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.