KSDK again....

Davina Horton
Local News Analysis
KSDK
January 18, 2008

The first thing I noticed about KSDK was the different set they use for the morning show. News Channel 5, Today in St. Louis is shot on a very bright, colorful set. It gave it a very feel good look. They showed lots of pictures of the sunrise. The morning show sounds a lot more conversational and relax. The sense of urgency isn’t has high as in the evening. I also watched some of the afternoon news which was full of feature stories.
The anchors were Jennifer Bloom and Mike Garrity filling in for Art Holiday. Jennifer was wearing a brown blazer with a yellow T-shirt and a necklace. Mike had on a conservative suit, black jacket, blue tie. They both look very nice and awake from 7 AM. And when I tuned in again at 12, they were still happy and alert.
Heidi Glaus did a live shot from the studio this morning when she introduced her package about Java Girls. Kathleen did a live shot in the studio while she was give a traffic update and reporting an accident. Sharon Stevens did a live stand-up in front of St. Louis Children’s Hospital.
There was a story that covered a new type of coffee shop that was opening in Cottleville. Jave Girls is a sex-presso. The servers are females who serve you coffee in school girl outfits. The shop opens tomorrow morning. There was an accident this morning on Florissant and Dune that was slowing down traffic quite a bit. In the afternoon, there was an interview story that covered the topic of flu season. Jennifer interviewed a health official who gave information on prevention, treatment, and symptoms of the flu. One of the top stories covered the statuses of three children who were injured when a car ran into their home. The kids are ages 10, 9, and 8. They are at St. Louis Children Hospital, where doctors say it will be months before they recover fully.The last story I saw was about a St. Louis Post Officer charged with sexually harassing a handicapped women who was on his mail route.
My overall impression of Today in St. Louis is good. I enjoyed some of the more feature style stories, and I really liked that they updated weather and traffic so often. The anchors and reporters all had high energy which helped me wake-up. They did some really good interviews as well.
I think Today is very credible. They give you lots of information, and it’s all live. I would probably watch this again, if I’m ever up that early again. I’m usually busy during the day, but I really like the afternoon show. The feature stories really appeal to me.

Jan. 17, 2008

This morning our group meet in the TV studio and logged out tape. We have some really great sound bytes to choose from. Before class I got a head start on some of the final assignments. I started the self critic as well as the job assignment. During class the lecture covered resume tapes and how to get an entry level job. Your resume tape should include a montage of stand-ups, news packages, and some samples of your anchoring. Jill showed us two examples of resume tapes, one was her own. Then she example to us what market numbers were. They are based on the population of the area that a newscast shows to. They can change from year to year. The higher the market, the more money you make. We all have another chance to do the local news analysis for KPLR, since there was a hockey game on last night. But since I had to work tonight, I'm going to do KSDK again in the morning. We went to the studio to shoot the news. It was LIVE today which was exciting. I ran the teleprompter. It went really well. Tomorrow, we get to edit our own packages, which will be interesting. I hate editing, so I'm not really looking forward to it. But I am eager to see how the package comes together. I still need to write my package script for tomorrow, but it's getting late, so it will have to wait!

TV Jobs Assignment

Davina Horton
TV Jobs Assignment
January 18, 2008


Job Choice #1


*KSNF-TV, Joplin, MO
*Morning Show Co-Anchor, seeks a morning show co-anchor who can bring a sparking on-camera presence and interview skills to the show, and can interact well with the other co-anchor and forecaster
*145 *Jim Jackson
* I would definitely be willing to move for this job. I would still get to be in Missouri, and I love Joplin. Of my three jobs this is the one I’m least likely to get, but it’s most like what I want to do. I think this job would challenge me everyday and just be a lot of fun. I have no problem getting up super early, and I would much rather anchor than be a reporter.

Job Choice #2

*WORF-TV, Rockford, IL
*GA reporter/fill-in anchor, seek a GA reporter/fill-in anchor who is aggressive, is creative, is highly motivated, loves to break local news stories, comes to the table with story ideas daily, is a team player, can handle the pressures of deadlines and breaking news in a competitive fashion; must be able to go live, with experience is a plus
*132
*Kent Harrell
*I would be willing to move to Illinois since it is not too far away from my family. I like this job because you get to be a fill-in anchor as well as a reporter. I like that I would be able to go live and break local news. I think it would be fun to move somewhere new and find out what they find important in their news.

Job Choice #3


*KCAU-TV, Sioux City, IA
*Reporter/videographer, who can do it all, is eager to learn and has a good attitude; fluency in Spanish and English a plus
*143
*Carla Kreegar
*I would be willing but not too eager to move for this job. It’s still near my family, but I’m not too fond of Iowa. Hopefully it would only be a temporary location. This job caught my attention because in the job description it said, “eager to learn” which I think describes me a lot. I don’t know everything yet, but I would love to have a job that gave me the chance to learn and become better as a worked. I like this job because it says you will do it all, and I like to have variety in my life. I may not be able to speak Spanish, but I do offer a few other languages that might appeal to them.

Jan. 16, 2008

Whoopee! Shooting Day! Haley, Sakshi and I met at the TV studio to go shoot our package. Sarah and Sue came along with us to be our photographers. We got to the bowling alley and scoped out the scene. Not long after we got there we realized that we had forgotten our audio bag. So we had to go back and get it which kind of set us back. We shot a great interview with my boss. You could really tell that he’s used to being asked a lot of the same questions I asked him. He gave us an amazing selection of sound bytes to choose from. After that we had some trouble with our camera and the lighting, but we eventually figured it out. Sarah and Sue shot lots of b-roll of the bowling alley, game room, and bar. We interviewed an employee who works at the counter as well as a bartender. The bartender gave us a unique perspective since she is a smoker. We all brainstormed what the stand-up would be. We decided to shoot it outside right by the doors that had the Smoke-Free sign on them. Once we were done, we went back and Sarah captured out footage. We all decided to meet tomorrow morning to log our tape since we were so tired. I think this package is going to come out really nicely. Tonight I get to watch and critic my favorite news channel, CW 11. So I’m looking forward to that.

Jan. 15, 2008

Yesterday we went to the Fox 2 station on a field trip. We went with Ed’s Applied Mass Comm class and met up with Julie Beard’s web writing class. We got to find out what Julie’s class does. They do a lot of blogging on the Fox 2 website. Julie has to approve their blogs before they are posted to check for grammar and spelling. They also can’t write anything negative about the station or give away any secrets. We met two web producers, Patrick and Jill. Jill told us all about a usual day at her job. They are constantly updating the website and adding cool extra footage for the viewers to watch. Jill told us that Fox gives each of their reporters a laptop with wireless internet, so they can send their stuff back ASAP. She was working for KSDK not too long ago and said that they hadn’t gotten this new technology yet. Their reporters still have to call and wait until they get back to the studio to send in their stuff. Ed’s class shot a news package about Julie’s class. Some of the students from our class did the interviews and the stand-ups. We all got to take pictures up at the anchor desk before we left. Today we are going to shoot our second package. We have to do all the shooting ourselves again since Sarah is sick. My boss is going to be there around 1:30 to do his interview, and we hope to find some interesting people to interview.

KTVI

Davina Horton
January 15, 2008
Local TV Analysis- KTVI

The first thing I noticed when I started watching Fox 2 was Dan Grey’s deep voice. The tone of his voice is really nice to listen to and it made me want to hear more. I also noticed that they still had Hannah Montana tickets to give away if you went on their website and signed up. I was kind of tempted to sign up, and I’m still considering it, if I remember.
The anchors were Dan Grey and Mandy Murphy. Dan had on a navy suit jacket with a stripped shirt and yellow tie with a pattern. I think he had a few too many colors and patterns. Mandy had a on bright blue jacket. It wasn’t a suit jacket. It kind of looked like a track jacket that you would work out in, so I didn’t really like what the anchors were wearing today.
Chris Regnier did a live stand up in South County. He was at Hancock middle school coving the story of a boy who was hit by a car. Shawn Lindsey did a stand-up in Ladue next to Highway 40. She was covering the demolition of the McKnight Bridge.
The top story was of a skateboarder who was hit by a car and died. He was a student at Hancock Middle South in South County. They showed lots of sad students. There will be no charges filed on the driver. There was nothing the driver could have done. The boy was not on a skateboard when he got hit, but he was in the middle of the road. The school plans to plant a tree in memory of the boy in the spring. The next story was about the St. Charles Council dropping the cussing ban from its long list of bar rules they are proposing for St. Charles. These rules are targeted at Main Street where rowdy crowds are becoming a problem. The proposal still includes no dancing on tables and no drinking games in bars. There was a story that covered the demolition of the McKnight Bridge. They are not blowing it up because it is too close to residential areas. They are basically chiseling it away.
My overall impression was good. I didn’t really like the anchors or reporters, but I did really like the news packages. I think they had some really nice shots, and that they were put together well.
I think this station is fairly credible. There was only one live shot and I kind of base how credible a station is by how much of it is live. However I really liked the news packages and Dan Grey’s voice gave a great sense of credibility. I might actually watch this station again. I liked the graphics. They were very clear and easy to read, and all the footage is really nice.

Jan. 14, 2008

Today we turned in our third story pitches. Jill gave us a lecture about The Anchor. We got three hand-outs. We covered conversational elements such as energy, tone, pitch, stress, inflection, rate, pause, duration, and pace. I think I really need to work on my energy, tone and pitch. We went over things that were bad for your voice, like caffeine, drinking, bars, and dairy. We also talked about some things that were good for our voices such as getting enough sleeping, staying hydrated and doing warm-ups. We also talked about how to show our personalities on TV. We talked about being credible and personable when on camera. The boys gave us some great warm-up techniques such as yawning, stretching our necks, and relaxing our tongues. Jill gave us some make-up tips. I already have some MAC make up, and I love it. I want to get some more, and I also need to buy some lipstick because right now all I have is lip gloss with glitter in it. The packet gave us some great tips on clothes and overall appearance. Around 3, we went over to the TV studio to shot the news. I had Ed look over and sign a form my job needed filled out in order for us to shoot there on Wednesday. Beth and I anchored today. We had a great time. We had a few mess ups, but it was fun. I tried to do some of the deep breathing to make my voice louder. I’m pretty sure I punched a lot, but I did tone it down.

Jan. 11, 2008

On Friday we met in the TV studio and turned in our package scripts. Haley and I were the only ones that turned out scripts in on time, so it was between us. Jill picked mine because it had more information in it. We all signed up for out voice coaching and started editing our packages. Sarah had already captured and began putting clips in bins. I did my voice overs in Ed’s office. Sarah helped with that. She was really great to work with. During my voice coaching we went over three main things: breathing, punching and sounding believable. I never noticed that I punched when I read, but now I can pick it out easily and try to fit it. The breathing is also very different for me, but I’m going to try to work on it. It helps me sound louder and makes my voice deeper. Sarah finished up our package, and we got to leave a little early. I really like the finished product. Later that day, I wrote a letter to my boss officially asking him to let us come shot at the Brunswick Zone. I dropped it off, and I should hear from him on Monday when he gets back in town. Today I’m going to be anchoring with Beth which should be fun. I mailed my script to Jill this morning, so she could get the anchor lead-in and lead-out to the TV studio. We’ve got another news analysis due tomorrow, so I need to remember to watch the news tonight.

Jan. 10, 2007

Today we turned in our KSDK news analysis assignment and got out logs checked. Jill advised us to each write out our own logs next time. Jill taught us how to us hyperlinks which I think is pretty cool. I will definitely being using this skill in future assignments. Tomorrow we each have to turn in our package scripts, so Jill can pick the best one to actually use for the package. I'm going to try to finish that up tonight. Friday should be a very relaxed day since we only have to watch our photographers edit and get voice coaching. Jill showed us the class blog. It looks really cool with our big class photo and the album of photos. I had to call to the TV studio and tell Ed what graphics I needed for my weather report. We don't have to do our interview segment assignment anymore. Instead we are going to visit Fox 2. I'm going to have the meet the class there after I finish my internship since I will already be in the city. Jill gave us a lecture on interviewing. I got some really good ideas on how to interview people better. She also showed us some of her interviews and a hilarious blooper. After that we went over to the TV studio to shot the news. I shot the weather and then headed off to work.

KSDK with Hyperlinks

Davina Horton KSDK Channel 5 Analysis January 10 The first thing I noticed when I started watching KSDK Channel 5 news was that it stated that it was the only high definition newscast in the St. Louis area. I was unaware of that, and it stood out to me. The anchor was Mike Bush. He was wearing a grey suit with a white shirt and blue patterned tie. His hair was very gelled and precise. Overall, he looked very nice and put together.Jasmine Huda did a stand up from Calhoun Elementary school and a live shot from the studio. Steve Handlesmen did a live shot from Washington D.C. while covering some primary election news. Jeff Smalls did a live shot from the studio.The top story was a burglary at Calhoun Elementary school. It took place overnight. The burglars took lots of electronics, cash, and even medicines from the nurse’s office. The police suspect it was some local teens. There have been a string of burglaries in the area, but there is no evidence that they are linked. The next story was of a woman being charged with manslaughter after he baby was born still. She had high levels of meth in her system. There was a case of armed robbery in St. Charles. I didn't really catch all the details, so I looked them up on the website. Megan Meir’s mom was on a talk show today. Apparently California is considering filing a suit against the lady who pretended to be the teenage boy who told her daughter to kill herself. California will be representing Myspace.Overall, I really like this newscast. There were lots of packages at the beginning. There were about 3 back to back. It really got my attention and kept me watching. The anchors and reporters all looked nice and knew what they were talking about. I think they were all very credible, mostly because of all the live shots at the end of the packages.

KMOV

Davina Horton
January 8, 2008
Local TV Analysis
KMOV

www.kmov.com
http://www.kmov.com/video/topvideo-index.html?nvid=206263

The first thing I noticed when I started watching KMOV was that they skipped the opening. The CBS news had ran over, so I guess they just went right into it. I was a little confused. It opened with a live shot of a highway with a voice over. Once I saw the anchors I understood what was going on.
The anchors were Vicki Newton and Larry Conners. Vicki was wearing a beige double-breasted short with big black buttons. I found it somewhat distracting. Larry had a on a black jacket, white button-up shirt and a red tie. I think he looked very classy and nice.
There were lots of reporters featured in the first 10 minutes of the newscast. They had at least 4 reporters placed at various different highways and roads to show how the Highway 40 closing was affecting traffic. The reporters I saw included Russell Kinsaul (Live at MODOT), Matt Sczesny (Live in Olivette), Julian Grace (Live in Des Pere) and John Mills (Live in Kirkwood).
The first story was a weather update covering the tornado watch northwest of St. Louis. The meteorologist said he was on storm watch. However, there was no storm activity in Missouri at the time of the newscast. The rest of the first 15 minutes of the newscast were used to cover how well St. Louis drivers had adapted to the Highway 40 closing. They reported from several different roads and brides to show how well traffic was moving. They covered all the traffic patterns and how St. Louis had passed the test of the high closing.
My overall impression of the newscast was pretty good. The anchors all seemed very professional and on point. The only thing I didn’t like was that they had some audio problems when they took their live shots, and there was some confusion on who the reporters were throwing to at times. But overall the newscast was good and the anchors were easy to listen to and understand.
The news team has a lot of credibility in my eyes, especially the reporters. They were all live and knew so much about what they were talking about. They asked each other questions and knew the answers right away. Everyone just seemed very knowledgeable.
I don’t think I would watch this station again. I have loyalty to Channel 11. I think it gave a little too much in depth information, more than I really needed to know. I like my news quick and to the point.

KSDK

Davina Horton
KSDK Channel 5 Analysis
January 10, 2008

www.ksdk.com
http://www.ksdk.com/video/default.aspx?aid=66350&sid=138052&bw=hi&cat=2

The first thing I noticed when I started watching Channel 5 news was that it stated that it was the only high definition newscast in the St. Louis area. I was unaware of that, and it stood out to me.
The anchor was Mike Bush. He was wearing a grey suit with a white shirt and blue patterned tie. His hair was very gelled and precise. Overall, he looked very nice and put together.
Jasmine Huda did a stand up from Calhoun Elementary school and a live shot from the studio. Steve Handlesmen did a live shot from Washington D.C. while covering some primary election news. Jeff Smalls did a live shot from the studio.
The top story was a burglary at Calhoun Elementary school. It took place overnight. The burglars took lots of electronics, cash, and even medicines from the nurse’s office. The police suspect it was some local teens. There have been a string of burglaries in the area, but there is no evidence that they are linked. The next story was of a woman being charged with manslaughter after he baby was born still. She had high levels of meth in her system. Megan Meir’s mom was on a talk show today. Apparently California is considering filing a suit against the lady who pretended to be the teenage boy who told her daughter to kill herself. California will be representing Myspace.
Overall, I really like this newscast. There were lots of packages at the beginning. There were about 3 back to back. It really got my attention and kept me watching. The anchors and reporters all looked nice and knew what they were talking about. I think they were all very credible, mostly because of all the live shots at the end of the packages.

Jan. 9, 2008

Today was the day we went out into the field to shoot our package. We all met at the TV studio this morning and packed up our equipment. Then we headed out to the McKnight exit of Highway 40. We got there early, so we started shooting some b-roll of the bulldozers and other equipment in the area as well as some signs. Mike came up with a great stand up, so we all took some time memorizing that. When Dan Galvin, the project leader arrived Mike and I got to ride with him on a tour along the construction site. I shot some “ride along” style shots from the back seat while Mike asked Dan some questions. At our first stop we got some more b-rolls of trucks and the torn up road. We also did the interview with Dan. The interview went really well. Dan was very comfortable in front of the camera and gave lots of great quotes. At our second stop Mike and I did our stand ups and got even more b-roll. When we got back, Sakshi and Haley did their stand ups. We went to a local Starbucks to find a random local person to interview. We got turned down about six times before a nice lady finally helped us out. When we got back to the studio, we captured our footage. Apparently we did set the right filter on our camera, so most of our stuff was very blue. But hopefully, we can fix that in the post production stage. We all agreed to log tomorrow morning since we were all so tired.

Virginia Kerr Summary

Davina Horton
January 9, 2008
Summary-Virginia Kerr

Virginia Kerr is an anchor at KMOV Channel 4. She co-anchors News 4 This Morning. Before that she was the weekday feature reporter. She came and talked to our Advanced TV Talent class about her career and her experiences in the broadcasting field.
Kerr graduated from the University of Alabama with a Psychology degree. She didn’t start getting into broadcasting until her last year of college when she worked at the college radio station and then a friend got her a job teleprompting at a local station. It was then that she knew she wanted to be an anchor.
She worked at several stations before landing here in St. Louis. She was an anchor/reporter at KECI in Montana. She worked as a weekend anchor and general assignment reporter at KHQ in Washington.
She moved up very quickly and now she has her dream job as an anchor in a middle-sized market. She has always loved reporting and believes that you can’t be a good anchor without being a good reporter first. She never wants to stop reporting because she really loves it, and it keeps here job interesting.
Kerr gave us some tips on make up and clothing. She advises that we try to be ourselves as much as possible and not let people try to change us too much.
We asked her how she made her way into the business. She said she sent out lots of tapes to many different stations all over the country. She knew she would have to move and didn’t let that stop her from getting her dream job.
She was really great to listen to and I really learned a lot from here. She was even nice enough to offer us future advice or help with tapes.

Jan. 8, 2008

Today, Jill told us that we all need to go ahead and make new blogs since they were all being blocked. We turned in our first news analysis. It was really weird watching a different news station, and it was also weird focusing in on all these technical things. But I think it made me appreciate what they were doing more. Virginia Kerr from KMOV came to talk to our class today. She shared some information about how she got into the broadcast field and what it takes to be a good reporter/anchor. She gave lots of great tips on how to put ourselves out there and not let people stand in the way of our dreams. The interview was really fun. She was very candid and funny. I really enjoyed. After that we went over to the TV studio, and Beth shot an interview with Virginia for Mixed Media. During the interview I ran a camera. After the show was shot, we talked in our groups about our plans for shooting the first news packages. Since our photographer’s schedule conflicted with the person we wanted to interview, we decided to shot it ourselves. The last thing we did was watch Haley voice over the j-term package. We all got to see how it was done, so that we could do it for our own packages. Tomorrow will be going out in the field to shoot our b-roll, interviews, and stand-ups. I’m really excited. It’s going to be a lot of work, but it should be fun.

Jan. 7, 2008

First we finished writing the package script from yesterday. Today we had a lecture about packages. Jill showed us some explains of news packages she has done. She explained all the requirements for our news package assignment. Then we picked our groups. My group includes me, Haley, Sakshi, and Michael. We brainstormed some ideas for our two news packages. Our ideas included the smoke-free bowling alley, St. Charles County and politics and the highway 40 construction. Michael is going to call MODOT and check to see if we will be able to get some footage of the highways construction. I’m going to talk to my boss tomorrow to see if we would be able to shoot footage there and set up some interviews. As of now, these are the two story ideas we are planning on doing. Later we went over to the TV studio to shoot the news. First we shot weather, entertainment and sports. I ran the prompter. Sakshi and Haley anchored the news while I ran the camera. Once we finished the news, some of us stayed and help to shoot more B-roll for out J-term package. I also called the St. Charles County Department of Community Health and the Environment. I wanted to see if I could possibly set up an interview with someone about health and the New Year. They said they would call me back. I’m still waiting for the call. I will call again tomorrow morning, if I don’t hear back from them tonight.

Jan. 4, 2008

On Friday, our class met in the TV studio to do a package demonstration shoot. We are going to create a news package as a class, so we can learn the steps that are involved in creating a package. Before we started Jill explained how blogger.com had shut down our blogs because they thought it was spam. She also reminded us that we needed to find out person to interview and handed back out first story ideas. The first thing we did for our package was to shoot three interviews. Jill interviewed Jen, Neil, and Beth. She went over some basic interview tips. She told us to take the time to chat with the interviewee while the shot in being set up. This will make them more comfortable and more talkative. You should also ask them to say their first and last time, how to spell them, and what name they prefer to go by. Then we sat down and came up with the script for our stand up. We had to make sure that the stand up would show the audience something. We decided to highlight the anchor desk. Once we decided on what to say, we each got about three tries to shot our stand ups. It was a little challenging because we had to walk and sit down while talking, but it was fun. After shooting the stand ups we sat down at an Avid station and logged our interviews. We wrote out the quotes that we liked best and thought we might us. We also wrote down the time codes, so we would be able to find them later.

Jan. 3, 2008

Today was the first day of the Advanced TV Talent class. We all introduced ourselves to the class. We mentioned where we were from, our majors and why we were taking the class. Our professor, Jill Schroeder introduced herself and gave us some of her background information. We received our calendar for the term which showed what we would do everyday and what assignments would be due when. We also received our syllabus and some of the assignments we would be doing over the term. Jill explained how we would be doing four newscasts. We each signed up for two on-air dates and two behind the scene spots. She gave us a basic overview of how to dress and look when we go on-air. Jill explained the news interview segment assignment to us. I need to start thinking about a possible guest to bring in and interview. As of now, I have no ideas. We were given a 20 minutes break to go to the computer lab and set up our blogs for the class. I wrote my introductory blog that told a little about me. After the break, we went over the local news analysis assignment. I plan to try and get this assignment out of the way as soon as possible since it is fairly easy. We went over the definition of a news package and watched an example of a gnome news package. After that we all headed over to the TV studio. Jen and Tracy shot the news. We all got turns to sit at the desk and read from the prompter. We took turns working the cameras and prompters also.

A little about myself...

I was born in Germany and moved to Wentzville, MO when I was young. I have lived there all of my life. I went to Truman State for my first year of college and hated every it. So I transferred to Lindenwood and couldn't be happier. I'm a mass communications major, and I'm probably going to go for all of the emphasises because I'm still not sure what I want to do. I really enjoy working in promotions and public relations as well as reporting and broadcasting. Last semester I was a cheerleader here at LU. I do a lot of work in at the LU-TV 26 studio. I direct shows, anchor news and work behind the scene where ever I'm needed. The thing I'm looking forward to most this school year is turning 21!!! And for spring break my parents, my best friend and I are going to Germany for two weeks. I can't wait! I love classic movies like Home Alone, Pretty Woman and The Sandlot. And I watch a lot of South Park, Everybody Loves Raymond, and America's Next Top Model whenever I'm not taking a nap or hanging out with my friends.