TMM Featured Career: Broadcast Reporter

It’s the end of July already! Whattt? Ridiculous.

Anyways, this months featured career is my good friend, Danielle (aka Newf). Danielle and I went to J-school together before she moved back to Newfoundland to pursue her career as a broadcast reporter!

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1. What exactly is your job?

I’m a broadcast reporter

2. Describe a typical day at your job?

Well there’s never really a typical day… but the day always begins with the morning meeting. It lasts anywhere from 1/2 hour to an hour. We’re given assignments and brainstorm other ideas and different angles we can take on current stories. We also talk about what stories our competitors have been doing.

Depending on what assignments I’m given I usually get started right away. If I have outside events I’ll do a bit of research on whatever it is, if I have time, if not I just wing it. Lately I’ve been in the station, which means I’m interviewing sources by phone, writing, and recording newscasts.

So after the meeting I’ll read through the news just to see what’s going on. Then I’ll start to make phone calls. It’s rare to reach a source on the first try so it’s good to start calling early. Also it gets busier later in the day. Around 10:30am I start to put together my cast, so I choose which stories I want to use, based on the region of the province I’m broadcasting to. Then I record…all. day. I read about 20 newscasts a day. In between those I’m interviewing, and writing, and sometimes finding time to eat. (So I’m one of the people that you hear at most stations at the top of the hour reading the news.)

3. What do you love about your job? Hate about it?

I love the adrenaline rush. The urgency of it all. I love trying to beat out the competition to have the story before them, or have more detail than them. I love that no day is the same, and that I’m always busy. I love receiving compliments and thanks for having provided coverage to an important issue.

I hate that I can’t leave work at the office. Don’t get me wrong some reporters can, but I’m not one of those and I hate my wage. Considering the serious nature of a lot of the stories we do reporters should be making more.

4. Do you see yourself doing this forever? Why or why not?

I don’t really know about forever, because right now it just seems to be exhausting. I can’t imagine trying to raise a family and work this hard. The hours are long and even when I’m off. I’m not really. We call ourselves “newsies” because everything you do is news related. I could be having a conversation with someone and something they say often triggers a story. On my days off I’m also still keeping up on what the station is doing so that when I go back I’m still in the loop. This helps because on any given day I could be assigned to any story. So having the background just makes it easier.

I hope to eventually be doing spot news, which is basically the reporter assigned to do outside events. They’re the face of the station. They cover everything from cheque presentations, to fires etc. It’s exhilarating! It’s unfortunate because I love my job but unless I get a serious pay raise I won’t be doing it forever. As a single women, it’s just not feasible, unless I plan to stay in my parent’s basement forever. With that in mind I’ll probably end up doing PR at some point, preferably for a non-profit literacy organization. Though I’m not sure the money would be much better.

5. What’s one thing about your job that most people don’t realize?

Maybe how hectic it is. I imagine other newsrooms are like this too, but there’s always phones ringing, and audio being played back and multiple people recording at once there’s never quiet. We work on an hourly deadline, because we have a newscast at the top of every hour. Everything we do is urgent. We always want a story like 5mins ago. So whenever you get your interview you basically have to have the story written for the next hour.

6. What’s the biggest way your job differs from print journalism?

Well the deadlines as I explained above but also the celebrity-esque nature of it. I don’t consider mysself a celebrity at. all. But it’s the sort of things when you tell people you work for a radio station they say “your famous.” It just happens. And while my face may be unknown my name is not and that takes some getting use to. I reach an audience of 500-thousand. In print I feel as though you can much more easily fly under the radar.

7. Any thing else you’d like to add?

Radio is a really neat atmosphere. It’s fun especially outside the bubble of the newsroom. Our sister stations always have contests and concerts, there’s always a buzz. Any the phrase “you have a face for radio” completly false. There’s a good-looking bunch at my corp! Feel free to ask me any other questions

Thanks, Newf! XO

Fun fact: My little brother has a job working at the radio station in FSJ this summer! I, on the other hand, could never see myself working in broadcast journalism because I hate the sound of my voice (you can hear my voice in my vlog here).

Do you like the way your voice sounds recorded? And does anyone else have trouble leaving work at the office? (I do, sometimes!)