E60: ESPN flexing its power in sports reporting

Obviously, E60 is something that I support. I am a life long sports fan. I am only doing journalism because I was not good enough to play professional sports. I practice journalism because I aspire to be a play-by-play anchor for ESPN. My main goal is to have a career in the sports world, preferrably ESPN.

As you can see my opinon is a little biased because I like almost everything the my future employer (hopefull) does. The concept of E 60 is something I have wanted to see for years. It gives us an insight into who these athletes are off the field. It is also the most investigative and thought provoking interviews that ESPN does.

The story I examined focused on Tennessee Titans Quarterback Vince Young. Young underwent some difficult times and ESPN reported that he might have attempted suicide. In the E60 interview with Young, he revealed that he was depressed to a certain extent and also had a difficult time dealing the pressure put on his shoulders by himself and the fans.

This story was excellent and reporter Michael Smith did an excellent job of interviewing Young. The former Rookie of the year, dodged the question about his suicide, so Smith kept asking it. As a result Young finally answered the question and even though the former Longhorn dened the rumors I like that Smith confronted him with it.

The one flaw with the interview was the shooting of it. The photographer used the zoom too much and it became distracting.

The question I have about the E60 program is this: Could any other station pull off this type of journalism?
I believe that most of these stories can only be done by ESPN because ESPN has the recognition of being the top sports journalism company in the world. I doubt most of these athletes would open up to their local beat reporters. Another example of ESPN's reputation providing it with the inside track to great journalism was the Alex Rodriguez steroid scandal. ESPN was the first and only organization to get Rodriguez to go on camera and discuss these issues.

I enjoy E60 and like getting to know more about athletes off the field. I look forward to more E60 interviews and stories.

I hate Wednesdays

Without a doubt Wednesday is the worst day of the week. Even on Mondays we can reflect on the weekend that had just been completed. Wednesday is the furthest we can be from a weekend.

Historically it feels like I have had bad luck on Wednesdays. This bad luck has recently become more prominant as I have struggled on consecutive Wednesdays at KOMU, while I performed well on Tuesday.

Tonight's shift was rough. I broke a camera, shot an unusable interview, and did not understand what the lighting features on the camera do.

I am not a camera person. Words like shutter and Iris sound like Japanese to me. On the bright side Stacey explained them to me in terms I can understand and I now understand the lighting elements of the camera.

The lessons I learned from this shift include the lighting features of the camera. I also learned never force stuff because then you do more harm then good. On a positive note I also learned how to script and edit faster so I can report longer.

I am bummed out as I reflect upon my VO patrol shift today. I feel like I destroyed all the momentum I had built up with a solid shift yesterday. It was another one of those shifts, where absolutely nothing goes right.

It’s nights like these that I wish there was a 24 hour ice cream shop somewhere in town because I need a pick me up right now.

Newsy: A look at the reporting everyone else did

On paper Newsy seems like an excellent idea. The online news station stands by their creed of multiple perspectives to provide the real story. Newsy takes information and reporting done from sources like CNN and MSNBC and presents the perspectives together in the same 2-3 minute block. The intention is clear, to present the multiple sources and let the viewer decide for themselves. Newsy seem cutting edge, its futuristic looking set and multiple perspective presentation make newsy seem like the future of reporting, however, there are a few questions that people could raise.

The primary concern with Newsy is that even though Newsy tries to present all the perspectives on an issue, Newsy still edits out some opinions in order to fit its time concerns. While Newsy is trying to show multiple perspectives it is still doing the same editing that all other newscasts do.

My second concern with Newsy arose when watching the video "In Pot We trust" found at this link:
http://www.newsy.com/videos/in_pot_we_trust
This particular story did not really present both sides of the marajuana debate. It clearly focused more on the pro legalization side. This lack of balanced coverage undermines the entire purpose of newsy. This video also took to long to propose the debate. The CNBC video just did the job the anchor could have said and later repeated.

Another Newsy video about the troops leaving Iraq. This video is a more balanced coverage of the situation. It brings in reports not just of varying opinions but from varying countries. Here is the link.
http://www.newsy.com/videos/u_s_troops_in_iraq_gone_for_good.

In conclusion, I believe newsy is a great idea in principle but its occassional lack of balanced presentation undermines its true intention. I hope Newsy succeeds and will be able to present all the perspectives on an issue effectively because it is agreat idea.

Blue Note Reporting

My first VO patrol shift taught me a lot of things about how to report for a professional newscast. At the end of the night it turned out to be a nerve racking, pressure filled, and fun experience. I was almost so concerned with what may not have worked, I did not fully enjoy and revel in the fact that something I put together was being broadcasted.

Thankfully, I arrived an hour early to KOMU. This turned out to be extremely fortunate because even with this extra hour, I sill did not get my video transferred until showtime. This taught me that I may even need to be a little earlier to the station to ensure that I do not take too long putting my VO together.

I received a pleasant surprise when I arrived at KOMU. When I pitched my story, Holly and the producer, Mallory, approved the first story I pitched. This story focused on how concert venues like the Blue Note bring in big stars. In the convergence reporting class, I took last semester, it felt as though all my ideas were rejected and I went into this meeting assuming rejection.

One challenge in this report was getting good b roll. Unfortunately the concert did not start until 8 and I was unable to get crowd shots or the band playing. Despite this seemingly small amount of footage, I ended up with more footage than I needed. The lesson I learned from this is that I don’t need to shoot that much footage for a VO patrol.

The biggest setback I have suffered from not taking B1 is my lack of knowledge about iNews. My goal for the rest of the summer is to become much more proficient with iNews. In the end I feel pretty solid about this package after reviewing it online. I look forward to improving upon this shift tomorrow.

Looking at the competition

Some say you are only as good as your competition. To put this theory to the test, I looked at the website for KOMU's competitor KMIZ, ABC 17.

One thing I really liked on KMIZ's home page was the ABC 17 stromtracker. The stromtracker shows a 7-day forecast. It also does a spin off of the Department of Homeland security's terrorist threat level by doing a threatening weather level. This shows the possibility of severe or hazardous weather.

The storm tracker then cycles through photos of some of the major cities in the market, showing the temperature in each particular city. In lecture Jen Reeves told us that the main reason people log onto these websites for weather. If this is ture, than KOMU is seriously lacking. KOMU only shows forecasts for today and tomorrow on its homepage.

KOMU dominates in terms of online reporting. KOMU's web content features stories somplete with quotes and new information about the story that in some instances is different from the video, that accompanies them on the web.

I attempted to review the online videos at KMIZ, however, none of the ones I clicked on worked. The videos would not play. This is a major problem for a news station in this era of online media. KMIZ's web stories were only short blurbs about the story

Without a working video player, KMIZ is significantly behind KOMU in news content in a time in which online journalism is on the rise. However, KMIZ boasts superior weather content.

Learning how KOMU operates

I was at KOMU 8, three times this week. However, I did not do any reporting. This week I learned a lot about how the station works. In recent weeks I learned about the production assistant position.

I did not know the responsibilities of this position. The production assistants are responsible for grabbing national news stories off of a wire service and cutting them into Voice overs for the morning anchors. They also run the teleprompter for the morning show.

This week I also learned about the cut ins shift. Cut ins run at the 25 and 55 minute commercial breaks of the Today show. They are students anchoring these short morning news breaks.

Since I do not remotely resemble a morning person, I had no idea the morning PA shifts and the cut-ins shifts were available. After practicing cut-ins in lab this week, I really want to get up early one morning and do cut-ins.

Eric Blumberg made cut-ins training fun because he tried to throw us off in any way possible. During my practice cut-in the teleprompter would drift in and out. This made me have to look down at my script occasionally and then try to look up at the camera as much as possible.

He threw others off by making occasional changes to the script. This trick worked on some students resulting in hilarious outtakes.

I had fun learning the ropes at KOMU and look forward to reporting there in coming weeks.

MSNBC package critique

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/31128909#31123452

I watched this NBC package and loved the use of sequences throughout the package. The package focused on mother of 13 and grandmother of 6 who just graduated college. I like the story although it was a feature story. However I feel the article tried to make the subject a little bit more inspirational than the story was in reality. As I mentioned I loved the filming and sequences in the package. One thing I would have added or tried to add was when the video discusses her staying up until 1 am studying and taking care of her children if there was video of her trying to study and take care of her kids.

The Royal Treatment Covering Beauty Queens

This week I covered the Miss Missouri pageant in Mexico, Missouri. This was my first trip to the Mexico north of the border. The first time I met someone who said they were from Mexico I asked them how far away from Cozumel they lived. the name is confusing.

I was amazed by how the city of Mexico volunteered its time and effort to making this pageant a success. Everyone involved in putting the pageant together was a volunteer.This crew of volunteers may be one of the top media relations groups I have encountered.

I have covered many Mizzou sporting events, including NCAA playoff soccer, and regional softball games. None of the media relations people who are paid to help people like me have been as good at their job or as friendly as the small group of volunteers from Mexico.

Every request I made was immediately executed. I requested that a survey be distributed to the girls competing for the crown. Two hours later 11 surveys were returned to me completed and filled out. This far exceeded my expectations.

They even had me coordinate my efforts with the people they had commissioned to film the event. Without even having to ask for it, I was introduce to the person who could help me get an interview with Missouri's only Miss America.

The only experience I have had that compares to this treatment was at the Big 12 ebasketball tournament. It is amazing that a group of volunteers can do their job better than people paid to do the same job at national events.

Reflection about class 5/26-5/28

This week’s broadcast 2 class taught me many lessons and inspired me to become a better reporter. I feel as though I have learned more about journalism and how to be a great reporter in these past 2 weeks than I have in my history of journalism classes, which dates back to high school.

The highlight of classes this week was certainly Wednesday’s class. During that class, Greeley Kyle showcased the most amazing series of packages I had ever seen. I believe the rest of our class would agree with my last statement. Several girls were in tears due to the amazing subject material and emotion captured in these stories. The emotions these reporters were able to invoke with their stories made the entire class feel the fear of breast cancer patient who is terminally ill. She was not afraid of dying but of the consequences her death would have on her husband, her 3-year- old daughter, and her newborn son. The reporter at KARE TV in the twin cities made us feel her dread.

The story that I will remember most from this class of masterpiece packages was the package about the soldier who returned from Iraq with the human version of Mad cow disease. The beauty of this package was that the audience never sees the soldier’s face. The audience only sees the seizures shaking his body, and the concerned expressions on the faces of his family. His family has to live daily hoping that the new treatment he has been receiving will help bring him back to the son, the grandson, and husband he used to be.

One thing I learned from these stories is that when you have stories that contain this much emotion, you need to make it more about the subjects. You need to let the subjects tell the story.
One common theme among these stories is that most of them lacked a reporter stand up. A stand up would cause a distraction in packages with this kind of emotional value. The stand up would make the story more about the reporter and less about the people.

These stories inspired me to do more stories that reveal the struggles people face every day; struggles that invoke emotions like those packages on Wednesday.

The breathing exercises we did in Thursday’s class were also extremely helpful. As an aspiring play-by-play announcer these exercises will help me become much better at my job by breathing through my diaphragm.
The lessons I learned in class this week are unforgettable and made me a much stronger journalist.

NBC News Package

This week I looked a package that I would normally have skipped. However for some reason I decided to watch this package. The package was a news story about appropriate weight gain for pregnant women. The reporter Tracie Potts put together a solid package, however there were some flaws according to what we have learned in broadcast 2.

One positive aspect of this package was the use of visuals and graphics in a story where the B roll opportunities not obvious. Potts, or her editor, made an excellent decision to run the shot of the women stepping onto the scale at the beginning of the package. It encompassed the main point of the package with a strong shot that foreshadowed the rest of the story and provided a chance for nat sound in a story that I’m sure gave Potts a challenge in finding nat sound. The story also gave the audience great information and does a good job telling how it affects the world. This package also did a great job using graphics to cover up the lack of B roll and illustrate a point.
The primary flaw in Potts’ piece was the lack of a central compelling character. Potts interviewed many women about this issue. However, the package only featured one quote from each woman. The package also had too much expert opinion and not enough information from characters the audience can relate to. Also according to class lectures, the stand up at the close of the package is becoming passé.
Overall I was surprisingly captivated by this package. There were some things that could have been improved but every shot tells a different part of the story. The story was also extremely informative, which was its original intention. I give this story a B.