Mommy The Journalist: 2014

Time management. It's a skill you'd think anyone working in a deadline-driven career would have. But in the world of journalism, time management isn't as common as you'd imagine, especially for just-out-college journalists.

To be truthful, time management was a skill I developed on my own, not something I learned in a class or even working for the school yearbook. Those skills didn't really get put to the test until I started working at the station as the overnight producer for the morning show.

My training was quick - two days. After that I was on my own. And in this line of work, deadlines are final. There's no such thing as an extension when it comes to an entire show. Missing a deadline is NOT an option. I struggled for the first few weeks, working up until the last possible minute. Sometimes I would even have to run back to the newsroom during a show to correct something I didn't do right.

Over the years I've developed my own system for producing that I try to pass on to all of the producers I train. I do things in a very specific order, every day. I've also picked up tips and tricks for other jobs in the newsroom, specifically reporters.

The biggest advice I can give is to have your story outlined before you leave. That includes knowing what questions you're going to ask before your interview starts. But - and this is a very big but - remember you don't have to stick to only those questions. Sometimes what you envisioned a story to be isn't what it is. Also, have an idea of what shots you need to get video-wise.

During your interview, take notes. This way you already know what sound you want to use when you get back to the office and don't waste 30 minutes logging unnecessary sound. When writing your story, pick your sound bytes first.

My own personal trick to staying on deadline is to set my own deadlines that are earlier than the required deadline. My deadlines are an hour before the required deadline. This gives me time to fine-tune my shows and make any necessary changes or additions.

Probably one of the biggest time consumers I've seen in the past five years is the time spent in front of the mirror. Whether it's putting on makeup or doing hair, I've seen reporters spend anywhere from five minutes to an hour at the mirror. (Note: this excludes touch-ups) So a piece of personal advice I'd like to pass along is this: come to work ready. You never know when something will happen that will require you to be on the air right then.

And in today's world, the internet is a real time waster that can interfere with everyone's day. NewsLab offers a couple of suggestions I would have never thought of to help keep your internet usage on track. Tip #1: add a plugin to your browswer to block certain sites and minimize distractions. Tip #2: learn to file instead of file with the use of apps like DropBox and EverNote.

For some other time management tips for journalists, check out the Reynolds Journalism Institute.

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I've lived through many celebrity deaths - Michael Jackson, Heath Ledger, Elizabeth Taylor just to name a few. But none have really hit me ... until now.

From Aladdin and Jumangi to Patch Adams and The Dead Poets Society, Good Will Hunting, Mrs. Doubtfire, The Bird Cage and even Hook, Robin Williams has been a big part of my life. He made me laugh; he made me cry; and I almost always learned something from his films. It's hard to imagine the future of cinema without him. Instead of mourning his death, I'd rather remember the great characters he played and the things I learned from him both on and off the screen.

Robin Williams was born in Chicago on July 21, 1951. He studied political science before enrolling at the Julliard School to study theatre. He was discovered performing in a night club. He got his big break as Mork from Orc on "Happy Days" in 1974. That performance led to the spinoff show "Mork and Mindy" in 1978. Over the course of his career, Robin Williams appeared in more than 100 films and TV episodes. Ironically, he was voted least likely to succeed in high school. (via IMDb)

Growing up in the 90s and early 2000s, I feel like I grew up with Robin. The first movie I really remember him from is Aladdin as the Genie, a part that he mostly improvised. Then of course came Mrs. Doubtfire. Robin Williams taught me so much about life, especially in his role as Mrs. Doubtfire. My biological parents are divorced so that movie really spoke to me and helped me realize with more certainty that children are not the cause of their parents' divorce.

“You’re not perfect, sport, and let me save you the suspense: this girl you’ve met, she’s not perfect either. But the question is whether or not you’re perfect for each other.” - Sean Maguire, Good Will Hunting

He taught me about love in Good Will Hunting. He taught me about the true meaning of family in Hook. He taught me about loss in Patch Adams. He taught me about freedom in Aladdin.

But the lessons Robin Williams taught the world went well beyond the screen. He was very active in the St. Jude's Children Research Hospital, never charging the organization to appear in commercials or at events. He was also on the board of the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, which raises money to fund spinal cord research. And he was a big supporter of the United Service Organization, which provides support and morale-boosting services to U.S. troops and their families. (via CNN Money)

And those are just the good things he's commonly known for...

After Christopher Reeve had his paralyzing accident, Robin dressed up in scrubs and visited his long-time friend at the hospital. Reeve said it was the first time after the accident that he smiled. During the filming of Schindler's List, Robin would call director Steven Spielburg just to tell him jokes and lift his spirits. (via Huffington Post)

Robin's death has sparked national conversation about suicide and depression. I hope it encourages anyone who is suffering from depression or suicidal thoughts to seek help.

According to a 2011 survey, someone in the U.S. commits suicide every 13 minutes. It is the 10th leading cause of death in America. The highest rates of suicide are among people between the ages of 45 and 65; the second highest rates are among people 85 or older. The South has the second-highest rate in the country. (via American Foundation for Suicide Prevention)

I know people who have tried to commit suicide; I know people who self harm. And while I don't understand the motivation behind either act, I do hope they know that they can always seek me out. Depression is a serious thing that often gets brushed off as someone being too dramatic. It's a topic that no one wants to talk about but that we need to talk about.

If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts or displaying suicidal behavior, there is help out there. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is open 24-hours a day, 7-days a week. Don't wait until it's too late. Call today. 1-800-273-TALK.

Originally posted to my professional blog - www.wtvy.com/blogs/lessons
(photos via cosmopolitan.com)

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Cold. Detached. Emotionless. All words I've heard used to describe people who work in this business. It's usually based off of the way they appear on TV or the tone of their writing - seemingly without feeling.

Not too long ago, one of our up-and-coming reporters talked about flipping the switch. She's recently moved into the slot of number one fill-in anchor and hasn't quite mastered the art of distancing herself from the stories she's reading.

It's not easy to do. When you work in a smaller place, it's easy to get attached to the people who live there. If you're from the place you're reporting in, it can be even harder to distance yourself from stories. But it's something I think most people in this business would agree is a good practice.

If you can't separate your feelings from the story you're telling, chances are you're not telling it fairly. Our job is to let the viewers/readers make up their own minds about the stories we report. Our feelings shouldn't be part of it.

There's also the matter of your own sanity. You've got to know when to flip the switch back on. Just because you don't let the stories get to you while you're on the air, doesn't mean those stories don't have an effect on you. You can't just flip the switch to your emotions off and leave it there. You've got to deal with it eventually. I talked about dealing with the stress of the job HERE.

So how do you know when to flip the switch? I think it's different for every journalist.

In my first year of being in the real world of journalism, I wrote the hardest story I've ever written to date. A teacher who worked with my mother shot and killed his wife and his son. The story rocked me to my core. At the time I was working the overnight shift as the morning show producer. I cried most of that night. I haven't cried over a story we've covered since then, at least not at work.

Maybe that sounds harsh, but it's really the only way I know how to survive the horrible stories we cover day in and day out. If I didn't flip the switch on my feelings, I'd never make it through the day.

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I grew up without social media, and I'm glad I did. Middle school was tough enough without having to worry about it spilling over to the World Wide Web. The extent of my "social media" involvement before graduating high school was an online blogging site called Xanga, AOL instant messenger and the occasional chat room.

I joined Facebook the summer before I went off to college. That was back when all the site had to offer was wall posts, private messages, pokes and limited photo albums. I created a MySpace profile during my freshman year; it is now nonexistent. I started blogging here my senior year, but didn't really get into it until I started working full-time. Also since I started working, I've started a Tumblr account (which is woefully neglected most of the time), have a LinkIn profile, joined Pinterest, started tweeting and just recently started using Instagram. And, of course, I have access to all of these social media outlets on my phone.

Looking at the list I just typed makes me feel a little overwhelmed by the amount of time I must be devoting to these websites. And I'm not alone. We're connected 24/7/365, especially teenagers and pre-teens.

According to Leverage:

There are 70 million active users on Pinterest.
Twitter's 560 million active users sent 5,700 tweets per second.
1 billion active Facebook users share 2.5 billion pieces of content each day.
Instagram has 150 million active users.
Google+ boasts 400 million active users with 925,000 signing up every day.
LinkedIn has 240 million active users. 79% of users on the professional social networking site are 35 or older.

I use social media to network, save recipes and home project ideas, reconnect with old friends, work and stay entertained. Kids, on the other hand, are using it in place of everyday interactions, choosing to text or Snapchat someone rather than carry on a face-to-face or even over-the-phone conversation. Not only are conversation skills deteriorating, but kids are also not learning how to deal with problems. Instead, of working things out in person, they resort to name-calling and bullying on social media.

An even-scarier trend has emerged recently. Kids are pre-arranging fights for the sole purpose of having them recorded and posted to YouTube. We did an investigative series on this alarming trend last month. You can watch them here, here and here.

This latest trend in cyberbullying makes me even more grateful to have grown up in a time without social media. Nowadays, kids don't get any breaks from bullies.

Back when I was in school, if you had a problem with someone you fought about it and then it was over. You didn't have to worry about someone sending you threatening text messages or posting all the details of your argument all over the internet. Nowadays you can't just get over your differences. They live forever online.

According to nobullying.com, 25% of teenagers say they've been bullied through their cell phone or over the internet. Fifty-two percent of young people say they've been cyberbullied. A third of those say they were threatened online. Even more disturbing, of the 55% of teens on social media who say they've seen cyberbullying, 95% say they ignore it.

I don't know about you guys, but those are scary statistics.

Learn more about cyberbullying and ways to prevent and/or report it at http://www.stopbullying.gov/cyberbullying/

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In my short tenure in this business, I have worked with a lot of people. And the longer I stay in one place (which is seeming more and more likely), the bigger the generation gap becomes. I feel like I'm way too young to be using that phrase, but it's very true.

The face of journalism is changing. I mean, the faces of journalism are literally changing. The reporters and anchors many of us grew up knowing are leaving the business and being replaced with fresh, young faces. In some markets, like the one I work in, that changeover happens every few years.

Since starting my career, the journalists I've worked with have spanned the spectrum of experience. I've worked with veteran reporters, those fresh out of college and those who are just starting to find their footing.

Over the past 5 years, the thing that sticks out to me the most is just how young the new generations seem, not just in age but also in spirit. Maybe it's because when I got my start in this business, I was surrounded by those who had found their footing. Not really veterans, but several years out of college and dedicated as heck. I'd like to think that I learned from some of the best people in this business (their next moves lend some validity to that point), and now it's my job to pass that knowledge on to the next generations.

If I've said it once, I've said it 100 times: my station is a great place to get your start in this business. We're considered small market, but we operate like a much larger one. We're the number one station in our area, but we don't pride ourselves on being first; we'd rather be right the first time. With that being said, we expect a lot from our staff, regardless of if they're one week or two years into the job.

Because we do typically have a much-younger reporter and producer base, mistakes are made. In this current 24-hour news cycle we operate in, those mistakes are much more noticeable and our audiences are less forgiving.

Between updating websites and social media constantly before the show even airs, I have to wonder - do these new kids not have as much time to learn and develop the skills they need to not make those mistakes? Or maybe it's more basic than that. Maybe schools haven't updated their teaching methods to match the current state of the news world. It could be even deeper than that. It could be that the business is being inundated with more and more of those members of the so-called "entitled generation" who don't truly know what it means to work. And at my station there's always this to consider - some are so focused on getting to the next gig, they can't focus on their current one.

Whatever the underlying factor, the journalism generation gap is very real and getting more pronounced with each passing year as more of the faces we've come to trust and rely on for news hang up their microphones. With them goes the experience and know-how that makes many newsrooms across the nation credible. They're slowly being replaced with inexperienced faces that viewers don't relate to or trust, regardless of their ability or credibility.

Pretty soon that generation gap won't exist anymore, simply because all the old timers will have retired. We'll be an industry made up of journalists with minimal to middle-of-the-road experience, which has me wondering - will our audiences be tolerant of our new-found learning curve?

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synonyms: cleverness, genius, imagination, ingenuity, inspiration, inventiveness, originality, talent, vision

I've always been creative. I guess it's in my genes. I have an aunt who is a professional artist; my biological father makes signs for a living; my mom is a teacher.

I've been writing as long as I can remember, from personal journals to short stories and poetry. Once, inspired by Nancy Drew, I even wrote a mystery book about some of my classmates. When I was in elementary school, one of my short stories was published in a compilation book of student works. It was about a world inside of a discarded Sprite bottle. Now, in addition to the stories I write for the news, I write for this blog.

So obviously I've got some creativity running through my veins, but why news?

I had my first experience with "news" in middle school. My class put together a little newspaper. Okay, so it was more like a glorified newsletter complete with Valentine's Grams and even some relationship gossip. Then, I got involved with my high school's newspaper, 'The Paw Print'. From sports to news to layout and design and ad sales, I did a little bit of everything, and I fell in love.

The next step was obviously to get involved in college. Instead of going the traditional route of joining the newspaper staff or working at the television station, I joined the yearbook staff. The Palladium was more like an annual magazine than a yearbook, full of sports stories, features on students and faculty, stories on campus events, etc. I worked my way up to the editor-in-chief position my senior year, managing a staff of more than 20 students.

I interned with a local magazine the summer between my junior and senior years of college. That experience exposed me to a whole different type of journalism. It was more socially driven, lighthearted and featuresque.

Now, I work at the number one local television station as the Senior/Executive Producer. I find that it's a combination of all three of my previous experiences rolled into one but with video added in.

My love for this field hasn't diminished yet, despite the stress that often comes with the territory. This field may not be as lucrative as an accomplished author's, but I don't think I'd enjoy that profession any more than this. Creating worlds and characters is one thing. Being able to tell the stories of real people is something else entirely, and I get to do that every day.