This week I was assigned the task of filming, doing my stand ups, editing, and writing, my own news story without any outside input or suggestions about what to do. This was an interesting challenge because I had to use all the knowledge I gained in order to create my news story. The biggest challenge i face during my project was the video editing. While I began to learn how to use the video editing software at KXAN, I was not fully familiar with it. So after about 4 hours of playing around with the program I finished the project and was able to get a good grade on the story as a whole.

This week was an extremely unique one to say the least. As i have talked about in pervious post breaking news is handles as the most urgent and most important news at any time that it is received. So one morning this past week while shooting regular traffic shots, we got a call from the station about a woman being killed in a road side accident and that we were gonna cover the news for breaking news at the half hour of the morning show. We rushed over to the site of the accident and shortly after getting there we realized the area was completely cut off and we couldn’t get within 100 yards of the accident. The issue was solved by the news team by shooting views of the caution signs, as well as the police patrolling the area. While we could get any shots of the accident itself, I learned that sometimes you have to adjust your expectations to what is made available to you at the time. You make do with what you can.

This week I had a unique story in which KXAN asked the morning crew to visit various HEB grocery stories and interview customers about their experiences with shopping for the holidays. This news story was unique as we used live look ins at 3 different HEB stores where we spoke to customers asking about why they visit specific HEB stores and what they have been able to find as some of the benefits and difficulties when shopping during the holidays. While the story itself was fun and casual many customers were afraid to be on live news and declined to be interviewed on the news. Luckily we were able to find 3 people who were extremely eager to be interviewed. The one thing I learned from doing this story was to be willing to reach out to random people at any moment to get the info you need as a reporter.

Breaking news is always happening in the news world. Many times at the most unexpected moments. This week Southwest Airline Announced that all their flight to and from Austin had been delayed because of overbooking from their online purchasing system. Many people were traveling to Austin to celebrate Halloween the following weekend and the airline sold more tickets than they had seats available. This issue then caused the already bad traffic to become even worse in South East austin near the airport because of people waiting for flights to board and land. The issue was breaking news at KXAN and me and the crew i was working with had to leave our initial assignment to go to the Airport to cover the story. Breaking news causes news stations to adjust on the fly and these stations must have the adaptability to be able to do so in a timely manner.

In almost each and every news story published, there is an interview between an interviewee and a reporter. In Tv news there are two types interviewees, public and professional. Each of these interviewees are handled in somewhat different ways when being interviewed. When interviewing a professional, the interview should be scripted, questions should be written before hand, and generally these interviews are given an allotted time to be kept on schedule. In contrast public interviews are typical more casual, done in a conversational manner, don’t have time limits, are focus on people opinions rather than just relaying face, these interviews are also questioned with a script and can be less formal.

A key element of the morning news shift is centered around worker commuting. Here in Austin traffic is regularly known as one of the cities biggest draw backs, so it is imperative that KXAN news give constant updates about traffic, where congestion is on the highways, what roads to avoid, and where accidents have been reported. My internship has taught me about how to shoot these traffic shots to use as live updates for viewers. One of the most important things to do when filming traffic is to use a wide view so that all the road way can be see, another key thing to do is to shoot against traffic. Shooting against traffic allows the tv viewers to have a better view of oncoming traffic and give a more clear angle of where traffic has built up on the roadway. In the pic true below you can see an example of shooting against traffic.

This week i learned about the important differences between filming indoors vs outdoors.Some of the key initial differences are that indoors you can manipulate background noise a lot easier by closing doors, windows, or simply finding a quiet area to film in. And while that can be somewhat convenient at times, its also important when creating a news story to use natural sounds that are at your disposal, and are often found outdoors. Things like footsteps, random chatter, and other sound effects are used to keep the viewers attention in-between reporting news facts to the public. Another key difference when filming outdoors vs indoors is that an adjustment must be made constable to the amount of sunlight available. A good reporter can use all these elements to film their shots to the best of their ability and help to make a story more pleasurable to not only watch but listen to.

No refusal weekend will be in full effect. Made official by APD police chief this morning @KXAN_News pic.twitter.com/cLefgQ3XvS

— Quinton D. Lilley™ (@writeon_Q) October 28, 2015

Travis county judge interviewing for @KXAN_News pic.twitter.com/3aBlT2PkKT

— Quinton D. Lilley™ (@writeon_Q) October 28, 2015

#DellWorld #DellWorldLive @KXAN_News pic.twitter.com/jCv2YO1hKa

— Quinton D. Lilley™ (@writeon_Q) October 21, 2015

Photos from setup for @KXAN_News live coverage of @Dell world at the Austin convention center. pic.twitter.com/fOtnvlcX8C

— Quinton D. Lilley™ (@writeon_Q) October 21, 2015

A man crashed his car into the capital building perimeter gate this morning during an APD chase, @KXAN_News pic.twitter.com/RmJQHtTe4X

— Quinton D. Lilley™ (@writeon_Q) September 23, 2015

Austin PD Police chief give 615 am presser for fatal accident on 35 feeder rd @KXAN_News pic.twitter.com/h05QsMZfa0

— Quinton D. Lilley™ (@writeon_Q) September 14, 2015

Second day on the job at my @KXAN_News internship and we r at the scene of a fatal car accident on 35 NB feeder rd. pic.twitter.com/JerUxJD8TC

— Quinton D. Lilley™ (@writeon_Q) September 14, 2015

This photo below was taken from a high view inside the Long Center in central Austin. A city held breakfast was hosted there to talk about the improvements needed to b made in the city of Austin.

This photo was taken at the scene of a police chase in Downtown Austin that ended in the Capitol building’s front yard, where a man ran into a tree after driving through the perimeter gate while fleeing from police. He was later found running on foot nearly two miles from the capitol building in a neighborhood housing district just east of HW 35.

These two photos below were taken from the grand opening of a new road in Manor Texas this past November. City officials and construction members held a press conference to welcome the news.

These some of the examples of news coverage i helped to facilitate for KXAN news through out the semester. While these events covered a variety of topics, they were all one day shoots and were published on the 6am, and 12 o clock news yeah day we covered them. I took photographs, performed interviews, live tweeted, filmed, and did many other task to help the news crew at each of these sites.

This is my first post of the semester. I have been doing my internship with KXAN NBC news station, which so far had been a wonderful experience for me. I have been working with the morning news team who helps broadcast austin’s local news each weekday morning from 430am-730am. In my three days of being at the station i have helped to cover a leadership breakfast that was held at the Long Center, a fatal car accident on I35 feeder road, as well as the breaking news of the firing of the University of Texas Athletic Director. All of these stories were drastically different and were covered in different manner but the one consistent thing that existed in all these stories was that the audience was told why this story was relative and important for them to know about. I have been learning a lot about how news is projected through social media and how to present news to austin’s local audience and i hope to continue to learn even more as i progress through this wonderful opportunity.