The Intern Diaries #4

Or, Of Peeping Toms and Beauty Queens

Sometimes getting man on the street reactions for a story is so cool. Let me start from the beginning.

Yesterday I got to WREG, voiced and edited my version of le pkg, and searched for story ideas.

Go to meeting, which is always entertaining.

Michele was getting sent out to work on something that required the live truck, which meant no ride along for me with them. Instead, I headed out with Natasha.

The story:

A man walked in and bought minutes to tan at a tanning salon in Jackson, TN. He stands on the stool in the booth and reaches over the eight foot high partition with his cellphone, hoping to take pics of whomever was undressing next door.

Little did he know, it was Miss Tennessee, Erin Hatley.

(from misstennessee.org)

She saw the phone before getting undress and started yelling. The owner promptly called the cops.

Yesterday, the man was in court about it.

Of COURSE we had to do a story about it. We were 95% sure the other stations had at least a VO/SOT. The CBS affiliate in Jackson, WBBJ, was being slow getting us their footage for use so we came up with a plan of attack. (Plus she was out doing Miss Tenn. stuff – or that’s what the competition offices said when we called trying to see about getting a comment from her.)

1. Track down her parent’s home in Bartlett.

2. Interview them.

3. Head to Jackson (and hour away) and talk to the tanning people.

We go to the parents house. No answer even though they were home. (Natasha heard them speaking not very quietly. One person addressed the other as “Erin” and she said she wasn’t going to answer, or something along those lines.)

Sigh.

So Natasha, Pablo (the tech guy), and I head zoom off to Jackson.

(from MissTennessee.org)

First we get off going the wrong way but finally find the place, get some footage of the building, and talk to a couple of customers.

What takes the cake, however, is what happened when we were trying MOS reaction at the local Target.

Lo and behold, we run into Miss Tennessee 1965, Marcia Murray Moss. She was 19 when she won almost 50 years ago. She looks mid-50s herself.

I hope I age like she does.

Anyway, she gave us some awesome sound bites (yay!) and it was so funny to watch. She still has that perfect pageant posture, standing in third position with her head slightly tilted and EVERYTHING.

It was so cool.

Friday I get to do my own packaging for this story then  working a full shift with the reporters. Hopefully I’m going to watch them run the 10 o’clock from the booth.

Have a wonderful Thursday, y’all!

Messages (poem)

The keyboard wants to type

“Get over yourself. Yes, you are good at your job

but no need to get in a tizzy when someone corrects you.

You need to slim down or so you blog –

Start running more instead of writing your little stories.”

The heart wants to beat

“You want to tell a story about love but have been burned

So many times.

Screw the past.

You have a friend in this one – someone you trust –

Just ask him where this is going.”

The pen wants to write

“You can do better than this!

Your lines are absurd!

You’re just not putting the reader there!

Show, don’t tell, like your teachers have taught.

That will get you somewhere!”

The secret wants to scream

“You want him to hold your hand in the car.

You want him to hold you tight during scary movies.

You want him to kiss you after dinner dates.

Just tell him already!”

Bee and Marilyn’s Hot Mess (poem)

A poem for class.

Summer rain is like angel kisses on my shoulders

“The museum is a memorial to idiots who copied each other throughout time”

He said as we walked through the St Louis Art Museum

C’est la vie

I tell the hot mess in the mirror

That is cooler than Marilyn after her death.

Sunlight filters in through the window

The still, cool air freezes my nose and carries the scent of old paint

A tourist gabs loudly on a cell phone and reeked of Axe.

The stone ears of watchdogs prick forward at the car doors slamming

And the cake tasted like my favorite perfume

But everything is as golden as a silver lining.

Bee sang as she hiked through the aisles of WalMart

And she rose up to change the light bulb

One day, Bee will be known in every home as a star.

Your valleyed hands ghost down my arm

As the trees sigh with delight

And the rain drips down the back of my shirt.

Chickens (poem)

A poem for class.

As the events in stanza 7 didn’t actually happen that way and I don’t want to jinx anything, stanza 7 is being omitted online.

Chickens

1.

I am the smartest thing in the world

I am the producer of something

two-leggers want.

Your argument is invalid.

2.

The feet dance around on piles of excrement

Scratching for dirt it’s

Poop on poop on poop

3.

Ooh! A bug! A change from daily fare!

Please excuse moi as I peck it from your scraggily feathered head.

4.

Some days I wish I had the freedom of chickens

While they are confined to the barnyard

They know what is out there is dangerous

Their minds have all the freedom they need

5.

Too often after church in the South

Is the fried chicken dinner

I’ll be happy to never eat it again.

6.

You are smarter than that red critter

It creeps under the cracked door

You knock it down

That fox will learn his lesson

7.

OMITTED

8.

Like chickens with their heads cut off

We run circles into each other

As I try to figure out what you mean

You trip around your words

And we await the inevitable.

The Intern Diaries #3

Or, Of Heels and Horses

Thursday was busy.

Of course it was, I work in a newsroom, you might respond. Well, it was busier than normal.

I get up to Memphis early so I can put together my version/pkg of the story for my resume tape. I do that, then go work with George Brown in social media. We end up discussing the pros and cons of a website built through WordPress, scooping the competitor’s story ideas, and what qualifies as lewd language on posts.

Fun stuff.

George also passed off a story idea to me about a man in the Collierville area who had been indicted on 52 charges relating to animal cruelty. My story idea was used. Yay!

Michele Reese did the story, so I headed out with her and our navigator/camera guy/story telling extraordinaire (oh, I have dirt on a mutual acquaintance now!) Brad. It was great!

Michele and Brad gave me pointers on camera presence and shooting my stand-ups (3,2,1). Needless to say, I was a bit nervous to do a stand-up for my resume tape in front of these two. They’ve been in the business for a little while – Brad much longer than Michele.

Plus Michele gave me fashion tips. Yay! I now have a better list of what to look for… and what colors! (Apparently, jewel tones. Need to look up that to see what that entails.)

Also, I need to better prepare an Oh, Crap! bag. I’m guessing I’ll be putting jeans and boots in there. While I didn’t need the jeans on Thursday (we didn’t actually get up close and personal to horses),  I needed the boots. Heels and gravel don’t mix!

So, Wednesday I’ll go in and deal with editing my stuff for the pkg I’ll write/voice/edit. Yay!

The Intern Diaries #2

Or, in which I visit a kind of sketchy part of Memphis.

Today was fun! It was great!

Well, after we got a new story and all.

So, I start out the day by going to talk to the guy in charge on the online stuff. George. After setting up to work with him some tomorrow (which may or may not happen thanks to me repackaging some stuff for my resume tape), I ran into Corie.

Corie sent me to the front desk to pick up my ID. (I like to call it station swag.)

Station Swag

Then I researched story ideas, all which were either already being worked on or brought up by the reporters before it was my turn.

Le sigh. Oh well.

I went out with Natasha on what seemed would be a fun story. Well, fun for us. It was about a couple guys getting arrested for a crime back in January. (That’s all I’m saying for now in case it gets used tomorrow.)

However, we get to the victim’s house to find her talking to investigators. Not investigators like reporters. Investigators like cops.

Now, the area the victim lived in was pretty sketchy, if I do say so myself. When I say sketchy, I mean sketchy. However, I have been informed it’s not as bad as some areas of North Memphis. That remains to be seen.

After 30 or so minutes of waiting, we go to McDonald’s for a pee break and get a phone call that we will be heading to do a different story about MLGW and a utilities scam.

Interview, shoot, on our way back to the station. Yippee!

We get back. I help do some research. Write my own version of our story that I’ll edit tomorrow for my resume tape. (Note to self: write as we go so I can have some more stand-ups.)

So, yeah. It was a pretty good day.

I’m back up in Memphis again tomorrow for the internship. Friday is the Drawdown. Saturday I am (hopefully) going to Starkville to see a friend.

The Intern Diary #1

Last Friday was my first day at my internship at WREG in Memphis.

What. A. Day.

I get in there, get my paperwork filled out, etc. I get the tour of the station and all that jazz.

The night before, the missing Bain girls and Adam Mayes had been found. The whole deal with two people being found

Back side of the set

dead on/near interstates was heating up.

(A third man had contacted that station saying that he thought he’d been shot at while  driving down the road. Don’t think that’s what happened.)

I am the only intern who is night side, which should prove interesting. WREG had three reporters night side:

1. Wayne was heading to Jackson with the big satellite truck for a newser about Mayes
2. Adam (who usually works day side) was staying in town and working on wrap up stuff since he was the Mayes expert.
3. Natasha was going to go out on a story, then it blew to pieces, then it was back on, and in the end I didn’t get to go out with her because her photog’s back seat was piled with boxes where he is getting a new car.

Ergo, I stayed in the station and research and worked on learning OPUS. OPUS is the scripting program they use at the station. Not only does it format the anchor scripts for the teleprompter, but it can be used to script and time VO/SOTs and packages.

I go back on Wednesday and Thursday this week.

I’m just hoping the highway shooter doesn’t dream of pulling me over. I’m definitely utilizing those safety tips the cops relayed at the newswer earlier today.

 

Another Link

Here’s another link to all our lovely video stuffs from WTVA in Tupelo. This is on the Meek School website.

http://meek.olemiss.edu/2012/05/08/broadcast-journalism-students-report-for-wtva-in-tupelo/

Working Experience Saturday

The group from yesterday.

Yesterday I did a work experience thing at WTVA in Tupelo, Miss. The j-school at Ole Miss  and Professors Nancy Dupont and Deb Wenger set this up.

It was so much fun! I worked with my friend Matt Milner and we shot for a VO/SOT and the package that is attached at the bottom without the lower thirds.

Matt was able to stay around long enough to edit the VO/SOT before he had to go to work. That left me to edit the library piece, which turned out to be a little over a minute long.

The YouTube version of my story doesn’t have the lower 3rds in it. To start off, there would be a locator: Tupelo, Lee County. Then during the interview, there would be a lower 3rd that had the interviewee’s name: Vicky Manning, Librarian. (She is the teen librarian at Lee County Public Library.)

Swag

Things to remember about a news room:1. Depending on the set up, they can see you behind the anchor when the newscast is on. Hide behind the computer.

2. Use the bathroom before the news starts.3. If you really have to go, run like hell out of the studio area and to the bathroom during a commercial break. 4. Hide your ink pens.

5. and notebooks. Others will steal them.

6. Always get the latest swag. (See pic at left. Legit.)

You can view the web story on the WTVA website.

Dress Codes

One thing that every news station (heck, place of business) has is a dress code.

Some are a little different from others.

I prefer to dress modestly and classically almost to a fault. (I love wear tanks and camisoles under anything the slightest bit low-cut.)

So, for a work experience thing I’m doing this weekend,  Professor Dupont sent out a lovely reminder for all of us as to what is appropriate and not in a news room.

(Station name is omitted for the heck of it.)

You’ll need to dress a little more professionally than usual on your reporting trip.  The editorial meeting will give us an idea of what type of story you’ll be covering, but remember that in a real news situation you can be switched in a heartbeat from one story to another, from a casual situation to an interview with the governor.  A blazer is a wonderful item to have with you because it can be thrown over a polo shirt or lady’s blouse and give you a polished appearance.  The blazer works for men and women.  As for your other clothes, try to avoid patterns (solid colors are always best) and never, ever wear anything with writing on it.  This includes items that say “Ole Miss.”  Do not wear t-shirts (this is a STATION rule).

For men, comb your hair and look neat.  For women, wear your usual makeup.  There’s no reason to go crazy on your grooming.  Try to look polished, that’s all.

For women, there is a strict dress code that you must follow while you are reporting for STATION.  These are the STATION’s rules, but they are similar to those you’d find in any TV station in a conservative area:
No cleavage.  None.  Don’t wear anything that even suggests cleavage.
No sleeveless blouses or shirts.
No flip-flops.  If you are in doubt as to whether your sandals are flip-flops, don’t wear them.

Finally, ladies, remember that there is nothing wrong with taking two pairs of shoes.  You know this from the Grove–one pair is your “dress up” pair and the others are your flats.  You don’t want a blister while you are trying to put together a package.

Um, Prof. Dupont, I don’t like tempting fate. I’ll have two outfits, two pairs of shoes, my make-up, and tons of pens.

And my phone charger.

I’m such a little Girl Scout.