Here's a sampling of some of the various job shadows done by you all. 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.
We will add more job shadow reports to the blog as they are completed. Please give each one of these a quick read, will you?
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I have spent half a day with Laura Hessen, the producer for
The Guy Gordon Show on WJR 760. The first thing that she does once she arrives
in her office is gather news stories that may be interesting for the listeners.
Once she has a good amount of news, she presents them to Guy Gordon and,
together, they decide which ones to tackle. At this point Laura tries to
contact the writers of the articles or other people of interest. Once she has a
rundown, Guy Gordon begins to prepare for the interviews by reading the
articles and other literature on the topic. In the meantime Laura and her
engineer go to the studio and prepare for the show. At 3:00 pm the show begins
and the phone starts to ring. The producer decide which callers to put on the
air and answers any question the listener might have on the topic. The show goes by very quickly between the
callers and the directions Laura has to give to Guy. Once the show is over, the
producer books some guests for the next day or helps Guy Gordon do commercials.
This opportunity was eye-opening for me as it fits perfectly what I want to do.
I would like to work for the broadcasting industry in the future and WJR has a
great name in the business. I learned many valuable lessons during these few
short hours. The way the producer books guests is quick and very friendly yet
she did not leave them any chance to say no. When deciding what callers to put
on air she is meticulous and chooses people that may reflect different points
of view. Overall it was very interesting and I have learned a lot about how to
produce a show.
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I shadowed Don Postles, the evening news anchor at WIVB
Channel 4 in Buffalo, New York. Don first showed me around the newsroom and
everyone’s offices and cubicles. I saw assignment editors, video and audio
editing booths, sound recording booths, the control room with the technical
producer who puts on the show and the actual news studio. The news studio
looked like every other news studio that I have seen pretty much, there’s
cameras that are robotic and there are teleprompters connected to them. There’s
an anchor desk for the anchor’s, there’s a sports section where the sports
reporters read their report and then there’s a weather section with a green
screen. There was one stage manager and he was showing me how the cameras move
on their own as the technical producer in the back moves them. I met reporter
Jenn Schanz who told me she is from Michigan and her brother went to Michigan
State. I will be in contact with her about future stories. I met the sports
department including the sports director and two other sports reporters who go
out on location and film stories (University of Buffalo football, Bills,
Sabres) which is very exciting. Don Postles is one of the oldest anchors still
at Channel 4 and went to American University in Washington. Don is joined by
his co-anchor Jacqui Walker, who also went to Michigan State, so we bonded over
football! I then sat and watched a live filming of the 5 o’clock news, 5:30
p.m. news, and 6 o’clock news. I met Nalina Shapiro, another anchor at Channel
4, and it was so cool to see her read off the teleprompter but also make it
sound so natural and interesting. I enjoy news studios and watching them film
live news stations and I’ve been in news studios a lot so I am comfortable
there. I one day hope to be up there filming my own sports segment on the
evening news! Channel 4 felt like home and I love to continue to meet people
and network.
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Today, I spent several hours shadowing Alexander Alusheff, a
business reporter for the Lansing State Journal. I chose Alex and the LSJ
because, last semester, I interview his wife (Abigail Welsh-Alusheff) at the
Livingston Daily.
My experience at the Livingston Daily was, in a nutshell,
disturbing. New management had recently made serious cuts, gutting the
journalism and editorial staff. Not six months after my shadow appointment with
Abigail, she left the Livingston Daily to specialize in inbound marketing.
Whether this decision was related to changes made by Gannett or not, I’m not
sure.
Gannett owns the Livingston Daily, LSJ, the Detroit Free
Press, and USA Today. They also own a number of smaller newspapers across
Michigan. When I shadowed at the Livingston Daily, I saw the negative parts of
this business structure. Writers and editors were cut, the newsroom was nearly
empty, and important story flew by unattended.
This afternoon, I bore witness to some of the positive parts
of this business structure. Or, at the very least, the positive aspects of
working for Gannett.
The LSJ newsroom is impeccably organized, with large
monitors sharing page views and other statistics for each published story from
a Gannett newspaper. Writers are judged based on views, not on their word
count. According to Alex, the minimum number of views per month is 60,000. This
encourages writers to communicate with their editors about what stories perform
well and what stories don’t. There is no auto-pilot. Every story counts.
I met seven other reporters at LSJ, all of whom were
positive about their experience. I also traveled with Alex for an interview,
which took place at a real estate office in Okemos. The story focus was on REO
Town, which I found poetic, since I just finished a story on REO Town myself. I
was impressed by the level of respect given to LSJ reporters. I didn’t note the
same respect in Livingston County, where the residents are clearly upset with
the organization of the paper and the management of staff.
Despite this positive experience, I still wouldn’t consider
working for a newspaper full-time. I think reporting is impressive and
necessary but, as I chatted with each reporter about what I do, I found each
reporter was just as impressed with my work as I was with theirs. It was
validating, especially when a conversation about SEO (a prime focus of my work)
began.
Overall, I enjoyed my afternoon at LSJ. Maybe working as a
freelance writer and working in a newsroom aren’t all that different, after
all.
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