A Tribute to my Media Friends and Family

(yep, my sister, Marie and Vegas Princess)

Because both of these WONDERFUL ladies were nice enough to help me with a project I did for school, I wanted to share with you the types of stuff they do behind the scenes at their jobs. They both work in the media, in their respective cities, and are best friends. Here, in Cleveland, at CSU, the Communications students got the opportunity to do a "day" internship for the election day. Of course, not knowing what they did or didn't do, I heard their grumblings when they didn't get bylines for work they did. What they don't understand is that much of TV is this way. Unless you are an achor (man or woman), do you ever get bylines for work that you do. So, I asked each of them to type up for me what they did on election day.

Marie's response was:

Didn't want to forget to write this up. For the first time since I've been in TV I wasn't on the front line for our tv production and coverage of the elections. I was working in videotape yesterday so my main concern was to make sure that the videotapes that played the graphics in our monitors was always rolling and ready for air. As for what we did with our tv production we did a LOT! Here is what we have for coverage:

1. We converted one of our tv studios into our, as we called it, 2006 Vote Command Center. The station hired a company that had people at EVERY polling place in the state. Then they have a series of people set up with computers to compile data from the people out at the poll stations so we wouldn't have to wait for the state wires to get information on the air.

2. In the same studio, the Command Center, we set up a continuous web broadcast from 7am to midnight last night. We were the only station in the market to do something like that. We had our anchors rotate going on the air for the TV and going on the air for the Internet.

3. By being having the continuous web broadcast we were able to interview all the major candidates via phone from where ever they were in the state and allow them time to fully answer all the people's questions. Each of the major candidates were able to talk for up to 30 minutes on the Internet.

4. On the tv coverage we had reporters out in the field with all of the major candidates throughout the day as well as going to the place where they were planning to hold their possible victory parties. We had reports at several of the major polling areas in different counties that have had problems with past elections to see how things went. We even had a call center where people could call in if they had problems voting.

5. The morning and noon newscasts were pretty standard. The 5 & 6pm newscasts included a lot of final pushes from the candidates to get the people who hadn't voted yet to try to get their vote. The station gave each of them 4 minutes on the air to answer questions and make a pitch for themselves.

6. We did cut-ins throughout the night during primetime tv programming to alert viewers what was going on with the election. And because of the company the station hired we were on the air declaring victories in a lot races almost an hour before anyone else in our market.

7. There was an extended 11pm newscast and then we have a lower 3rd banner that ran overnight and all morning long saying who the winners were in the election.

Vegas Princess' response was:

1. I started working with one of our producers three weeks ago to make sure all of her lists and AP wires were set up correctly so we would get up to the minute election results on election night. This is so the most recent numbers would appear in our crawls and full screens when we did newscasts or squeeze backs.

2. From 7 PM when the polls closed until midnight we would squeeze back local programming and show elections results at the bottom to the screen. We also did a one minute cut-in and a thirty second topical cut in every half hour until 10 PM.

3. At 10 o'clock we did an hour long election special on MyLVTV (we do their ten o'clock news every night) and simulcast for six minutes on both Channel 3 (NBC) and Channel 12 (MyLVTV) each half hour. At 10:54:00 we started our 11 PM news six minutes early with all the results and announced winners of the election.

4. We had two reporters at the Democratic camp and two at the Republican camp as well as a reporter at each Sheriff's race camp (that was a very hot race for us) They would pull different candidates throughout the night to get their reactions, acceptance speeches or concession speeches on camera. We also had a reporter out on the street polling people about our controversial Questions regarding smoking, marijuana and the minimum wage. Finally there was a reporter who went to different voting stations to see how voter turnout was.

5. We had the option to extend our 11 PM newscast to go until 12 Am but decided not to take it because all of our races were decided at that time. We continued our coverage in the morning showing the results of all the races and having reporters at the two camps to talk about the outcome.

And I would like to point out we did not roll credits, no one said anything about us on the air, we came in did an awesome job and got little to no recognition. We barely even got dinner for us all night. News is not something you get credit for often unless you are a talking head.



Now, you've got to remember, there's A LOT of stuff going on at TV stations across the US that we, normal, every day people just don't see. So, if you know anyone who works in TV, let them know how you feel about them. I know these ladies work HARD at their jobs every day.

So, when someone asks me if I'm in awe about going to a TV station. I pretty much say, eh. Because I share all the "ooh's and ahhhs" with my sister and live vicariously through her (and Vegas Princess), I just see it as another job. I'm not very "star" struck just because she has had the opportunity to touch the Stanley Cup (when it was in Cleveland) and has had an opportunity to hold an actual Oscar (when it was with the actress they interviewed in Detroit).

Marie, I love ya kid. Amanda, if I had to have a second sister, making us a group of three, you'd be it. You're the dramatic one of us. Marie is the practical one, and I'm somewhere in between, even though I'm the OLDEST.

Love to ya all and all of those folks who work EVERY DAY in TV!

Love to all,
Cathy
8^ )

P.S. This information was reprinted without an actual, "Yes you can post this for all to see." Hope they don't mind, because I think it's REALLY important!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!