Oh, Flash...

So last week I switched up shifts with another classmate, and I could tell it was a different news day for sure. All but one of the dayside reporters were in Jefferson City for meetings and more. It was rough finding great images from their videos because everyone had shots of the capitol and simple meeting video, but we searched and came up with a little.

Once I had the general duties out of the way, I was ready to play with Adobe Flash. I felt like the stories weren't very visual, so I thought I could really find some facts to pull something together. Nicole's story was a grain company scamming farmers in Missouri and parts of Illinois. I wanted to make a map, so I made a call to one of her sources to find out the exact locations. I spent a good 2 hours searching for the best map with highways and interstates to label the areas affected. Once I found one, I used the shapes and colors to label the areas. It was frustrating to label it correctly and I forgot a lot of details from when we learned how to use it. By about this time, my shift was ending and the next person was coming in. I told him what I was doing and he wanted to work on it as well. I don't think it ever got posted (sadly) because I don't know if we've gotten that far.

BUT this week I will pitch good visual Flash stories with the nightside reporters and work on them while they're out on their shifts. Let's hope for a good news day on Monday!