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Apparently I’m “Too Smart” to Work at ABC-11

Day 4

Downtown Durham is getting a makeover so hipsters can live there in comfort.

That makeover, however, has not yet reached the ABC-11 studio. It’s a stained brick building with a modest entrance and subpar surroundings, as police cars continuously slink around nearby parking lots and neighborhoods. The lobby is confusing and closed off, and I felt like I was in the wrong place until Diane came and took me down to the basement, where the real action happens.

She let me shadow many different jobs, most of which were sort of boring but some were fun and something I might enjoy, like the assignment desk that researches, edits the show, responds to and filters out emails with tips and stories and listens to about six or seven police scanners incessantly reporting, making sure they don’t miss an emergency.

The other exciting thing to do was to sit on the live 12-1 show in the control room, where two people called out to reporters, signaled commercial breaks and constantly “killed” segments  to fit with the allotted time they were given.

But maybe the most illuminating part was just talking to Diane about her job as a “troubleshooter”, and my specific career aspirations and academic interests. She told me that I was much “too smart” for local broadcasting or broadcast news in general, especially compared to their ill-prepared college interns, and suggested that when I go to WRAL, I look at their documentary department.

Why Doesn’t Anyone Pay Attention to Local Government?

Day 3

For the past two and a half hours, I was doing some basic data entry for the NAACP records on county boards of election. These next few weeks are very big in terms of local government, as a congressional primary is being held on June 7th. I’m willing to bet a very small percentage of the North Carolina population even knew there was an election; an even smaller one that was informed about the issues/candidates. The general misconception is that people are only affected by national elections, that all the power rests in the executive office. But the issues of inequality starts from the bottom, as gerrymandering and voter ID laws threaten social and economic minorities and skew voter participation. This is the message that Meta was trying to convey to Durham and the rest of the state through the NAACP chapters, and why my busy work was important.

-Rosie

So I Might get Published


I’m here at the INDY Newsweek HQ and it’s been an incredibly informative day so far.

The day started with a sort of inadvertent crash course on the basics of a newspaper or any sort of news organization, and evolved into a discussion about the basics of journalism as a field. Jeff Billman asked and answered questions with detailed stories and examples, especially about the nature of procuring and editing a story.

The conversation spiraled away and somehow he ended up reading an article of mine I had written a few months earlier about the infamous Shower Club at CA, and he even asked me to write about 3000 words on it by mid June for potential publication, so I’m really excited to work on that!

Now I’m just shadowing an editor’s meeting in which they discuss funding, covers, art and logistics for the publication of the next issue of INDY.

-Rosie

My Cold Calling Adventure

I hate talking on the phone.
Growing up in a world where my communication skills were honed by the written word–something that we have in common with the generation just before telephones–I’m often unsure of what to do or proper protocol in formal phone calls, especially with adults who don’t think twice about it. So having to read from a script I wrote myself was challenging for me and my social anxiety, though the task itself is obviously extraordinarily simple. But busy work like cold calling is integral to a multi-faceted organization like the NAACP, and it was at least informative to see how day to day operations like that work.


-Rosie