Common Cents with E-Money

My Endeavor into News Producing

So yesterday was my first day producing a professional newscast. I was hired at my job as a news content specialist, which means that my normal job is just to edit video for our 4 PM and 6 PM newscasts, but lately they’ve had me training on news producing, with the goal in mind that I’ll be a fill-in producer who can step in if somebody has a day off.

Yesterday was my first day producing a professional newscast that would actually air, and it was quite an experience. In case you weren’t aware, what a producer does for a newscast is determines what stories are going to be covered, what order they’re going to air, what graphics and animations should be used, and how long each segment should take. It also means you write all of the scripts (except for weather, traffic, sports, and the ones for individual reporters’ stories), and type in all the graphics and director cues. It’s a lot of work.

My newscast started at 4 PM, so I was expected to have everything ready to go by 4. I was nervous the whole day that I wouldn’t be done in time, but I actually had it all done by 3:20.

Once the show started, it all went fine for the most part until the very end. We had some guests on (as we do every day), and the one guest kept talking for a very long time. This made it so that the segment went on about a minute longer than it was supposed to, and we ended up having to cut to commercial rather abruptly to end on time. It sucked that it ended like that, but in news you gotta deal with stuff like that sometimes.

Overall, I was happy with how the day went. It was nice to put all that work into something and see it with your very eyes at the end of the day. I got a lot out of it. I got into journalism because I wanted to cover sports, but if producing is going to be like it was yesterday, I wouldn’t mind doing that for a living.

If you go to a Pirate game solely for the fireworks, you and I can’t be friends.

I hate fireworks games.

Sometimes I wish I was really dumb.

I’m smart. That’s not me being vain. That’s just fact. Ever since I was in kindergarten, I’ve been told that my brain is going to be my key to success. But sometimes I wish  that wasn’t the case.

You see, because of that, the bar was set really high. I have to take advantage of how lucky I was to be raised in an environment where my parents cared about my education and pushed me to succeed in school. Because of this, there’s a lot of pressure on me to be successful. If I flame out, then it’s all on me. Because in that case, I would be failing to use my resources available to me.

But I also think some of that pressure has been placed upon me by myself. I’ve had a lot of people in my life and a lot of troubling times that have inspired me to be successful out of spite. I want to “prove them wrong,” so to speak. My thinking is that if ten years from now, I’m on TV, doing something I love, then the hard times will be worth it. And the people that gave me hell will understand why they shouldn’t have made me feel bad.

It’s a big weight on my shoulders. On the one hand, I’m very lucky. Because great expectations are a consequence of having a lot at your disposal to use. So I’m very thankful for that. But on the other hand, I don’t have any other options but to succeed. I don’t have any other options but to make this crazy experiment of moving to Myrtle Beach work.

On nights like this, where I’m feeling beat down, alone, and like I don’t know what the hell I’m doing- that’s when it gets hardest. 

But I’ve got The Mountain Goats playing, some beer in the fridge, and the knowledge that tomorrow brings another opportunity to improve myself and to get one step closer. That’s got to be something to build on.

So many people don’t understand how communication works.

You don’t get people to change their mind about an issue by insulting every one who disagrees with you. Nobody’s gonna hear someone call them a bigot and think “You know what? I like that guy! I change my mind!”

If you want to change peoples’ minds (and thus change policy), you’ve got to give the opposition reason to actually want to.

I’m for gay marriage, but if you want to get people on your side, calling them bigots isn’t going to help.

There’s a plus side to being way too obsessed with sports.

When you’re that invested in a team, watching somebody who has just absolutely stunk up the joint all year redeem himself by hammering a walk-off home run can make your mood change from lonesome to joyful.

I’ll never be alone as long as I’ve got moments like this to enjoy.

Why I believe in the Pirates.

Because if Rod Barajas can hit a walk-off home run, why can’t the Pirates turn it around?

Listening to The Coroner’s Gambit

This brings back some memories of DJing a radio show for WUSC my freshman year of college. The Coroner’s Gambit was one of the few Mountain Goats albums in the library, so it was one of the only ones I could play. Whenever I hear a song from that album, it makes me think of what my life was like in 2007-2008.

Sometimes, I sit and listen to “This Year” and hope it’ll come true.

Tonight, I sat and listened to “This Year” and I know it’ll come true.