Last Day at KCAL and the Foxy :(

I am finally on summer vacation which means that I am done with my two internships and now have absolutely nothing planned for the next however many days until I come home for a week before school starts. It's a little daunting to know that I now have four extra days in my week to fill now that I'm not spending a lot of those days either working at KCAL or the Foxy. Hmmm...what to do?

Well, here is a little retrospect on my last days as a sport production intern at KCAL and as a web intern for Fox News Channel. I had a blast at both of my internships and I learned lots of valuable information and met a lot of cool people. First, let me reflect on KCAL...

KCAL

On my last day, my producer was nice enough to let me go out into the field again to help out with some live shots at the Dodger game that would be on the news. I was more than happy to do that since going out to a Dodger game is better than watching the game on a television in the newsroom and since my last experience at going out in the field didn't quite go as planned (if you missed that story, read this entry). My producer said I had to be at the stadium by 3:30 to help set up. I left my house at 1:30 (because, again, you never know with LA traffic) and got to Dodger Stadium at 2:30...ugh. At least I brought a book with me this time.

Finally the photographer showed up and I helped him unload the camera equipment and bring it down onto the field. The photographer, named Rodney, is one cool dude. He's half black, half Cuban and he looks as if he could punch your lights out no problem. We set up the camera and such down by the third base line as some of the players come out to warm up. They haven't even set up batting practice yet, that's how early we are. After sitting on our butts for while and watching Rodney talk to some of the Dodgers like they're old frat buddies, it was time to get sound of Coach Torre's pregame comments. We were the only tv camera crew there, everyone else in the dugout were newspaper or radio people. I look around and there are a bunch of old, fat guys sitting around that have probably reported on the Dodgers since the beginning of mankind. Two of the oldest of old-timers sat in their usual spot, on the dugout bench right next to Torre, a clear sign of their seniority. I was even a little excited to take part in this pregame interview because I saw that one of my favorite sports columnists Bill Plaschke was there. I watch him all the time on ESPN's Around the Horn...and he even follows me on twitter! For a second while Torre was talking, I thought that Plaschke was looking at me, trying to think of where he has seen me (either that or he's just a perv.)

After Torre's comments, Rodney and I busted out of there and saw that our KCAL sideline reporter Jaime was there, as well as LA sports broadcasting "legend" Jim Hill. The other photographer, Glenn, was there too as he was replacing Rodney after the live shots were done. Now, we sat around even more, waiting for the times during the news when we were going to do the cut-ins. This was great for me because I got to ask sideline reporter Jaime a ton of questions about the broadcasting biz (i.e. How she got started, how she ended up at KCAL, so on and so forth) and I got a ton of great info.

After the live shots, we had to pack things up then Glenn, Jaime and I headed up to the press box to watch the game. Nearly three hours and a ton of free food later, us three had to head to the clubhouse for some postgame comments from the players. Unfortunately I did not get to see anyone's bare butt. Damn! After the clubhouse, we had to go back on to the field to do a live cut-in for KCAL's 10:45pm sports show. Since the game ended rather early, we had quite a bit of time to kill. I watched as Glenn did his camera thing and Jaime prepared what she was going to say on air. It was really cool to be out there on the field because the stadium was completely empty expect for the grounds and cleaning crews getting the place all spruced up. Finally we got the live shot done and could get along on our merry way. It was a lot of fun seeing yet another aspect of the career that I want to enter, and I enjoyed it a lot. I was just bummed that I didn't get to do it and meet these cool people earlier on in my internship. Oh well. At least I have their email so I can keep in touch.

Foxy

I was definitely a little bummed out that yesterday was my last day interning at Fox News, affectionately known this summer as "The Foxy." I met some awesome people, mainly Producer Matt and Entertainment Reporter/Bite-Sized Australian Hollie, who are probably some of the coolest people I have ever met. I learned a lot about web news (considering I knew NOTHING about web news going into this internship, I would say I learned a lot) and I plan on taking my knowledge with me while I try to take Pepperdine's Newswaves to new technological heights. I'm going to miss my Foxy peeps.

I'm REALLY going to miss seeing this face everyday

On this last day, I did my usual Beck and Special Report transcript and then Producer Matt took me out to lunch so he could dispense some of his infinite wisdom to me one last time. We went to a (literally) hole-in-the-wall sushi place that was actually really good. Matt's words of wisdom were insightful as always, like "Get an internship your last semester senior year because that will most likely get you a job", "even if it seems like a really crappy job, take it!", and "protect your reputation because it really is the only thing you have, at least in this business". Thanks, Matt! I also found out that Producer Matt went to Georgetown (of course he did) and was an English major (of COURSE he was).

After coming back from my free lunch, I got to take part in Foxy's "Internfest", a meeting they have for all the interns where reporters, producers, and the like come together to tell all the youngsters how life really is in the broadcast business. I found this meeting to be really informative and also slightly depressing. While it was great to know how to get started, what to put on my first demo reel and resume, and what employers are looking for, it was pretty deflating to be told that if you work in broadcast news (though more accurately broadcast NETWORK news) that you will never have time for your family, will most likely never find a boyfriend, and if you happen to get married and have children, you will never be around to raise them. Wow...sounds awesome (sarcasm...check)! But I figured that all hope was not lost, considering all of the older people talking to us were married or at the very least engaged. So I guess it is possible to have a boyfriend...woot.

The one thing that I will definitely take away from "Internfest" is I need to stay in contact with the people that I have met on during my internships. I think that every one of the Fox employees' stories mentioned something about how they got a certain job because of someone from an internship or college that they had kept in touch with. Needless to say, I am going to be emailing these Foxy people as often as I can without being annoying about it, because these peeps could find me a job someday. Hey, gotta do what you gotta do.

After the meeting, it was time for me to leave. I can't say that I was on the verge of tears, but I was sad about leaving. It almost had a "end of high school" feeling to it, where people were telling me to have a nice life and to "never change". Once I said my goodbyes and got some business cards from people, I walked out of the Foxy. Hopefully I'll be back there someday, though if I do I hope it's because someone found me a job haha. Now that the "intern" chapter of my life has ended, I embark on my last year in school (depressing) and then finally the real world as I fight for those entry level jobs into this cut-throat business. At least I'm heading out there knowing a little bit more about web news/sports production than the next person, which could be ultra-valuable in a field like this.

And now, I final note and a nod to Producer Matt. I didn't know there were people out there who could spend their day watching YouTube videos and still manage to get their work done. These two video are in homage to you...





Double Rainbow All The Way!!!