Journal #38

My job shadowing experience went very well. I went with four other juniors to the WICS News Channel 20 Station downtown. We had two sessions that day. The first session was from 10am to 12pm and then the afternoon session was from 3:30pm to 5:30pm. The woman we were suppose to shadow ended up having to go to Champagne for something and so she was not even there. Because of her absence, we were pretty much tossed around to several different people in the station. One of the first things we did was take a general tour of everything. The station is literally a maze inside and the hallways are very narrow with several doors and tight corners. One of the places we stopped during the tour was the Master Control room. This is where the two master control guys basically make sure the show runs how it should. WICS has a sister station in Champagne and so they run at the same time. These guys in master control have to make sure that the commercials line up and that there are no gaps between the shows. This was a job that I had never really thought about, but it is absolutely necessary. Another job that I had not really thought of before was the person who has to organize all of the news and schedule what stories should be covered.This was Steve's job. He would sit at his computer and take phone calls and make listen to the police scanners about any news that would be interesting to cover. I was so surprised with how many people were behind the scenes for the news to happen and how many jobs there are that you do not even realize are necessary. My favorite part of the job shadowing experience was sitting behind the camera and watching the Mid-day show. This really interested me because I want to be a news reporter or anchor. It was really cool seeing it all come together. This experience has definitely increased my interest in this career and I am excited to learn even more about it.