I watched a story on news.bbc.co.uk and it was titled "Mexico to begin lifting flu curbs." I thought the story was very well done, even though all of the video was wallpaper of people in masks. It gets the point across, has good framing and has great flow in the writing. There wasn't much else to say about it, but I did really like the unique intro, the reporter showed a couple getting married with masks on to protect themselves from the swine flu.
Now to the fun part...
For my second reporter shift I began the day with an email from someone that told me the Missouri Military Academy had shut down their Spring Family Weekend, because they didn't want family coming in and possibly carrying "swine flu" to the school. After the long drive to Mexico Missouri I arrived and immediately interviewed the president of the school. Afterwards he proceeded to showing me about the school while I stopped to take shots of the school and it's students. I asked him if I could speak to one of the Mexican students, it should be noted that none of the students had family or friends who had been infected with the flu. I spoke to him and the president gave me a copy of the letter he sent out to family members. I took a few more shots, found out that I had a couple good follow up ideas after this story and got back to the station around 6 or 7. Once I got back when I was going through all my notes I realized that I had dropped the paper with the Mexican students name on it and I knew I had made a major mistake, I didn't ask him his name on camera and had only written it down. GREAT!!! I asked Randy what to do and told me to refer to him as "one Mexican student."
Next, I looked at my INEWS and saw that I was to go on set with a toss into a package. Mike, the producer, told me that I should do a standup using the letter as a prop, I agreed and went to work. I felt the standup had a somewhat odd transition, but Mike liked it so I kept it. I finished the package at about 9 and now I had to sit and wait for the nerves to build for my first live performance. I read the script over and over, but I was so nervous that I couldn't even soak up what I was reading. I went out at 9:45 to the set and talked to the camera people and tried to figure out what to do. They told me just to wait for the signals then read, okay I can do that. Three minutes before show time I get a script for a tease from Mike, I had no idea when to read it. Next Angie and Jim comment on how bad it looks, because I don't have makeup...awesome, even more for me to worry about. All of a sudden it was show time, I saw my name in the teleprompter and nailed the tease. After a few minutes of standing on the stage I realized that I was sweating bullets and it probably looked like I had just jumped into a swimming pool. Michael's package started, I was next. I thought my heart was going to pound out of my chest, then I thought to myself how dumb I would look if I screwed up...oh wait I'm supposed to read now. I forgot the lines that I had rehearsed for half an hour and Jim and Angie turn after they ask me a question. I didn't know if I was supposed to be looking at them or looking at the teleprompter and I had forgotten my lines. I quickly glanced at the teleprompter for a clue of what to say then turn to Jim and answer his question, slipping up on a word, I'm an idiot. I forgot, I'm supposed to look down then turn to the other camera. I had turned to camera 5 before looking down, so it looked incredibly awkward, then I look down but it was too late...I finished well as it went into the package. Okay, just one more sentence. I finished up well, but of coarse upon further review my head was so shiny that it could have been used to wave planes in for a night landing on an aircraft carrier. Oh well, I'll get better. You win some you lose some.
