Cutting it Quite Short

Today was the final newscast, and my last chance to anchor. I've been stressing lately about all of the end-of-semester work, but to be honest it was nice not to worry about reporting for once. I read the Post Standard this morning, and saw that Broadway shows were back on! The stagehands reached agreements to end the strike. I was very excited by this, and thought it would be nice to do a phoner on it. I personally knew how much the strike affected New York, because I was there over Thanksgiving break (and actually saw a Broadway show that wasn't effected by the strike), and saw stagehands picketing, and also noticed how "empty" the city looked (if you could ever call Manhattan empty)-- but especially compared to how it usually is this time of year.

I called many people, but most of the people who would be willing to talk to me were giving meeting with press elsewhere in the city and didn't return my calls. Time to focus on something new! I contacted the Elmira Jackals to look to someone to speak to because their team had gotten into an accident early this morning. I was told that their General Manager was outside meeting with the press as well, but to call back in a half hour. I waited a half hour and called again, but to no avail. He still wasn't back. I asked to be forwarded to his voicemail and planned on leaving him a very friendly message, but gave up hope a little bit that this would work considering it was past 3 o'clock.

I started searching elsewhere for phoners, but five minutes later my phone rang-- it was Mr. Nichols, the General Manager, and he had time to talk to me! This made me feel a lot better. I got that written as well as kickers and some copy stories, and felt prepared for the newscast.

I thought it went very smoothly. Until a certain point, anyways. I was happy with my pacing, but in the end kind of blew it. I married the script. Never marry the script. The end of Team D's newscast is me rushing to give you the current weather conditions. Needless to say I wasn't very happy with that.

But overall this has been an amazing experience, I've learned SO much and had a lot of fun along the way. I listened to my very first wrap the other day just for fun, and I was AMAZED at the difference to my wraps now. I can say now that I feel confident writing, editing, anchoring, producing, reporting-- I feel like I can do it all, and that's a great feeling.