Classes, studying, Newswaves, reporting, homework, tests, celebrating my 22nd birthday, studying, Coachella Music Festival, studying, Easter, Finals, graduating from Pepperdine, packing my apartment, driving home, moving back in to my house, being unemployed, becoming employed.
Okay, now that everyone is completely caught up, let's get right into how AWESOME my new job is! A couple months back, I applied for a part-time writing and production assistant job at NorthWest Cable News (the Northwest region's own 24-hour cable news network based out of Seattle). It was perfect because the job was in the company that I dream of working for (King Broadcasting) and it was in Seattle, which meant that I got to stay home and not move to some small market butt-crack of a town. No offense to any of the small market butt-crack towns out there.
You can check out their website: www.nwcn.comAbout three weeks ago I heard back from the News Director at NWCN saying that he wanted me to come in and perform a writing test (which is pretty normal for broadcasting). I went in, did the writing test about as best as I could do, and answered a couple of his questions. I felt pretty confident that my interview/test had gone well, but he had other well qualified candidates for this part-time job. After talking with an HR lady on the phone and anxiously twiddling my thumbs in anticipation for a couple days, I finally heard back that I got the job. It felt so refreshing to finally be employed and to not have to stress out about tweaking resumes and memorizing interview questions. I can relax and just make sure not to screw up enough to lose my new job. Of course, as the new blood in the organization, I am the one that starts out with the most undesirable of shifts...the weekend mornings. Aside from working Thursday and Friday mornings, I would be working 4am to 11am on Saturdays and Sundays. So long having fun on Friday and Saturday nights (not like I ever went out on those days, but you know what I mean). Still, I was extremely excited about the opportunity and the chance to get my foot in the door of a well-respected news organization in the market that I wanted to work in most.
After clearing my drug test (I was reallyyyyyyy worried about that one...nawt) and filling out some papers for Human Resources, it was time to start my job. I got up at 6:30 in the morning so I could leave my house at 7:30 so I could get to the station in Downtown Seattle by 9 (you never really know how bad traffic on 405 and 520 can be in the morning). Upon arriving at the station, I had quite the bout with those new city parking meters that take the credit cards. Note: not all of them take credit cards and can be a real pain in the arse at 8:30 in the morning. After that I walked in, met up with a NWCN producer and got taken up to the newsroom to begin my training. My trainer was Blaine, a nice young lady that as it turned out was also my weekend morning producer. She taught me the ins and outs of their news writing program (iNEWS), the lay out of the newsroom, where the cafeteria is...you know, all the important things.
Then I had a chat with the HR Director lady about my ID badge (!!!) and parking pass and all that. I was really excited to get my badge so I could prominently show to everyone that I was an employee of NWCN, but when they finished printing it out, all there was was my picture and my name. No station ID or anything. I was disappointed but how cares, I HAVE A JOB! After doing some practice writing on iNEWS for a bit, it was time for me to go home from my first day. Naturally I had to call my mom and tell her all about it. I couldn't wait for what was in store for tomorrow.
The commute the next day wasn't as bad, and I got to work with some to relax and listen to Katy Perry on the radio (they are really starting to play her waaaaay too much). I walked into the newsroom with my sophisticated black business bag and my lunch box with my head held high, feeling all confident and shit. My producer told me that I had some stories to write for the 10am show. I looked on iNEWS and sure enough, there were some stories marked with an "AB" next to them. Ecstatic, I got to work. Now, these stories weren't anything hard-hitting or anything, just something about a Seattle Hotel tax increase and an intro to a package about a Rainier Beach social media grant. Regardless, it all seemed exciting to me.
The thing that makes NWCN different from your run-of-the-mill news city news station is that they are getting their news footage from across the region - Seattle, Spokane, Portland and Boise - and a lot (if not all) the stories that we put in our newscast have already been written. All we need to do is tweek them so that they are fitting for a regional audience, not just the audience of a specific city. For example, KING5 might have a story where they mention the town of Issaquah. If we use that story in a NWCN newscast, the town of Issaquah now becomes a town in Western Washington. Because people in Bend, Oregon aren't going to have any idea or give a rip about a town in Washington called Issaquah (although they should give a rip because Issaquah is way cooler than Bend, OR).
I digress. After finishing my stories and having my producer look over them with me to see what could be improved (which remarkably was not much!) I had to print off the scripts for the anchors and run the teleprompter for the show. Running the teleprompter for an NWCN broadcast is much more nerve-racking than running the teleprompter for a Newswaves newscast because people across five states are watching NWCN while the only people watching Newswaves are my parents. But I managed to run the teleprompter without screwing up too royally and went back to help write some more. I wrote another story about how a northern Oregon reservoir was contaminated with blue-green algae (oh nose!) and the low flying helicopter that will be measuring radiation levels in Puget Sound. Again, not ground-breaking stuff, but it was really awesome to see my stories get read LIVE on television, and then be seen repeated over and over for the next four hours.
The one story that I was totally stoked about was the 20 second VO about a bear in Issaquah. I copied the copy (haha) from the KING's noon news into the NWCN 2pm news rundown and thought of ways to make this story 1) relatable to the regional audience and 2) to make it more interesting. I solved problem number 1 but changing "an Issaquah man" to "a Western Washington man." In my attempt to make the story more interesting, I wanted to add some cheeky phrase that only I would think was funny. So naturally, I decided to call the bear a "furry stranger." I thought I was being really clever, but I didn't know if the producer and anchor would think that it was clever enough to keep in the show. I waited for the 2pm show on pins and needles, periodically checking back to the story to see if my "furry stranger" phrase was still in there. Sure enough, it was time for my story to air, and the anchor actually said my furry stranger line. I did a silent cheer for myself and made a vow that I would try to fit something weird into my stories everyday. It's the little things.
It was time for me to leave, but it wasn't too late to hear some encouraging words from my producers. They told me that I was a really quick learner, which is crucial in this business (duh, you don't want dolts working for you), and that I was doing a really good job with my writing. I was thrilled to hear the praise, and walked out of the newsroom to start my two-day break. I go back to work on Friday and I can't wait to see what will be in store for me then.
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