8 weeks as a niner @aninternexperience-blog - Tumblr Blog

Work experience

The work experience at KTSM consisted of helping out anyone in the newsroom. Whether it be transcribing interviews or going out to shoots with photojournalists I always had a daily task. Going out with the photojournalists and photographers allowed me to grow as a journalist. It allowed me to learn through observation and eventually through practice how reporters gathered information. As a summer intern at KTSM I helped write VOs/VOSOTs, transcribed and translated interviews, helped gather information for anchors readers, and of course interviewed subjects.

List of resources

At KTSM the newsroom gathers news by utilizing these websites

- newsource.cnn.com

-hosted.ap.org

They also call their sister stations for confirmation of news

Going to miss this place

#NC9

The Big Picture

I still remember my first internship day at KTSM. I remember sitting in the lobby, getting a tour, printing my badge, and being exposed to the behind the scenes of a newscast. These last 8 weeks were filled with exciting new experiences that I owe to KTSM.

Every time I walked into the news room I was often perplexed at what was going on around me. It took me a good two weeks to see a pattern and learn how things worked around here. After the 3rd week I understood who did what and how things were assigned. Getting to know the software they use to edit and write scripts on took a little bit of some adjustment but I eventually understood what I was doing. Interning at KTSM made me realize what everyone defined as a fast-paced environment. I learned that you always have to stay current with what is going on around you. Things happen unexpectedly and you always have to be prepared. I also learned that it’s never too early or too late to learn some new skills. I doubted myself many times in regards to being able to do certain things. For example simple things such as running prompter or even interviewing subjects, but on my last day at the station I realized that I still made mistakes. Most importantly I realized I now had more confidence in myself to do the job. It’s funny how you can learn from even the smallest things. Despite the internship only being 2 months, it has given me more confidence to interview and believe in my work. It has also given me the ability to think fast on my feet and take a chance on new things.

#lastday

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3bmOlhlSAQ)

#Informationalinterview #journalism

A day at the desk

Career Goals

While coming to the start of my internship, I felt nervous for my first day. This same feeling that many other interns must have gone through before and during their first day. It was unclear what my career goals were. Many employees I encountered at KTSM wondered and I didn’t have the perfect answer. In fact, at many times I was even confused as to what to answer. During my first week there the question of what I wanted to do once I graduated came up more than just a couple of times. As the internship progressed I learned more about myself and what I enjoyed doing. At the KTSM summer internship I did a rotation among many of the positions to have general knowledge behind every position with the ending outcome of discovering my preferred area of interest. While going through a month of rotation between the assignment desk, producer, photographer, reporters, anchors and editors, I soon discovered that answering that same question that caused me so much trouble to answer at the beginning was now not so tough. I discovered that I enjoyed going to shoots with reporters and photojournalists at the station. However there was one thing I confirmed while at the internship. I always enjoyed watching the news anchors sit at the desk and start reading the prompter. No matter how simple this may sound, many times they had to improvise while on camera. Altogether, I realized I enjoyed reporting and someday anchoring a newscast.

Building professional relationships

Working at KTSM has allowed me build professional relationships that I never imagined building by the end of my internship. The KTSM news department has been amazing to work with. Despite the stigmas attached to news departments, KTSM has clearly made my internship experience easy going. Working alongside these professionals has opened my eyes to what it’s like to work in a real fast-paced news environment. I realize that not every networking experience may be as easy as this one later on in my career. Some professional relationships may take longer to build than others, however no matter how long they take to build it’s always important to value each and every one of them. The KTSM news department has opened new doors. It’s incredible what a media pass has allowed me to experience as an intern alongside the news crew. At this stage in my internship I feel that my relationships with the employees in the news department have grown stronger. I have shared my career goals and they have shared a couple of tips in how I can help get there. They have handed me their cards and have allowed me to grow as an intern by sharing feedback that will allow me grow professionally.

Attention future interns

Hey there future intern! Here is some advice I wish I had known before starting my internship at KTSM. Let’s face it, we all desperately want to be the perfect intern or at least come close to being as ideal as possible so here is some advice that will at least give you an idea of what I would have liked to know before interning at KTSM. Remember, every internship is different therefore things change from place to place but always remember even current employees make mistakes. Learn from your mistakes and move on, it’s a fast paced world out there there’s no pause button so keep it going. Time flies during your internship so enjoy the moment you’re currently in. No matter how tired you may be after each day always remember to make the most of it the following day. I still remember the first day I started my internship at KTSM and now I can’t believe the end is near...

Your internship is what you make of it. No one will come and tell you what to do all of the time. More times rather than not it’s expected that you take initiative and demonstrate what you are capable of doing. Always be of help in whatever you can be.

Stay true to your aspirations. Let your supervisor or anyone else you work with know what you are interested in doing during your internship. For example if you want to read off prompter or do a package, then do it. Don’t be scared to let them know what your career goals are when anyone asks.

Try new things. It’s as a simple as that. We all have things we don’t have much interest in doing, but sometimes it’s important in giving them a try and learning from each experience.

the courses that most helped me throughout this internship were TV1. The practice at the teaching journalism studio aided me in feeling more comfortable with working at a real TV station.

This internship with KTSM has helped me gain more confidence while reporting. I have observed reporters and photographers and their advice has helped me grow as a journalist and feel more confident in my work. Helping reporters, photographers, and producers has allowed me to realize that with time and effort I can do things I never expected I could be capable of doing.

#advice interntointern

Try to not trip over cords like I do almost every single day at the NC9 studio

#clumsy

Hot weather mess

Green screen fun and so much more were in store when I shadowed the chief meteorologist at the station. I wasn’t expecting weather to be as fun as it was, but to my surprise it wasn’t as bad as I had expected. The chief meteorologist seemed really excited I was there shadowing him so I quickly pulled a chair over to the weather station and began taking notes. He first showed me all the important gadgets I needed to know about in order to learn how his weather cast preparation works. Mind you- these gadgets were mainly computers with complicated software, I still felt clueless. That’s why I almost preferred to not even touch them of fear that I would mess something up. But that’s not what the chief meteorologist thought...he clearly thought it was best that he walk me through the preparation of his weather forecast. So that’s what we did. He walked me through each and every one of the software until little by little I filled the weather chart with double digits and maybe even a few triple digits here and there. Working alongside the News Channel 9 crew has allowed me to understand how things operate day to day at their station. First things first, the producer and assignments editor are always looking for story ideas. It’s never a surprise when they try to get story ideas from anybody walking through the newsroom. Overall it’s been such an eye opening experience to see how a newsroom is functional and dysfunctional at the same time.

And the weather...? Oh just the usual 100 degree weather, no big!

Dehydrated intern Frida in desperate need of H2O Scroll to read her survival story

#SOS sendhelp H2Orevamp

Trashed canals in the El Paso Lower Valley preventing water flow.

#needscleanup

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