Adding More

I was really excited about my shift this week because I pushed really hard to find extras to add to stories. Since the big, big story was the Missouri-Kansas Border Showdown basketball game, I wanted to make a slideshow with images from past games. However, we didn't have file video (DVDs) from games beyond the one in 2008. Beth Hoag helped me look for video and other images, but we couldn't find much.

Since I'm the only one from our class in that shift, I decided I should move on to doing the basic work. I made plenty of images from the reporters' stories and created new stories for them in ACM. I'm beginning to get the hang of everything again (I used to work on the web site about a year ago), and I'm getting through the basic needs of every shift quickly. Hopefully in the next few weeks, I can spend more time on making slideshows and other extras.

But for this shift - I had about an hour or so to spare, and I really wanted to find something extra to add to the dayside reporters' stories. I asked Kent Collins, our "Tiger Chair," what he thought the best story was during the day. He told me he felt like Julia Harmon's story about job searches at libraries was interesting. I went to Julia and asked her if there was any additional information that she couldn't fit into her story for the newscast - something that the viewers needed to know, or might want to know. After thinking, she said her interview with the library director was informative, and I asked her to edit more of that interview for the web. I taught her how to make her own sequence, and I posted it as a KOMU.com web extra video link to her story. I then wrote it as the "New on the Web" in the 6pm newscast.

Overall, I was pleased that I did something extra other than editing images and creating stories for reporters. I still wish I could have made a slideshow or something for the MU-KU game, but there's next shift for me to attempt to top the shift before.

The Communicator

Yesterday I showed up to my shift around 2 pm and attended the producer meeting. I was able to learn about the dayside reporters' stories, and sadly I felt like none of them were too visual.

So I went into the reporters edit bays and looked at their videos. I really feel like our Monday dayside reporters are great videographers, so I usually find a few good shots. I took their media cards from their cameras and went through their videos.

I found about 3-5 good shots from each video, and I really concentrated on finding close shots and far away shots - so the reader can see different perspectives. When editing the pictures in Photoshop and adding them into ACM, I really decide what should be the front photo. I feel like a shot that is too close (like splashing water) doesn't really give an idea of what the story is about. So in a story like Max's Water Patrol story, I chose an image that showed a patrolman at work. The story is about job cuts, but it's still intriguing to see someone working.

Around 5:30, I had to give a class a tour of KOMU, so I had to leave the "dot com" area. I wrote a note for Nick and Cate (the people coming in after me) and gave it to the other person working the desk and dot com area. After the tour was over around 6:30, I met back up with Nick and Cate, and they were working on editing the videos from the newscasts. For the next half hour or so, I helped them edit and communicate back and forth with the dayside reporters. This was the first time we created stories in ACM for them, so it was important to let them now. I showed them all of my images, and during her shift, Cate made a lovely slideshow for the newest Sarah's Story.