Anchors away, on ward to sports and weather!
The Time Went Too Quick
While anchoring with Kristine started off a little bumpy, by the end of our three shifts, I really began to enjoy it. I could see an improvement with the way I talked and my presence at the news desk. For some reason, in the beginning I pushed out my neck and it looked awkward on camera. I also closed myself off by crossing my fingers and I held my pen very tight and clinched. I could see improvements with each newscast, and I am looking forward to the end of the semester when I get to anchor again.
Next Up, Sports and Weather
Sports and weather were daunting to me the first day of the job. I get terribly confused with maps and know nothing about weather systems. I also have minimal knowledge of all things sports. I found it comical that the one sport I am familiar with, Cardinals baseball, had just finished their season. Michelle did a great job of walking me through how the layout looked and what different graphics and images I was going to need. I found it difficult to read and write about the current conditions in the United States. The green screen was also something that I needed to get used to. I had never been in front of one before and I was scared of pointing to the wrong places or losing my spot on the prompter. The most important lesson that I learned from doing weather is to be conversational. Weather is never really exciting until something extreme happens like a tornado or multiple inches of snow. By making it conversational, people are more inclined to listen and hear about the sunniest days.
Hitting Sports Out of the Park
Writing for sports was a lot easier than I thought, however reading for sports was a whole different story. I applied what I had learned as an anchor for writing the stories: Be concise, have a great grabber, get to the point, and wrap it up. I tried to also use not only news about Lindenwood sports teams but also professional ones as well. It was always easy to find what the viewer needed to know and write the story. It took getting through one show, to realize how the graphics should look. I had put everything in the monitor behind me and it was boring watching me read for a few minutes without any change in cameras or video. I eventually learned that even if I did not have any video for the stories, to put full-screens of certain players or team’s stats. The hardest part I had doing sports was reading the stories on air. The names were really hard to pronounce and I did not know how to correctly say the stats. Finally, my last day on the job I decided to ask questions on pronunciation and I felt that my read was a lot better. While it was a good experience to have, I definitely know my future is not in sportscasting or weather.
Newscast of the Week:
While I was winding down my time on the content team, I had the opportunity to interview a few police officers from the St. Charles Police Department. Some stories were easier to cover than others. This particular VO-SOT did not have much of a story and I had to be careful to not make it sound like a PSA. With a school shooting that happened right before Halloween, parents were on high alert and scared for their children’s safety on Halloween night. Officer Chad Thorp was nice enough to take time out of his busy schedule and talk to LUTV News about the proper safety measures in order to ensure a fun family holiday.
