Lessons Learned

I learned a few things from my newsroom shift this past week. First, it's more valuable to go out and do work on stories that are being worked on, as easy a concept as this seems, it takes experience sometimes to hammer the simplest lessons home. I started doing work and looking for elements on a John McCain story, and about 30 minutes into working on it, I realized it would be a lost cause because it was an old story. It would take serious commitment from a viewer to go and find the content I found for this story, and while somebody may still view that story, I think in this case I will start working smarter.

I am also learning how to operate within the KOMU newsroom, and while I wish I were a bit more outgoing, I know that will come with time and knowledge. After our meeting I now understand the workflow much better and this will lead to more optimized production for my shifts, starting with mine tomorrow evening.

Last and certainly not least, I'm learning that my background in convergence is going to be my greatest asset. Producing good multi media is more than meets the eye. Getting quality material is all about thinking in the mode of multiple platforms and understanding what works best for your purposes. Knowing that people that take the time to read the text story obviously want some deeper vocabulary and story telling. Understanding your story material will also help your to find better resources to shed more light on the story.