Finding a Beat
The last two weeks that I spent on the content team may have been the most important two weeks of my time at Lindenwood. I knew from the beginning of the semester that it would be crucial for me to build packages that I could use for my reel which is why I was really focusing on hard news. What I didn’t realize is that I would find a subject that would become a big interest of mine and lead me into a series of stories.
A Simple News Story
When I started my first heroin story it wasn’t because I had an overwhelming interest in heroin. To be honest, my sheltered and naive self didn’t even realize that our community was dealing with this giant heroin epidemic. Coming from a family of first responders, it was interesting to me that it took so long for first responders to be able to carry Narcan and now such a short time later, anyone can carry it. It was actually a story about a piece of legislation more than a story about heroin.
Needing a Character
Since the story focused on the bill about Narcan and not the issue of heroin itself, it was not meant to be an emotional piece. And it wasn’t. But one of my interviews, Juan Wilson, added a personal touch to it that needed to be expanded. Jill saw that immediately. So after a plethora of hard news stories that lacked real emotion and lacked “characters,” it was time to do a profile. Honestly I didn’t realize that I was lacking characters or the personal appeal in my stories until somebody told me. But Juan ended up being the perfect person to fill that void.
I Didn’t Even Know
When I decided to use Juan as the subject of my profile package I went into it still focused on heroin. That made sense since fighting heroin is his job, hobby and lifestyle. I thought I might touch a little bit on his social media presence but mostly I thought we would end up talking about his job. I had no idea that I would hear this story about his father-in-law overdosing from heroin, him being robbed at gunpoint, being a teenage dad and having a son with brain cancer. Somebody that has been through so much and is still a strong advocate in the community was a story I wanted to tell and one I thought people would care about.
Technical Difficulties
I was extra careful with the package about Juan. When telling a story about somebody’s life, there’s the extra pressure that the person will like the way the story is told and the way they are portrayed. I also wanted to make sure I had enough time to tell all the important details. So I made the package a minute longer than usual. Since there wasn’t a lot to capture as far as b-roll, I used a lot of pictures from Juan’s Facebook page. Not realizing how much time it would take to resize all of the pictures so they weren’t stretched out on the screen, I wasn’t able to air the package the day I had originally intended. This was really upsetting for a few reasons. For starters I had convinced Juan that I needed to do these interviews with one day of notice which he rearranged his schedule for. And then I had to tell him that the package wouldn’t air until five days later. Secondly because I really wanted to have the package on my reel ASAP and now it still isn’t on there. But I really liked how the package turned out and I don’t know if I would have been able to create the same effect if I would have rushed it on Thursday.
Now It’s About Me
The Narcan story and the profile on Juan Wilson made me realize how big of a problem heroin is in our community. I saw a Facebook post that said in 2015 there were 47,000 overdose deaths in the United States. That’s a huge issue. An issue that I’m now very interested in, enough so that I’ve decided to base my ‘special show’ on heroin. But as I move forward with the rest of the semester and my career I think this is something I could be good at reporting. Not just heroin obviously but community issues as a whole. The things that affect the families and the people that we know.
The Pressure Is On
My impatience for finding a job has not changed at all. And now that I have a solid website I’m feeling even more compelled to send it everywhere. So Jill sent it to a news director in Ft. Myers, Florida. At first I was reluctant to send it somewhere so far away but the more I thought about it, the more I started to like the idea of moving back to Florida. Unfortunately that news director didn’t feel the same way. Taking criticism has never been a strong characteristic of mine. So it was a challenge to look at this devastatingly long email about all the ways I can be better as a positive thing. But it is a positive thing. I need better interviews, I need more interesting stand-ups, I need to work on my voice, my look is better when I curl my hair. These are all things that I would not know if that news director hadn’t taken the time out of his day to provide me with his experienced feedback. The down side, I feel like I have to start completely over. The up-side, I still have the opportunity and resources to be able to do that. Moral of the story? I need to make the last ten weeks of the semester really count.
