This past week or so it seemed at least half of the stories I have worked on either dealt with the economy, the election, politics in general…or some combination of any of these three. When I got my assignment to interview former NE senator Bob Kerry I thought it was going to be just another guy out campaigning. It was far from that. Normally campaigning involves bashing the other guy while touting why my side is better. Not with Bob. There was no attempt to bring to the forefront where this guy screwed up while my guy is a saint. Finally a fresh angle. Instead Bob Kerry had nothing bad to say about either candidate. He did emphasize where he thought one side was better suited for this or has great ideas on that. In fact I heard him say things like, "He’s as honest as they come," and "I really respect that man" and for the life of me, without reviewing the tape…I can’t remember which candidate he was referring to!!! So I just wanted to thank Bob Kerry for coming to the station and helping to recharge the battery of one media personnel and helping to show me that with the election, it’s NOT always going to be the same. There are breaks in the action that can actually give us a sigh of relief and help us look forward to November.

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Fall is officially here. Actually, it started at 10:45 AM on Monday morning; just one of the many little facts one can learn in a newsroom. But I digress. While the fall season typically means football, colder weather and, apparently, road construction projects just getting started, it also means another thing.

Bugs. And they want to get inside.

Just strolling atop Signal Hill, I’m sure I’ve seen grasshoppers, crickets, flies, moths, monarch butterflies, and I’m pretty sure I saw a praying mantis up here but two weeks ago. Not joking. But the only constant I’ve been seeing lately is of the eight-legged variety.

Spiders. And they want in, too.

Now, spiders being around isn’t a horrible thing. They help control other pests and can spin some beautiful webs from time to time. Problem is, several employees in the Newsroom are deathly afraid of spiders and bugs. And that’s an understatement.

I try to tell people not to be afraid of spiders. They’re not the team workers Hollywood wants us to think they are. I know the image is in your mind of a gang of spiders crawling up someone’s body, sealing their fate. But the fact is… they called it Charlotte’s Web for a reason. Charlotte wasn’t sharing the web with Carrie, Miranda or Samantha: it was hers and hers alone.

But alas, much the grasshopper that didn’t do his work before winter, these bugs do manage to find their way inside, behind our desks, spinning down from the ceiling, or occasionally hiding on one of our beverages. And when that happens, I’m usually the one who’s called upon to squash/stomp the arachnid aggressor.

Yup, just another of the glamorous duties of being a producer.

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It’s interesting to see what your desk at work says about you. For me, I have two pictures, one of my boyfriend, and I and another of my mother, my grandmother and me. That might say that I love my family, or something of that nature. Then I have two coffee mugs… obviously a caffeine junky. I also have post it notes all over reminding me of what I need to do, like one says ‘blog’! Then there’s notebooks, papers and of course a random pumpkin. Basically I took no effort to decorate my desk, but I wonder what other think about it. Do they think I am messy? Do they think I am weird because of my random pumpkin? If they do… they should think producer, Danny Rapinchuk is weird too, because he has two on his desk and he actually colored faces on them. Well, whether its pictures, paper or leftovers from your fast food lunch stop… no one should judge a person by their desk space. Plus, some folks in the newsroom share desks. I am sure reporter, Michael Klos doesn’t mind too much that reporter, Rebecca Sunshine has a bright pink water bottle on their desk… but you never know.

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I know. I know. It’s hard to believe, but here in the KTIV newsroom we all have to do our best to look our best. But, it can be hard work! As a reporter that is just getting my feet wet, trying to look your best when you are lugging a camera bag along with tripod and some form of note taking device, is rough! That’s like 45 to 50 extra pounds to lug around. I usually sweat just thinking about it! Then, once you get all of that equipment to the place you are going (hopefully not walking up a hill or stairs) your trying to pull yourself together enough so that you don’t look like you are sweating or out of breath. But, that is just the beginning. After running around trying to get interviews and getting the best video for the story, your hair is usually all over the place, you’ve sweated all of your make-up off and sometimes… you just don’t smell the best (especially after doing a story on pigs, or something of that nature). Then, we have to come back to the station, and if it so happens, we have to go live on TV at 5, 6 or 10. After that long day… I don’t even know where to start to help my self look ‘TV appropriate’. Somehow we pull it off though. You really have to learn the tricks of what make-up looks the best, how you can do your hair in the least amount of time, but it looks like you spent hours and how your clothes can make you look the skinniest… even if the camera adds 10 pounds. It’s a rough job, but somebody has to do it.

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Even though I’ve only been a producer for a few months now, I think I have a pretty good handle on what I do everyday.

I’m sure plenty of you Newsroom Notebook readers have heard of producers before, but I bet you can’t give an accurate description on what we do everyday.

So here it is… in a nutshell… what producers do everyday.

Basically, we get to decide what stories get to air, what order they get to air in, how they’re written, what video they show, how many stories go into the show, time the show, double check facts in stories, make sure people are attributed completely, promote stories further in the show, approve scripts, occasionally edit video, update stories with the latest information, act as a means of communication between the reporters, anchors, production assistants and the director, and at the end of the show, review it and provide a comprehensive report on what went right, wrong and by the wayside.

I know what you’re thinking. “So… you’re on TV, right?”

Of course, this job description is always changing every day. Some days you’re called upon to more, sometimes less. It it’s one thing I’ve learned since arriving at KTIV in May is to keep on your toes.

Another thing I’ve learned is that I’m very lucky to be surrounded by so many talented people. Working with everyone here has been an absolute joy and I feel very fortunate to be allowed to have a job where you not only enjoy your work, but take something from it everyday.

But I know there’s one question in the back of your mind I haven’t answered yet.

Yes.

I’m the guy sitting at a computer behind the talent during the morning topical.

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I love this time of the year. Its fall, things are slowing down a little bit and of course, there’s high school football. I always loved high school football growing up in Emerson, Nebraska, Go Pirates! But then in college, the games weren’t the same at my school. They were during the day and I didn’t like that. They didn’t have the same feel to them. There is something about a night game. The lights, it’s a little chilly, so you might need a cup of hot chocolate. And when you work in television, Friday Night Football is a little crazy.

Everyone is assigned around two games to shoot and you rush around, always obeying the speed limit of course and trying to get the best footage. Sometimes it’s really tough because you are so far away and the players are so close to scoring. You know you have to leave and if you stay you know you’ll be late to your next game or get back late, but you just hate to miss that great touchdown. So it’s always a gamble and sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. I remember a few times when I just had to leave and you are almost in the car, you hear the crowd cheer and you know you just missed a great touchdown. That’s way I run back to the car so I don’t hear what I’ve missed.

I’ve been shooting sports for close to six years and my favorite sport to shoot is always football. You shoot on the field and you are so close to the action. At my first job in North Platte, a sports photographer once got nailed by a running back and I think he broke his nose. So there are those injuries sometimes but I think it’s worth it.

The fans are also so fun. The kids always want to be on t.v. cheering and everyone is so friendly. They even let you park up front. It’s always nice when everyone doesn’t oppose what you covering.

So I hope everyone is enjoying the football season like I am.

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It’s always a hard assignment when you have to go to a sentencing. The victims, offenders and a lot of courtroom personal are there hoping to provide closure. On these days, especially when the victim’s family read their victim impact statements, I feel so sad and have cried on occasion for people that I’ve never met and in some cases will never meet because the offender has murdered them. It’s been one of the hardest things for me to deal with while working in this field. People react differently when they are sentenced to long terms in prison. Fortunately today, the person convicted of the crime was very remorseful and asked for forgiveness from the victim’s family. On some occasions though, convicted felons still think they are innocent of heinous crimes and it’s impossible not to wish for them to suffer, like the suffering the victim had to go through. Every sentencing is different and sometimes it’s helpful to see the justice but I wish people would just think before they act and then I wouldn’t have to be in the courtroom and they wouldn’t be losing so much freedom and families wouldn’t lose their members.

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Its 6:16 a.m. in the morning on a Monday. This is a little earlier than I normally work but, I needed to leave work early so the normal morning editor/photographer, Travis Hoffer, graciously switched shifts with me.

Whenever, I work the morning shift, it’s always a little tougher because of the sleep factor. In order to get the suggested amount of sleep, a person would need to go to bed at 7 p.m. on a Sunday. I don’t know about you but I tend to let the things I need to do before Monday rolls around pile up until Sunday night. So needless to say, I am a little sleepy.

It’s normally a little fun to come in for the morning shift. There is less staff and everyone does at least two or three jobs. Plus it’s a lot quieter.

To let everyone know how it actually works in the mornings, I decided take a few pictures of the morning crew.

Mornings are exciting sometimes because you are the first to know what’s new in the news.

Well, that’s about all I have to say for today. I hope everyone has a great day.

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Many people have said this election started too early creating a primary season that went on too long. Not me. I love covering politics, and I couldn’t have been more pleased with all the attention the candidates paid to Northwest Iowa this election season.

I took full advantage of Iowa’s prominent role this past year, interviewing as many candidates as I could, hoping to help our viewers sort through the political process, and find the best choice for myself as well. I thought this opportunity would make it easy for me to figure out who I would vote for in November. I would inevitably come with a list of questions a mile long and usually only get a handful answered. Incredibly, with a few exceptions, each interview left me unsure of whom I would vote for. I started wondering, are the viewers getting more confused as well?

I think the first candidate I interviewed was Mitt Romney back in February of 2007; John Edwards followed shortly after. I admit, it was nerve racking at first. Then, I realized Mitt Romney is a just governor, like Mike Rounds, and Edwards is just a senator, like Tom Harkin; two men I had interviewed enough times to know, there was nothing to be nervous about.

As we got closer to the date, the caucus consumed my life. I didn’t really mind. I would go to bed thinking about the questions I would ask the next day, even dream of certain candidates while I slept, and wake up excited that it was almost time to meet them. I wanted to be a political reporter for years, and now I was finally getting the chance during one of the most historic races.

While I wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to travel with the candidates (in fact, I managed to talk my way onto Tommy Thompson and Mike Huckabee’s tour buses), local reporters have an advantage over the traveling press, a fact many people at home probably don’t realize. You see, the press corps usually only gets one opportunity a day to ask questions of the candidates. It would take forever if they stopped to do press conferences at every event. Those rules don’t apply to local media. Sometimes, the networks would feed us questions they wanted answered. Other times, they relied on whatever we asked. I’ll never forget walking into the newsroom after my interview with Fred Thompson in Orange City one morning, and hearing, “MSNBC wants that sounds bite…” On another occasion, we were up in Spencer, covering Barack Obama’s speech. We asked his people for an interview. Their response… “he’s only doing interviews with local press.” We had to explain to them at least four times that we are the local media… Spencer doesn’t have its own TV station. They were only going to let the local paper and radio stations interview him, but we finally got them to grant KTIV permission to come along.

Candidates were coming to Siouxland on a daily basis. With the exception for former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, every single one gave KTIV a one-on one interview at some point… some several. The candidates realized the importance of the Iowa caucus. Most were willing to do just about anything to get face time on our air. They genuinely wanted Iowa voters to get to know them, and to pick them in January. While many may not have been fond of journalists in general, I think they knew that in a crowded field, we were one of the keys to their campaign.

The many weeks and months of campaigning culminated in the caucus. Coming from Illinois, I had never seen one. We have primaries. I had studied them, but didn’t quite understand them until that January night. It was an electrifying experience, but the next day I was lost. No more campaign speeches, one-on-ones, press credentials and secret service. With Iowa no longer in the spotlight, I was ready to pack my bags and head to New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada and which ever primary came after that. Yikes, I sound a little bit like Howard Dean! I went from watching cable news coverage of the lead-up to the caucus religiously, to avoiding it completely.

Luckily, we live in a tri-state area, and this year’s primary season went until the very end. Which meant, for the first time, Nebraska and South Dakota’s choice not only mattered but could make the difference. These recent conventions have renewed my interest further. Maybe, just maybe, the candidates will find themselves stumping again in Northwest, Iowa.

While places like Ohio and Wisconsin are getting pegged as battleground states, political pundits can never be quite sure which states will truly be key this election. None of us will know until that fateful night. At that point, any state, including Iowa could become a battleground state.

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Today, I’m going to talk about something I think a lot of our viewers will be interested in. This week, I along with many of us here at KTIV had the privilege of witnessing two of our own get married…. Al Joens and Melissa Lanzourakis.

I’d never been to an outdoor wedding ceremony. The weather couldn’t have been more perfect.

Anyone who’s met Al and Mel know they are a carefree, fun loving couple. Their ceremony was filled with more than just laughter, there were also a few tears.

I’ve been lucky enough to attend weddings in some unique locations with some beautiful backgrounds… the New York City skyline, Disney World, the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. I have never walked into a reception like Al and Melissa’s. It made such a statement. Everything from the napkins and chair covers to the favors, wedding cake, and menus were completely coordinated.

During the couple’s video tribute to each other, I realized how perfectly the quote on the front of their programs applied. It said, “Some people marry the person they can live with, others marry the person they cannot live without.” I am so happy for Al and Melissa.

People say there’s something in the water in the KTIV newsroom. There are quite a few couples, some married others engaged. This was my first KTIV wedding… I can’t wait for the next one!

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