The Life of a Student Reporter

Tonight I had anchor auditions for WUFT News. This is the one night where I get to showcase the talent that I have and to show to my news directors that I am worthy enough of an anchor position for the upcoming semesters. How does the process work: I show up to my news directors office at 7 p.m. We go over my resume together and discuss my previous work experience We discuss the semesters I will be available to work for WUFT News as well as the position(s) I would like to have  I am given three pages of a practice script  I get 5 minutes to rehearse and practice the script Once my 5 minutes is up, I go into the newsroom studio and go "live" for my report as anchor  And that's it! Anchor auditions are short and sweet, but there are a few twists thrown into the mix. In the three page script, there are words that are hard to pronounce, words that are spelled wrong, inappropriate phrases that we do not use in news, and names of individuals we have never seen befor...

In the life of a student reporter, I am CONSTANTLY, and I mean CONSTANTLY, covering events that are in the Gainesville, Ocala, Alachua County, Marion County, etc area. But this week, instead of focusing on an event for this post, I decided to go outside of my comfort zone... I covered the weather. When it comes to weather, I have 0% background, knowledge or interest in the topic. The thought of becoming a meteorologist is the last thing on my mind. But when it comes to news, however, I am all over it. For me, covering and reporting on the news just seems natural. But this week in the newsroom on campus, I was assigned to cover weather damage that happened in Gainesville earlier in the week. We had severe thunderstorms and tornado warnings causing damage that almost mimicked what we saw during Hurricane Irma, but on a smaller scale. One of the people I interviewed with regards to the weather damage in the Gainesville area was John Shaw, the Emergency Management Director f...

Today I had the opportunity of having my video reel critiqued by a professional in the news industry. One of my professors decided to contact several people he knows currently in the news industry and set up several FaceTime slots for us to talk with the professionals about our reel. I had the pleasure of speaking to Mandy Mitchell. She is a former University of Florida grad and has spent a number of years in the news industry. She originally started out as a sports reporter but has more recently switched over to cover and report on the news. She currently works for WRAL, which is located in Raleigh, North Carolina. During my FaceTime session with her, we talked about the quality of my reel, the different pieces of work I showcase in my reel, and how I can improve it before I graduate. Here is my current newsreel. Take a look at it and let me know what you think! Although I only spoke to Mandy for roughly 10-15 minutes, I learned a lot of from our talk session. If you ever ha...