My week in news, oh’ my week in news… I learned so much during my second to last week as an intern at WAVY. As I said before, I highly anticipated spending time in the news department.

Every day I got to go out on a story. Four out of five of these days, I went out with reporter, Jason Marks. I am so grateful for this. Every day I went out with Jason I learned something new, I learned so much about the art of journalism by shadowing him. He even gave me a chance to do a few stand-ups. He made me do them over and over again, and critiqued me as I went. I needed that. I will remember his advice, throughout my career.

Having a chance to work with the photographers was great too. Nick, Greg, Drew, Kenny, and Aaron were all so helpful. It was so cool seeing how fast they can put a package together when needed. It takes me hours to do what they do (I’m working on it though ). On my day out with Greg, I got to do a stand-up during a march in Portsmouth. We had to hop in and out of the truck to follow the protest which was pretty fun, minus the fact that I wore heels the wrong day lol. It was interesting doing a stand-up with such an active and loud background. My new goal is to strengthen my voice and become more comfortable on camera.

At the end of this week, I was more excited about my future than I have ever been. With hard work and dedication I know that I will succeed.

Tuesday I got to see firsthand what it’s like to be a storm chaser… well kind of sort of.

Jason, Drew, and I hopped in the WAVY van and made our way to the peninsula to catch footage of a storm that Don and the other meteorologist were tracking. The tropical storm was supposed to be pretty bad and was expected to possibly lead for the 5pm show.

We drove, waited in traffic, moved up a tiny bit… and waited in more traffic. By the time we finally made it to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, the skies were grey and it was pouring down. But the rain didn’t last long. By the time we were out of the tunnel the storm had come and gone.  Now this left us with a challenge, what was our story now?

We had a solution; we would find “storm damage.” Problem number two, other than a few broken branches and tree limbs, there wasn’t any damage. We rode around for hours and hours looking for a tree on a house, a car, or something.

Finally we were given the two addresses, one in Newport News and one in a small city by the name of Poquoson. Huge trees had fallen down at both of these locations. One fell in the street and the other on an old truck. We got our story, finally.

We still couldn’t leave the peninsula just yet. We parked the truck in a parking lot next to Wendy’s (and got some good food while we were there). Jason prepared his script, Drew put together the package and we prepared to go live at 10pm.

While we waited we were, approached by women asking about a car accident, harassed by kids wanting to be on TV, and unfortunately we even got mooned by teens in a passing car.

At the end of the day everything came together, we got home safely, and I even got to do my first stand up

The time has finally come; I’m where I always wanted to be… the news department.

With much anticipation and high expectations, my first day in news was much more than I expected. I went to a news meeting where a few of the producers, reports, photographers, and anchors got together and discussed the stories for the evening. Reporters and photographers were given assignments to go out and cover.

I got to go out with Jason Marks to Newport News and Hampton. I had to go out on a pretty rough story. We went to the home of a family who lost a family member a few days prior. 22 year old Darntrell Belle was the victim of a homicide, 15 bullets took his life. The man behind the trigger had been causing a lot of trouble in the area. According to police, whom we got to speak with when we first arrived on the peninsula, he was a dangerous guy.

The hard part about the story was going to the home of the victim. Jason hadn’t contacted the family before our visit, so there was a 50/50 chance that they would talk to us or even answer to our knock on the door. Someone did answer a relative of the victim. On behalf of the family, she kindly declined our offer to speak about the incident. Jason wasn’t expecting this “no” so easily. Shortly, more family members came out of the first floor apartment, including the mother, sister, and grandmother of the victim.

This is when things began to turn around. They were all very hurt as I assumed they would be. I even began to tear up when Darntrells sister broke down at the sight of her brother’s picture. I couldn’t imagine how they felt at this moment.  I kept my composure and remembered that as a reporter I will be faced with moments like this time and time again. I can’t let my emotions take away from what I came to do, find and tell a story. Anyway, after a while Darntrells grandmother decided that she would do the interview.

It was hard, yet enticing to witness this interview. The questions that were being asked brought out so much emotion in the grandmother, who held hands with her daughter and grandmother for support. Throughout the interview all three women chimed in. They let out feelings of anger, pain, sadness, and frustration as they spoke of their lost loved one.

Before I left I gave the grandmother a tight hug, held her hand, and told her “it’s gonna’ be alright.” Though this was a challenge for me emotionally I am very thankful that I was able to go out on this story with Jason. I learned so much from Mr. Marks, from which questions to ask to how to convince people to speak with you. Not only that, but I learned…  I can handle it.

Before I interned in the sales department I honestly had no clue what went on upstairs in the second floor of the WAVY studio. After last week, I was well informed. Christina Close the Director of Research was so helpful and always kept me busy.

Like I said before I really did not know the role of the sales department at WAVY, but Christina broke it all down to me. In a nut shell the sales department is responsible for all the commercials that you see while you’re tuned in to WAVY. Account Executives search for potential clients who they feel can benefit from doing business with WAVY. These potential clients pay to advertise their business on channel 10 or WAVY.com, thus helping bring funds to the station. Account executives sell to both, advertising agencies and local business.

I got to see firsthand how the account executives operate. I first got to sit down with Katelyn while she researched a potential client. It is important to know background information about the business before meeting the client. Knowing as much information as possible makes it easier to come up with an affective agenda. Katelyn was a ton of fun to work with and very helpful.

Next, I got to shadow Linda Snead as she met with a potential client. We went to the Mariner’s Museum and spoke with a representative from their public relations department. It was interesting to listen to their dialogue and to hear how much a company is willing to invest to promote their product.  In this case they wanted to promote their museum and its new exhibit.

I even got on a commercial shoot with Ashley, another account executive, during my week in sales. The shoot was at a pediatric center in Virginia Beach. The shoot went very well and it was fun to see the actual doctors acting out the scenes for the commercial. One thing that really stood out to me is how Ashley took full advantage of her surroundings. After we finished the shoot, we headed to a dental office next store to see if that business could be another potential partnership. One of the most important things I learned about being an AE is you always have to keep your eyes open for new business!

At the end of the week I thanked Ms. Close for always keeping me busy. From meetings to cold calls I definitely got a chance to see what life in the sales department is like.

*Side Note* Ratings, ratings, ratings! Ratings are such an important part when it comes to news. With two other news channels in the market of course you want your station to be the most watched. Ratings can affect a number of things from the content of the news to the ads that are shown.

The first month of my internship has come to an end. I can definitely say that I learned a lot.

The first two weeks I worked in the production department. As you watch the 5p.m news cast you probably fail to realize how many people and how much work is put into that 90 minute block to make sure that you see a “good show.” As an intern in the production department I definitely was reminded of that.

On my first day I worked with Chris. He showed me how the graphics are handled in DEKO. Chris was definitely a character and kept me laughing the whole time.

My second day I shadowed the technical director, Justin. I was definitely intimidated by… the switchboard. There were so many buttons, and at first glance I was so confused. After Justin explained to me what was going on and I watched him work his magic, I realized a lot of the buttons did the same thing.

The next day I worked with Shannon on cameras. This was my first time seeing robotic cameras. I was amazed at how smoothly they worked and how advanced technology has become. One thing I also liked about running the cameras was being able to be on set during the news cast. This gave me a chance to see the anchors while they did their job, which is my goal to eventually do. Shannon was very helpful and a great teacher as well.

On the 4^th day I worked with Meredith who taught me how to run the propter. Running the propter is a pretty simple task but so nerve wrecking, at least to me. If you run the propter to fast or to slow… or not at all you can mess up the anchor who is LIVE on television. That’s a lot of pressure to me, Meredith gave me the chance to run the propter myself and even though I was super nervous, I wasn’t too shabby

Finally, I got the chance to work with Matt on audio. Matt was a joy to work with. You can tell by working with him how passionate he is about his job, and how much he loves bringing the sound to the News cast.

The second week of my internship I got to work in all the sections of production once again, but this week I got to be a little more hands on. All in all, I loved interning in the production department and I am glad I got to meet so many helpful people.

For the next rotation I got to work with the Hampton roads show, this was a blast! I got a chance to work in the booth with the director, where I timed the show. After the show I got to write some of the script, I really loved this. The best part about script writing was hearing the host read the lines that you wrote, the next day. This felt amazing. I also got the chance to floor direct. I had to tell the host where they were supposed to be, how much time they had, and I also had to mike up our guest. I really liked floor directing because it made me feel like I ran the show J

I really loved working with the Hampton Roads show. I got a chance to get to know Mrs. Cooke more and another intern, Latifah. Me and Latifah worked the Hampton roads show together and definitely began to form a bond. We even got to go to Busch Gardens & Water Country USA with Traci(The Face of Fox 43) & Ariane for a long day of shooting, fun, and Zaxbys! Now on to rotation 3 in promotions!

People enjoy tall ships from all over the world at Norfolk's Waterside.

I’m not sure when the last time it was that I so many people at Waterside. OpSail 2012 brought so many people to downtown Norfolk, including myself. Families, couples, people of all ages, races, and demographics were in attendance for the big event. From the WAVY tent I had an awesome view of the festivities. Beautiful tall ships from all over the world graced the waters of the Elizabeth River. I spotted crews of many different nationalities throughout the crowd as they ventured off their ships. Children played, people enjoyed food, drinks, and live music. It was definitely a great sight to see from the WAVY tent. But what I enjoyed most was seeing how much love people had for the station. As people stopped by they expressed to us how much they loved watching the show. At the end of that hot Saturday I felt even more proud to where my WAVY-TV 10 intern badge!

As I sat in the car and waited to enter the WAVY-TV building, I felt so many feelings. I was nervous, excited, and anxious at the same time. Once I entered the green room, sat down, and began to meet the other interns, my nerves began to go away. I was still just as excited, and still just as anxious. This was my first internship and I had no idea what to expect. After the orientation meeting, meeting the Wavy staff, and taking a tour with Ariane Aramburo, I realized that I had nothing to be nervous about. This was an amazing opportunity sitting in front of me, with some amazing people. As I walked out of that building I felt accomplished, as if I was one step closer to my dream.