Tough One

This may have been the toughest story I've ever had tonight. I worked off a tip from a caller earlier in the day who said she felt she was excessively pressured by a salesman from APX Alarm, a security system company. I talked to her by phone and she said she could do an interview, but not on camera. I asked if anyone else in the neighborhood that she knew felt the same way about the salesperson or salespeople from APX. She said she couldn't find anyone who could talk about it. She did say the person next door disconnected the service she bought from APX a few years ago. I kept in contact with this woman throughout the afternoon as she kept checking in with neighbors. Meanwhile, I called a local security system company to get its take on door-to-door sales. I set up an interview with the owner there at about 5 p.m. After that, I headed to the person's house who made the call to KOMU. I talked with her for a few minutes and then decided to go into the neighborhood to see how other people felt. I talked with two people who said they felt the salesperson made a fair pitch. I wondered at this point if I actually had a story. I called Mike Brannen and he told me to keep pursuing. I went to a house that had an APX sign in front of it. There, I was able to talk to a woman who said she has had no problems with APX. Now I had both sides of the story. I was able to get some shots of the security equipment in her house and some nats sound of the system working.

I headed back to the station and arrived at about 8:30. I got to work and realized I needed to do a phone interview with the spokesman from APX. I recorded this at about 9 p.m. and then started editing. Mike moved me down to the D block to allow for more time to edit. A graphic was created for the phone interview. I put all this together and my story made it in its spot in the D block. It turned out pretty well, I think for the time I had. I should have been back at the station sooner, but it was hard to find people to talk to in the neighborhood. I think I definitely need to set a goal of being back by 7 p.m. each shift from now on. That will guarantee I can get everything done the way I want it to. I need to start working quicker from the very start of my shift at 1:30.

Change At The Fair

Today I investigated a story on the Callaway County Sheriff's Department not sending deputies to the county fair this year. I called the sheriff and he was very willing to talk with me. I also was able to talk with the man at the company that set the sheriff over the edge by agreeing to have a show at the fair, Mid-Missouri MMA. This company is up in Moberly, so it took some thinking about how to schedule the interviews. I decided to head to Fulton and the sheriff's department first. I talked with the sheriff and got in contact with officials from the Callaway County Fair. I was able to talk to the officials at the fairgrounds and I was able to get some b-roll as well as a stand-up there. I then headed out to Moberly to talk with Ricky Davidson from Mid-Missouri MMA. I got some quick b-roll with good nats sound there and did a quick interview. I got back to the station a little after 8:30.

Writing and editing went pretty well. I wish it would have been a little quicker, but I was still done with about 10 minutes left before the show. I was upset to see a little bit of the camera shadow in my shot on my stand-up. I didn't see this in the viewfinder when I was shooting. It was only in the HD portion, so it wasn't too big of a problem. I also wish I would have made it clearer that the Mid-Missouri MMA company is the one performing at the fair next week. It did kind of seem to me that the company I talked to was just another company and not the one actually performing.

Taking Off

I was called in early to the station today to report on the reopening of a renovated runway at the Moberly airport. I arrived at the station at about 12:15 and hit the road about 10 minutes later. I arrived at the airport and a caravan was heading out to the renovated runway. I followed them and then got footage of the ribbon cutting and some quick shots of the new surface of the runway. After the ribbon cutting, a man offered to take me up in his plane. I said I would go, but then declined to actually go up in the air and decided just to take a quick taxi around the airport. I got some shots while doing this, but I wasn't able to make any work in my story. I was able to humanize this story around the pilot and how he has been flying here for 20 years. He said he thinks the new runway will help Moberly attract more businesses. I also interviewed the public works director for the city. For some reason his audio was really bad. I think it may be because the mic was too low on his tie and it was very windy out on the tarmac. I will have to keep that in mind next time I am in that kind of a situation.

I got back to the station at about 5 p.m. and was editing by 6:15. The package came together pretty well with the exception of the audio on my interview with the public works director. I think I used nats sound well from the airport and had good referencing. I was also able to get some good pictures up on KOMU.com with my still photo camera that I used this time. I was happy with how much better they can look than some of the video stills.

Treading Water

Today I called pools around Columbia to see how they are faring during a tough summer economically. I found the West Broadway Swim Club had memberships drop by about 40 families this year compared to last year. I was able to get the source for this information agree to an interview with me at the pool. Before calling this person, I went to the city's Douglass Pool to find out how it is faring this summer. I was able to talk to an assistant manager who told me attendance has increased there since they lowered the price to $1 per person in 2008. She says they are seeing more families come out because it is more affordable. I then got some shots of kids playing in the pool. From there, I went over to West Broadway to talk with the man I set up the interview with. Before he got there, I talked with a member at the pool to help humanize the story. She said she would have to drop her membership if there were changes in her family's budget. She said it was important though to keep the membership while they still had the funds because it was a way to build memories and continue a tradition during the summer. It was important to get this view to show what someone who is paying the membership fee thinks about this cost during this economy.

Once I had all these interviews, I got back to the station with plenty of time to edit. I put together a pretty good package with nats sound and the three sources. I wish I would have included the price at the Douglass Pool in my package ($1), but I think it got cut out somewhere in the editing process. I think it would have helped to make the story a little clearer. But otherwise I think the story turned out well. I liked the information in the tag that I was able to add. I added information that I gathered from two other pools I talked with earlier in the day. This was able to add further context to the pool business in Columbia.

Building Up

Tonight, I followed up on a lead I got when reporting yesterday at Cool Stuff. An employee there told me he was laid off in the construction industry and has since been hired in the retail industry at Cool Stuff. He said construction companies are laying off more experienced workers in favor of cheaper ($10/hour) employees. I went back to Cool Stuff today and he was working there. He did want to give the name of the company that laid him off, however. But he did give me a tip that many laid off construction workers hang out at the Black & Gold Bar on Business Loop 70. I headed there and found some people in the construction business but none were willing to talk on camera. So, I went to a few construction sites around town asking what the workers there thought about the industry. I finally found a good interview subject at the Alive in Christ Lutheran Church in south Columbia. I was able to get a good interview with him explaining what he thinks about the state of the Columbia construction industry. He gave some good insight on why jobs may be falling. I still needed one more person on camera. I looked around town for more construction going on because the construction at the church was just finishing up for the day as I arrived. I found people still working on the Brady Commons project on campus and began to shoot that. Just as I put the mic on one of the workers there to interview him, a supervisor came up and said "no interviews." So, at 7 p.m. I didn't have many options left. I headed back to the station and began to edit a mini-pack.

Ryan Takeo said he had scripted an on-set with a mini-package for me. I got to work and had everything ready to go by 9:40. The on-set went pretty well, except I jumped the gun a little bit starting off. Gordon told me about that in the critique. I have to wait for my cue to start talking from the floor director. Tonight, I just went off when Jim and Angie were done talking. I know now to wait for the floor director's cue. I thought the package turned out well. I wish I would have had another source, but I think it still turned out OK.

The Retail Industry

On Wednesday night, I pursued a story on retail jobs in Columbia. There had been a report that retail jobs were up 40 percent in Columbia from 2002 to 2006. I tracked down the MU professor who was part of the report and was able to get a great interview with him in his office. I then headed downtown in search of a local business that could provide some further "today" context on the story. I wanted to see if a business could support these findings from the professor and how its hiring was going now. I wanted to see if retail hiring saw an increase or a decrease from 2006 to 2009. I tried many stores and none were able to give me enough information or were not willing to go on camera. Finally, at Cool Stuff, owner Arnie Fagan agreed to speak with me. He said he is actually hiring more this year compared to years in the stretch between 2002 and 2006. This was a good contrast and added context to what the professor said.

I got back to edit in plenty of time, at 8:15, but there was a problem importing my clips into Avid. I accidentally closed the video converter when I was importing clips from one memory card into Avid. This is because I was trying to convert my clips from the other memory card while importing the clips I all ready converted. I know now that this is not possible. This mistake cost me a lot of time as I had to reconvert everything from the first card, which had most of my video. I was able to get a package on the air, even though it wasn't edited very well and the shots were not that interesting. I had better plans for the package, including adding nats sound of the cash register, but the converting problem really set me back. I also probably should have lit my standup a little differently. I also know to shoot less video overall because it is hard to convert just what you want out of a lot of video. I learned a lot once again from this shift and I now have many things to keep in mind for the future.

Back At It

I'm back in Columbia for the start of broadcast 3 so it's time to restart the blog. I had my first two reporting shifts this week and there were some challenges, as well as some excitement, as I got back into newsroom.

On Wednesday, I was assigned the story of an Eldon man involved in a multi-state dog fighting ring. I called the Miller County Sheriff's Department and the Eldon Police Department. They both said they didn't have any information on the address of the man. So, I loaded up the gear and took off for Eldon hoping to find someone there who knew where he lived. My producer, Mike Brannen, called when I was in Eldon and he said he found the address from another report so I headed for the street. I talked with some neighbors there who confirmed the house where the man lived and said they saw the dogs being taken in the morning. None of the four neighbors I talked to wanted to go on camera, but they all were willing to talk to me off-camera. All of them said they had no knowledge that dog fighting was taking place at the home. I talked to one neighbor who said the woman he lived with might be home, but I didn't feel comfortable going to the door by myself knowing this could be a very violent home.

I was upset I could not get anyone on camera to do a package, but at least I was able to get shots of the house and some comments off-camera from neighbors. I was able to turn in a pretty good on-set that led the show on Wednesday. I did forget to print the script which had two lines for me to read when the anchors turned, but was able to adjust. I need to remember all of the parts of the on-set and I will be especially careful after this experience during my first one.

On Thursday, I followed an interesting story on Jefferson City water customers who will have to pay for four months worth of sales taxes that were left off of their bills. I found one man who was rather upset about the issue, even though the total cost that has to be made up averages to about $1.50 per household. He was a good CCC, although it took me awhile to find him. I tried about six or seven houses with sprinklers running and no one wanted to go on-camera. That led to me not heading back to the station until about 8 p.m. Then I realized I left my mic cords at the man's house, so I went back to get them. I didn't get back to the station until about 9 p.m. I was able to get the package on with help from many people in the newsroom. Holly suggested after the show I should have called back to see if someone could pick up the cords for me to help save time.

I thought the package did turn out pretty well. It had both sides of the story, from a customer's perspective and an official's perspective. The only other problem was my distance from the microphone during voicing. I need to remember to stay closer. Again, more time would have helped.

I learned a lot this first week and definitely know some things to work on. I look forward to the rest of the summer and continuing to improve.