Baby Sophia

I'm an aunt!! My brother texted me on Sunday saying, "Baby Sophia was born at 12:09 this afternoon. She weighed 7.2 lbs. Everyone is doing great." Sophia Grace Lucchesi will be my goddaughter!

Baby Sophia's due date was May 22, but as time got closer they didn't think she would come until the 25th or 26th. Well, late Saturday night my brother texted me saying she would be here on Sunday. That morning, I went to St. Louis to see her and my brother. I did not get to hold her because while I was there the nurses were taking care of her. She (and the other babies) did not seem to like being cleaned very much. It was very cute and funny. Sophia is strong and healthy. She was using her arms to push the nurse off her because she did not like the cleaning. It makes me happy to see she already stands up for what she wants! My brother, his girlfriend, and Sophia are all doing wonderful and they get to go to their home in St. Louis in a few days. I cannot wait to see what this little girl has to bring to the world!

Multimedia World...

I really am living in the multimedia world full-time now. And I created it myself. I started working for the Missouri Football Team on August 24, 2009. Majority of my job is providing content to the Mizzou Football Team's web site and blog. Part of the job is also Facebook and  Twitter.

Every. Single. Day. is a challenge. I am very competitive, and I feel as if that is why I decided to take on the multimedia world. It's hot. It's what everyone does. It's what everyone wants to do in some way in their lives. And there's so many people trying to stay on top of  what works the best and what is next. Those people are competitive and driven - like me. And I love it.

I also love sports, so naturally working with a team is amazing. Especially a Division I Football Team. I'm pretty lucky where I am, and I'm excited about what I'll be learning in both the classroom and work place...

Stay tuned.

My life in TV...

is full of hope.

I love my job. I really do. The second I walked into a TV station nearly four years ago, I felt like I was in the right place. I was pushed everyday to learn something new, and I did just that.

Now I sit here knowing I can do almost everything there is to do at "the station" - but I sometimes wonder if everything is enough. Don't get me wrong because this isn't negativity - it's hope. I participate in graduation ceremonies this upcoming Saturday, and I finish my college classes on July 2. And I've never been full of more hope in my life.

Some are scared. Some are ignoring it and pushing it to the back of their minds. And some are just waiting, hoping, like me.

"It's the economy." "Your graduating class has bad timing." These are all things I've heard. Over and over again.  But it doesn't bother me. Because I'm hopeful.

My journalism career has been a major struggle. Getting accepted into the Missouri School of Journalism was one of the hardest things I've worked for in my entire life. There's so much I can tell to that story. But through my excitement, my tears, my pride, my mistakes and each of my accomplishments, I've conquered many goals. I told everyone in my life that I would one day graduate from one of the best journalism schools in the nation. And now I will. 

So, I am not scared. I've conquered the biggest difficulty in my life before. I've climbed the hill, been to the top and moving on to the next place. Who knows where that will be? Hopefully I'll find out in a few months, weeks or days. It will be a place that will push me to learn every single day. A place that gives me more struggles, more thrills and more accomplishments. It will be a place of hope for the exciting future.

Slideshows!

I made another slideshow today for the "Paint the Town Purple" event. Volunteers tied up ribbons around Columbia for Relay for Life.

Creating the slideshow was so easy, I decided to make my own for my web site. Little by little, I can keep fixing the glitches in my site. As soon as I'm done with school next week, I will search and send out my best work and continue the search this summer.

News... and Sports...

Right now I'm debating on missing a college baseball game played at Busch Stadium - the place that made me love sports. I'm focusing my entire day on finalizing my web site. I want to prove that I know news. I know sports. I know the similarities, and I know the differences between the two. In our downsizing news market, where sports are cut first from TV stations, I plan to show that there is a need for both. People need entertainment and people need to be informed. Sports are life to some, sports are a getaway for others, and some have absolutely no interest until it's all that's talked about in town - which happens more often than one realizes. But it's not all about who won the World Series or who got a bid in the NCAA tournament. That's easy to find. I am a reporter. I find what's not easy to find - I find what you want to know and what you need to know. My interest is news; my passion is sports.

Stay tuned for a link to my web site...

Playing with Flickr

Fans wished the Missouri Tigers luck as they left for the NCAA Tournament.

So many details

go into editing a web site! I felt the Monday workday pick up as soon as I walked in. Meaning I could tell there was a lot to take care of from the past weekend, week, month... And I began.

I began updating the Black History Month stories and double checking they were even put on the web, let alone have the correct categories. Beth and I went through the iNews Hold for the reporters' scripts and then checked for them in ACM.

I met all of the new convergence reporters. It's difficult because they are new reporters every week. I never get to develop a real relationship with them, and I don't have much time to realize what type of reporter they are or what their interests are. I believe developing relationships with others in your newsroom is important to the quality of work that gets done in the end. But, I can't control this, so I met them and discussed their ideas. One of them suggested making a Flash map to me first (YEA!). I told him how we've been learning to make them, and encouraged him to ask questions and double check his facts to go with his idea.

While he was gone, I caught up on the rest of the little things like setting up stories in ACM, making images and listening to reporters' stories. I also kept checking up on KOMU.com and fixing little things, such as changing "today" to "Monday" and changing any AP or grammatical errors. The second desk/dotcom girl who came in wasn't sure how to post video or create a new stories for Photo Finish or Your Health, so I taught her how to do all of this.

When the convergence reporter returned, he told me his idea for Flash didn't really go along with the story the live reporter was doing. He didn't ask many questions about it, either, so I told him to go to the city council meeting and ask them there. After all, we are all reporters, and our job is to ask questions! If you notice something different or interesting in the world, ASK! I believe there is no such thing as a stupid question, and I feel like we should always, always ask.

Every shift has came down to my instinct reporting skills, and I really like that I can take my core journalism values and expand them into sharing stories in so many different ways from our web site to television to graphics... and hopefully soon, on a Flash graphic!!