I am in disbelief that today is my last day here at WAVY. I have loved every minute of my time here. The people that I have met, the things I have learned, and the memories I have made will stay with me forever. I can’t say thank you enough to everyone I have worked with, each have shared there own personal words of wisdom, words that I’ll remember more than any textbook material I’ll learn in school.

My last week has been chaos. I worked on The Hampton Roads Show, spent a few days in sales, gave my final station tour, finished my project, and worked on the over-night shift for news. I haven’t slept much the past few days, but it was all worth it. I don’t know what the future has in store for me, but I do know I won’t be saying goodbye to WAVY, just a “See ya later.”

Love, Tracey.

“…. So when you’re famous we can say we met you.”

Throughout my time here at WAVY I have given numerous tours around the station. I gave my first tour when I was working in promotions, and continued to give them throughout my time in other departments. With each tour that I gave, I learned something new about the station. Every group asks different question, some that I knew and some that I would have to go and ask someone about later. Now I don’t know everything about this station, but I guess I know enough to be dubbed the “Tour Guru” by Kristen.

My familiarity with tours led to myself and another intern being assigned the task of creating a station tour guide pamphlet. Aside from the tour information, they wanted a section that included history about WAVY-TV. I learned all about the station’s beginnings and the people who used to work here.

Being a tour guide also reminded me how lucky I am to have this internship, but as a woman in my tour group reminded me, “No honey. You’re not lucky, you are blessed.” I couldn’t agree more, I will always be grateful to WAVY for this opportunity. I had a tour group of exchange students from Russia who gave me Nesting Doll that they brought from Russia. I already know that this doll will sit on my desk when I am older, a constant reminder of where I first got my start in news.

Tomorrow I will be giving my last station tour. I am in disbelief that my internship is days away from coming to an end.

Week number seven has come and gone and I can not believe this internship is almost over. I am wrapping up my last two weeks here at WAVY working on the Hampton Roads Show.

I spent the first week sitting in the control room, where the commentary of the show is reality TV worthy. Between Susan and Kyle’s comments, a day didn’t go by where they hadn’t made me laugh.  Being in the control room taught me again how ever-changing TV can be. Things were being added last minute, and the final details of the show were being created as the tapes were already rolling.

Quote of the week: “Red or white? …Vodka.” –Susan

I also go to go out on some shoots. I went with Craig and Chris to Atlantic Shores and Ocean Breeze. Craig let me interview some of the people that were going to be on the Hampton Roads Show talking about their favorite Olympic Memory. Through out the interviews I was reminded how much I love listening to people tell stories about their past. Everyone has a story to tell, you just have to be willing to listen. Our second stop of the day was Ocean Breeze, and unlike Chris, I was not dressed for the occasion. Chris advised me that a reporter should always be prepared, but I don’t think a bathing suit will ever be included in my “just in case” bag at work. I actually used to work at Ocean Breeze, and my old bosses had to do a double take to recognize me in a blazer and heels. Note to self, always pack a pair of flats.

Second Quote of the week: “If any one tells you that you can’t do something, tell them you know how to build a house. That’ll show ‘em.” – Eric Pyburn, who since my first day hasn’t missed an opportunity to make a joke towards me.

I working the early morning shift my second week in Web. It’s interesting to start the morning and be able to watch news stories develop right before your eyes. I spent the first part of my shift posting AP stories, which was basically perfecting the art of copy-paste. Morning web also get the first sight of the morning stories.

The majority of my week was spent on the story of the missing Ohio mom in the Outer Banks. The web desk received an email stating that Dare County officials were looking for a missing person from Ashland, Ohio. They didn’t give any information on the gender, name or the circumstances surrounding the disappearance. I used Google to see if any news about the story has been posted by the news stations in Ohio. The search came up with a story that no one expected. Ohio stations were reporting that Lynn Jackenheimer was reported missing after her boyfriend, Nate Summerfield, returned back from vacation with Jackenheimer’s two kids, but not with their mother. As a collective whole the web desk knew this was a big story. This story would reach national headlines, and WAVY needed to be leading the coverage from this area.

Web desk had to fight to get this story assigned, the story was just beginning and others felt it was too soon to be a big deal. Jackenheimer had only been reported missing the day prior, everyone seemed to think the story should just simply take the back burner. We insisted that this story needed to be covered and we eventually convinced a reporter to take the story. The web desk than became the lead source of any information regarding this story.  I put my internet stalking skills to good use as I found every piece of information on this story that had ever been posted on the web. I used Facebook, Google, and Twitter to see what people were saying about Lynn.

Throughout the day, the reporter working on the case relied on the web to find out all the details. We learned about the 911 call from Summerfield’s brother, the photos posted by Lynn the last day she was seen, the photos posted by Nate of his vacation, and all the details that led up to Jackenheimer’s disappearance.

I had never realized how much work web did on news stories, or how little recognition they received for that work. For days we fought to get the newsroom to acknowledge the importance of this story, the fact that it was the most viewed story on wavy.com didn’t seem to be enough. Just as we predicted, the story received national recognition when Good Morning America did a report on it. The local ABC affiliate had not only caught up to WAVY’s coverage, but because they were getting support from higher-up, they began leading the coverage locally. They were also receiving national recognition for the information they provided to Good Morning America. It wasn’t until then that everyone in the newsroom became interested in this story.

I loved that I had the chance to see this story grow. Personally, I knew everything there was to know about the case, probably more than the reporter. I had read everything that had been reported around the nation and knew which facts were accurate and which were false. My last project that I worked on while in Web was the timeline that I outlined. I went through the story to create a day-by-day outline so Jane could construct the photo- time line for the web.

I enjoy writing and I enjoy learning, those interests are what drive the web team. They are researching stories as they happen and recording the information that reporters may have found in the field.

My first week in Web was spent on the evening shift. My job focused mainly on cutting videos from the 5 pm, 5:30 pm and 6 pm newscasts. Even though I did get to write two article of my own, I really enjoyed the times I got to watch the chaos of the newsroom. While I can’t remember now what breaking news story was being covered, i do remember how everyone knew what had to be done in order to get the website updated as soon as possible.

I spent the other half of my days in production. I was fun to see how the control room works in a real newscast. For the most part, I understood how the control room worked; I had taken a class in the spring where we simulated a newscast in our studio. But class of course had no comparison to the real thing. During the show, a producer could change an entire block in the matter of second. Stories would get cut, graphics would be changed and everyone would have to rely on directions from the producer to do their job. One thing that stuck with me was the advice I got, “There is never a perfect newscast.” I learned that everyone makes a mistake, that’s inevitable; your focus should just be to not let the mistake be one that you could have prevented. For me, that mindset takes the pressure off. If a mistake happens, you keep moving, its live television so there’s nothing you can do about it now.

The past two weeks I have been in the news department and it has been nothing less than chaos! My first day I worked the assignment desk, which I enjoyed more than i thought i would. I never realized how hands on the staff was behind the scenes. I had always thought that stories were just assigned, I dint realize that every reporter got the opportunity to pitch their own story if they had one. The morning meeting were sometimes my favorite because after each story was pitched, there would be a discussion on what different angles we could use and why that story would be important to our viewers.

My experience was different from what other interns might experience because I got to cover a breaking news story on four different days. The live shots and the quick turnovers needed left little room to do any standup on my own, but I got to learn a lot just by observing and taking mental notes. Melanie made sure that she explained each task she was doing and gave tips on how to make those task easier and more effective.  I am not disappointed that I didn’t do stand-ups because I think I am coming out of this department with an experience that trumps getting myself taped on camera.  I learned a lot about script writing and how important it is as a reporter to avoid “journalese” as Mark calls it. It is best to just tell the story as if you were telling it to a friend.

The main thing I wanted to accomplish while in the news department was to write and edit my own package, and that is exactly what I did. I have never really used Avid before and I wanted to learn how to take all those clips and arrange them in a way that complimented the script and the story being told.

I had so much fun working at OpSail this weekend! The weekend started out on Friday when WAVY-TV was doing live broadcasts pierside. My job turned into security when we started filming. Most of the day’s crazy stories came from when we were trying to keep people from walking in front of the camera. Apparently I wasn’t as intimidating as I should be because most of the people there didn’t even notice that I was standing in front of them with my arms stretched out. One moment was caught on camera when a guy walked past me and after realizing the camera was live, he jumped into the shot and tried to put his arm around Nicole Livas. Stephanie Cooke of course jumped in and Nicole Livas made her phrase of the weekend, “Really Dude!”  Its crazy moments like that that make live television so entertaining.

Myself and the other intern, Alyson Laughron, got our debut on WAVY-TV 10 when Ryan the Balloon Guy made us crazy balloon hats. I had a monkey on my head and she had an octopus, so we were featured on the Activities for Kids Spot on the Morning News. We continued to wear our hats all day and receive countless “I like your hat” compliments.

Getting to spend the whole day Friday with various people from the station was a ton of fun. I came back Saturday night to help out with the night shift. By the time I came all the prizes were gone and all that was left was the foam swords and hurricane ready guides. The entertaining part about Saturday came when people cam eup to me and said “I watch you on the news all the time, I love WAVY-TV 10.” I would take this as a compliment except for the fact that if they actually watched our channel they would know that I wasn’t a reporter. I think they just assumed that I was on-air talent because I was in the WAVY-TV and FOX43 tent and because I was wearing a WAVY-TV 10 hat.

My first week in promotions at WAVY-TV 10 and FOX43 was jam-packed. On my first day I was assigned to writing the press release, or “presser,” for OpSail 2012 Virginia and Harborfest. I couldn’t believe that they would trust me with a project so soon. That was the first press release I have ever written. I have read about them in school so I knew the general idea about how they were worded, but for the most part I was completely clueless. After writing my first draft I was very proud to hear my supervisor tell me that it was one of the best pressers she has read, especially for a first timer. After a few revisions, my presser was completed and was sent out later in the week. As if writing the presser wasn’t enough, my supervisor also taught me how they complete the Logs for both stations. The logs are how the stations dictate what commercials and promos are going to be aired at which time. After the sales department fills up the spaces for commercials, whatever time slots are left over, the promotions department fills with station promos and advertisements for syndication.

Later in the week, I got the chance to write the topical for the Hampton Roads Show. I worked with Mike Booth in my department and we watched video clips that were going to be featured on the next episode. After we chose our clips, I wrote a script and then we set it to the guy who does the stations voice-overs. Once we had the audio, I learned how the promos were put together and next week I’ll hopefully be able to edit on all on my own.

The rest of my week was filled with preparing for OpSail and for The Hampton Roads Young Achiever Award Banquet. I filled the gift bags for the recipients and organized the prize boxes for OpSail. I also put together the prize wheel that was used on Saturday! My week concluded with all of OpSail events, which I’ll talk about in another post.