Week 1: 7.5 hours

I spent a full day with Sydney this past Friday. From arriving in the office, to finding, writing, and turning in the news story I experienced a full day in a reporter's shoes.

Upon arriving in the office I had no idea what to expect. The space was tiny, with a double screen computer, office phone, and police scanner on the desk next to the computers. On a table in the corner was the classic reporter's camera bag and tripod. The bare necessities for a reporter in a small district.

After a brief introduction Sydney filled me in on what the day was going to look like. She was online searching through news outlets and social media to find her story for the day. Which she has to do every single day. A new story. Every. Single. Day.

This should not be news to me, seeing as she works for a news station that produces daily news and since nobody can see the future it needs to go on a day-by-day basis. But still, that's a lot of work. As she was telling me about her days work she rattled off a lot of jargon that was unfamiliar to my untrained ears.

Examples:
OCDR: On Demand Criminal Records (Public access website that gives great information on criminal activity)
MUG-VO: Mug shot with a voice over shown on the news.  (We would go on to prepare three of these for the day)
Package: (Not what you're thinking, you nasty) Full news report including video with B-roll and voice overs that include the reporter talking about the story with 3 reputable sources and a MOS)
MOS: Man on the street. This is when the reporter asks people on the street their opinions on the story she/he is covering.
SOT: Sound on tape

I did not hear or comprehend all of these terms straightaway. First, we had to wait for the News Director, Matt Griffin, to call in the office. This is a conference call that takes place every morning between the reporters from all the coverage areas. The coverage area for KXII includes Ada and surrounding counties, Ardmore and surrounding counties, Sherman and surrounding counties, and Paris, Texas and surrounding counties.

During this conference call, each reporter pitched their ideas for the day and Matt approved them or changed them. After the call, it is crunch time for the reporters.

It was a relatively slow day in Ada on Friday, so we decided to pursue stories about three men from Garvin county who had appeared in court that day. For this, we had to travel to Pauls Valley to get affidavits and mug shots. Once we had the basic information we approved the stories with Matt, and continued to try to get an interview with the police sherif and video of the men's houses'.

At the end of the day we did not get enough information for a full package but rather three MUG-VO's.   Sydney showed me how to put this together on their video editing soft wear and how the news line-ip looked for the night.

All-in-all it was a good day for learning and I look forward to learning much more from the reporter who just so happens to be a year younger than me as well as much farther advanced in her career than I am.

Cumulative Hours: 7.5