -- MSNBC, FOX News, CNN. Between ratings, viewership, and content, it's clear that people have a lot to say about how each station conducts its news programming. And if these networks are constantly vying for attention, there's no way the people who work at these stations could possibly get along, right?

Well, that's questionable.

That may be the case in large market likes NYC (market #1) or LA (market #2) , where a high concentration of viewers makes the competition more intense, but from what I've seen, this isn't necessarily the case in small markets.

For instance, I work for YNN (Your News Now), a 24-hours cable news network featuring local news from the Central New York/Southern Tier/Northern Country area. I work in the Elmira-Corning bureau (market #176), where we compete with WETM (the local NBC affiliate) and WENY (the local ABC affiliate).

In the five weeks I've been here, I've made friends with people from both WETM and WENY. Since we all cover the same stories, we inevitably run into each other, and over time, those run-ins turn into friendships. I exchange phone numbers with reporters from the other stations and hang out with them when I'm not working.

Needless to say, in a small market, in which the reporters are generally young, fresh, and still very much in the learning stages of the industry, the competition is not so much "competition," but more of a friend. We understand each other by understanding the nature of our jobs. For reporting newbies like us, sometimes it's more important that we report on the most newsworthy events rather than worry about our stations' ratings.

Live twice in one week! And here's the video to prove it!

Once again, I had the opportunity to go live! Doing it twice in one week -- when you work in a bureau (Corning) two hours away from the main hub (Syracuse) -- is pretty rare, so I took advantage of the opportunity. Due to the IndyCar races at Watkins Glen International this weekend, I was a busy reporter. Luckily, some of the sports reporters came as well and covered the race, while I got to do news angles of the event (i.e. what else fans can do while they're visiting/camping out at the racetrack and how excited fans are for the final race). So here's the video to the live hit I did this Saturday...enjoy!

**Note: I've had trouble playing this clip, though it seems to work if you pretty the "play" arrow on the bottom left of the screen, rather than the big one in the center.

We're doin' it live!

I went into work yesterday, thinking "It's my Friday!" (I have Thursdays and Fridays off each week, so Wednesdays are my "Fridays.") I was also thinking how great I had the whole day planned out. I planned to do a feature piece on the late Bob Wagner, who founded and built Wagner Vineyards, one of the first wineries on Seneca Lake. He passed away this past Saturday, and I had plans to talk about him and the legacy he was leaving behind with his son and daughter. I also had a few other stories I was planning to work on.

That all changed when I checked my fax machine upon arriving to the office and immediately got a phone call from my boss. A major 9-injury car accident had happened early Wednesday morning. The passengers were 9 teenagers who were driving home from an underage drinking party.

My profile piece was scrapped and I had 2-and-a-half hours to speak with the County Sheriff, get footage of the car, footage of the scene, and hopefully interviews with the neighbors. Everything moved extremely fast, from the time I arrived at the Sheriff's office -- where I got directions to the scene of the accident -- to the time a live truck was sent to me from Binghamton.

About an hour after I first received that phone call from my boss, I was informed that a live truck would be sent to me. OH MY GOD was really the only thing I could think. I had never gone live before (unless you count one Skype live shot my last semester at school), and all I could do was thank the universe I remembered my IFB (the ear plug that would allow me to communicate with the anchor and people in the control room).

Needless to say, going live was not something I expected to be doing yesterday. After I finished interviewing the Sheriff and got video of the impounded vehicle, I had a good 20 minute drive. Normally, when I'm driving around, I'm blasting Top 40 radio in my company car, but yesterday, the music was turned down low and instead, I compiled a mental list of the most important facts of my story. I talked to myself over and over again as if I were doing the live shot in order to talk it out and come up with the best way to include as much information in as little time as possible.

By the time the live truck operator arrived and set up, I had another 25 minutes to really get everything together. I don't know how I did it, but it happened. I hooked up the IFB and said hello to the anchor and also spoke with a woman in the control room. Normally, our station does "look lives," in which we're not actually live, but the "live" hit is recorded and then airs 2 minutes later. That way, you can still try it again if you mess up. But when the person in the control room told me they were actually taking me LIVE, I knew this was for real. I couldn't mess up, and if I did, I just had to keep on going.

As it turned out, I pretty much aced it! The hit warranted a big "YAY!" from me and even a call from my producer who complimented me. My brother saw me on TV, as did my college roommate's boyfriend. Overall, it was a pretty epic moment for me and an extremely successful day.

**NOTE: The live hit had since been available on my station's site, but has since been updated.