Here's a sampling of some of the various job shadows done by you all (this will be updated as job shadow reports are turned in, so please check back frequently). Take a look and see what you can learn from everyone's visits. There's a lot of good stuff here to help you decide what you want to do with your lives; what you need to be doing to get there; and what to expect when you do get there.
Please give each one of these a quick read as they come in, will you?
Please give each one of these a quick read as they come in, will you?
*****
Today I job shadowed Justin Rose who is a sports anchor/reporter
at WXYZ channel 7 in Southfield. Justin is a MSU alumni who before working at
WXYZ worked in places like West Virginia and Pittsburgh. Justin and I had
talked previously at the Spartan Sports Journalism Classic, which was bout a
month ago, which is when I got the idea to job shadow him. Some other students
from MSU were there to shadow him as well.
`We got there
about an hour early before the start of his show the Sports Cave aired. He does
the show every Sunday. We went through a rundown of the show and just talked
about sports for the hour with him, his producer Mike, and his guests who were
going to be on the show that day. His guests were Justin Rogers, who is the
Lions beat reporter for mlive.com,
and John U. Bacon who is a New York Times Best Selling author. His recent book
is called Endzone: The Rise, Fall, and Return of Michigan Football.
We sat in
on the Sports Cave and watched as Rose, Rogers, and Bacon discussed the recent
games between MSU and Penn State and Michigan and Ohio State. They showed the
highlights of each game and analyzed those games as well. They also talked
about the upcoming Lions’ matchup next week against the Green Bay Packers and then
discussed possible bowl game scenarios for both MSU and Michigan. Rose even
gave all of us a shoutout on the show, which was pretty awesome and unexpected.
He also, during the breaks, had us looking up and fact checking information for
him, like stats, and who teams had played, and what teams’ records were. I
thought that was great that he found ways to get us involved, even if it just
was the little things. After that, we all got pictures of the set and with
Rose. He said that we’re all welcome to come back over Christmas break and
watch him when he’s scheduled to be on air as the sports anchor.
Overall the time
spent shadowing Rose was really interesting and informative. As someone who has
always considered themselves more of a sportswriter, it was really interesting
to see what goes into being a sports broadcaster as well. Justin was an
extremely funny and outgoing guy who was very personable.
One of the most
important words of advice I took away from him about being a sports broadcaster
was that it isn’t about the story that you’re telling, it’s about how you tell
the story. Do you have that “it” factor that make people want to tune in and
watch you every night? Something else he said that really stuck with me was
that you have to have a passion for this job and you can’t expect to be at ESPN
right out of college. Most likely you’ll be in a small town probably covering
their high school sports program. But he said that with hard work and
dedication and talent you can go far. And looking back at your journey, you’ll
be more grateful of where you’re at because of where you came from. I
definitely think I’ll be heading back to WXYZ over holiday break to follow up
with him again.
******
I traveled to downtown
Detroit to shadow Rick Epps, who is the presentation director at the Detroit
News. He is responsible for the design of every page that is printed.
He
said that there is no typical day on the job, but normally, he attends meetings
throughout the day, trains designers, works with all the editors on how they
want their stories to be presented and designing pages of his own, like 1A or
Sunday Sports spreads.
The most difficult part of his job is working
with other editors, especially the photo/video editor, to design pages. If he
likes one photo, but the visual editor likes another, they have to compromise
and find middle group and come up with a final decision. Even though he is the
presentation director, he has to submit to the visual editor in situations like
this because his job is to pick the best photos to be placed on the pages.
If
it were my job, I think I would like designing the sports pages on Sundays, for
Mondays paper, the best. The more interesting sports news happens on Sundays,
so designing spread with that content on it would be rewarding. The least
intriguing part of his job, to me, is the manager side of things — all of the
training of designers, paperwork, etc.
I
walked away with great advice moving forward in my journalism career. Epps told
me to be sure to have Adobe Creative Cloud of my laptop and a subscription to
Lynda.com so I can continue growing as a graphic artists even outside of class
at work at the State News. In addition, he told me about InDesign Secrets
online that gives your access to tips or the weeks and videos. It was eye
opening to watch him create pages and use a different program than I am used to
— Layout Champ (CCI). It is only used by major newspapers and is not available
to the public. Being able to see this program was great because I may have to
use that at a future job, rather than InDesign and Illustrator.
******
In job shadowing Al Martin at WKAR Current Sports radio
station, I got to learn a lot about how his day-to-day life is. Martin
graduated Michigan State University in 2012 with a degree in journalism. Not only does Martin work at WKAR radio, but
he also works on the WKAR Current State TV show. After shadowing Martin on the
radio show, it helped me realize radio may be an option for me.
Martin gets to the station at 11:00am and begins to prepare
for the 1pm show. There is also a group of students that help him prepare
headlines for him to talk about. For example, on Mondays, they talk about the
sports events that happened over the weekend. On Thursday, the show talks about
things related to sports that have happened in the past, which is why it is
titled throwback Thursday. The students also give Martin their opinion on what
he is talking about so that he can have a variety of perspectives during the
show. Martin keeps a collection of notes for every show that he has ever done,
which helps him create ideas for future shows. With his notes being on Google
drive, he can prepare for a show from wherever he is when he gets a new idea.
Being on the radio is much more relaxing than being on TV.
From what I have experienced, TV is strict and fact based only, while radio
gives you a chance to insert your opinion. Also on TV you have to look a
certain way, but when you’re on the radio, you don’t have to dress up for work
because you wont be seen. I believe
having a strong passion about the topic of the radio station is necessary in
order to be successful. In my opinion, Martin is successful because of his
passion. He is always looking for new ways to be better in his career. He does
not want to be at a stand still because there is always room for
improvement. Martin is very proud of his
success. He has interviewed influential graduates from Michigan State like
Jemele Hill and Magic Johnson. If I were to become a radio host, I would keep
in mind that as long as you are passionate about the topic of the station,
viewers will continue tune in and listen to what you have to say.
******
******
For
my job shadow, I took a trip to downtown Chicago to the Big Ten Network
headquarters. While there, I shadowed Michigan State University alum Sean
Merriman. Currently, Merriman’s title is a web editor, however he is involved
in many different aspects of journalism at BTN. As web editor, he edits stories
and posts them on the homepage as well as breaking news. Also, Merriman embeds
tweets and videos into stories in order to make their stories more visually
appealing. When talking to him, Merriman believes that more and more videos
will be the future of journalism through social media. Speaking on social
media, Merriman runs the Twitter and Facebook account as well. In his opinion,
the majority of readers to a specific article will be because of Twitter or
Facebook posts.
On a Friday after Thanksgiving, many
of the roughly 120 employees that work there were enjoying a day off. However,
with the Iowa vs Nebraska game scheduled that day, Merriman was in the office,
along with the video editing department and everyone who is involved with the
game recap show, The Final Drive. I watched how he is able to target specific
fan audiences through social media. One piece of advice he gave me is that, it
is more valuable to get your story out to a smaller, more relevant fan base,
than just getting your story to as many people as possible. He believes this because, more likely will
someone on Facebook share your story if it relates to them, and then their
friends will see it and be more interested. For example, if the BTN wants to
target MSU fans because their latest article is about MSU football, with good
relations with Facebook, BTN can target their article to fans who like a MSU
Football page, rather than to only people who follow BTN.
Other advice he gave me was to value
accuracy over speed. With social media exploiting mistakes that journalist
make, Merriman told me that he would much rather have a story that is: unique,
correct, and impactful, rather than being first every time. With practice,
speed will come naturally. Also, he told me that not much turnover has happened
with in BTN over the past year, so don’t be picky when it comes to where you
work. Once at the professional level, your work will speak for itself. Companies
will find you, not you finding them, so always be working on your craft.
I asked him the cliché of where do
you see the industry going within the next five years. I did this because,
although I hope to be in the industry in under five years, being able to
prepare for the future and having the skills to adapt will make me a much
better asset to employers. He told me that not even the next five years, maybe
under three, that short videos and podcast will be the norm. Having an on
camera presence is going to be just as important as anything, almost as
important as writing.
******
*******
******
I
traveled back to my hometown in Kalamazoo to shadow Alex Jokich who is a reporter
for Newschannel 3.
Right
when I arrived at 9:30 the morning crew was ready to discuss there story
pitches for the evening show. About 10 people gathered in a room to discuss
ideas and they were each assigned what story they were going to report for that
day. It was really similar to our story pitches because they are either
approved or asked to find a new one, which I thought, was really interesting.
From
there, Alex had to get on the phone and start making calls to prepare her story
for the night. Her story was based on police officers and she said that she had
made good relationships with a few different sheriffs at specific police
stations, so it was easy to get ahold of them and they were always willing to
answer questions. We got in the car and drove to the Oshtemo Police Station
with the camera guy and she got all the video she needed and started working on
her voice over while the camera guy edited it. The day went by pretty quickly
because we were constantly on the go and trying to get sources and video for
the story. It was nice not sitting at a desk all day.
When we got back to the
station I noticed one reporter was pretty frustrated because no one was getting
back to her, but she told me she liked the pressure. The job always has
deadlines and you have to meet them. The news doesn’t wait. It was crazy to me
that they only have about 5 hours to get a story and we get a whole week and I feel
like that isn’t enough time! When Alex’s story was complete she went on live
Television at 5, which I thought was super cool to watch. She was always so
confident and seemed really passionate about what she was talking about. No one
really understands how much work goes into just a 2-minute video on the news
each night.
The best
advice she gave me was that things rarely go the way you want them too. She
didn’t mean that in a bad way, but you should always have a back up plan when
reporting because things fall through often. She told me that starting a new
job is always going to be difficult, but it gets easier as you get in the
swings of things, so don’t doubt yourself. She also told me if you are going to
be on Television you are going to have haters. She said people always will
e-mail her telling her that her laugh is annoying or she isn’t good at what she
does, but she told me you have to have tough skin and just brush it off. People
are always going to criticize you.
Job
shadowing Alex was definitely an eye opening experience. I personally don’t
want to be on live television, but I learned a lot from her and everyone else
that worked at the station. Following Alex for the day got me really excited
about my future.
*********
*********
I spent the day at WJBK, better known as Fox 2 News
Detroit. The headquarters are in
Southfield so I didn’t have to travel too far outside the city. I shadowed a
couple of people, but mainly Jeff Kranitz, who works as a reporter in the
newsroom.
Initially,
Jeff Kranitz explained what a typical day in the office was like for him. He
broke down what exactly his job was: he answered news tips from incoming calls
or social media. He also updated the station’s social media page for Facebook.
We went to
the morning meeting where they decided which stories were worthy of further
reporting on and which ones were going to make it to air for the 11am time
slot. Watching how many stories come in a day was kind of fascinating, but it
was also fascinating to watch which ones that were deemed more important than
others.
While I was
there, I learned that there is not one job in the newsroom that isn’t
important. Everyone kind of feeds of each other and if one person messes up,
that could mess up everyone else. It’s like a domino effect. In fact, while I
was there, something went wrong in the newsroom where all the production for
the 5pm time slot got erased. I pretty much watched all the reporters and
producers and scramble to put together a flawless, last minute program. That
was the sort of thing that gives me motivation and hope for when it’s my time
to get in the industry.
Overall,
the most important advice Jeff gave me was that after graduation, I really
expect much. That a job like his was most likely where I was going to start off
and work my way up. Now, he was clear that he was not trying to discourage me,
but more so giving me a realistic overview of what could come. I appreciated
that the most because I feel like most people would just tell me the cliché
motivational advice such as, “Try hard and you, too, can be where I am,” sort
of thing.
*******
If you are familiar with Detroit, Mich.
you are familiar with Brown Skin Brother radio, or “Mr 3525 Pay Attention.”
That voice you hear is Brian Jackson aka Djbj! on Nov. 28 2015. I had the
opportunity to finally follow around Detroit’s very own, DjBj and it was an
amazing experience. Since high school I have always admired his ambition. Jackson is a radio personality for hot 107.5.
However his work expands way beyond radio. He is also a party host, clothing
line designer, a black bottle boy, actor, producer and he is always giving back
to the community.
While
shadowing Bj I learned that radio isn't always live I watch him record himself,
edit it, then put it on air. I had the chance to answer the phones to find the
7th caller which was fun because it showed me how busy he is in the studio yet
how much fun it could be. As I looked around I seen where celebrities who have
come in signed their name on the wall and pictures of the radio personalities
have taken pictures with the famous people.
‘“If I could describe a good day at
work, I would be able to interview people like, me or people from my own town,
I love when I can relate to my guess,” said Jackson.
Jackson said some of the perks of his
job is using his “face card”…..
Face Card: the meaning of people knowing
who are just by the looking at you.: No Identification check is needed.
Jackson said he can walk right into
pretty much any club in Detroit even if he isn't the Dj for the night. He also
enjoys using his face card to give back.
“If they hear DjBj, or 107.5 will be at
said event more people are likely to show up.” Said Jackson.
I asked Jackson to describe a bad day
and he couldn’t, he said “Whats a bad day? Everyday I learn something new,
everyday is day to work on myself and my brand.”
However, Jackson said thier cons to the
Job,
“There are people who want to see you fail in
this industry, there are people who even wanted me dead,” said Jackson, “You do
get older, you have to remain relevant.”
Jackson gave me advice on how to stay
relevant, he explained how competitive the industry is and how important is to
stand out. He told me to not be afraid to take risks, be prepared to fail a
couple times, and when success comes to remain humble. After talking to Jackson
about his journey I felt inspired to go forward with my own entertainment blog,
so he gave me his blessing and gave me contacts with web designers, graphic
desginers, and two bloggers that he knows personally.
Jackson as won gold records from record
labels on his average amount of spends, he as traveled the country after being
requested to spin in a number of different clubs. Rappers coast to coast
contact him to produce their mix tapes and produce beats on their albums. With
plenty of recognition Jackson remains a humble man, and he always represent for
the city of Detroit. Being from the same home town this means a lot to me
because is motivation that I could follow my dreams just as he did.
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