Accepted a Job at KSLA - Shreveport

I decided to accept a job at KSLA as a reporter after interviewing with them last week. The news director Jayne called me on Monday offering me the job. I still have to get packed up here in Columbia, Mo and get moved out there, but I am doing that not this weekend, but next. ACK! I hate moving. I have plans to head down there on Friday and try to find a place to live. Hopefully I'm successful.

Look out for a new blog from me next week about my journey to Shreveport! :)

Funnnn

I've had 2 weeks of interesting times. I spent a week in Waikiki, Hawaii. It was great. We saw tons of different beaches, Diamond Head, mountains for days and amazing rain forests. It was a great trip and well worth the 20 hours total spent on a plane to get there from St. Louis.

Tomorrow, back to headquarters in Columbia. I'm excited to see the few friends that are still left there. Im excited to see what they have been up too.

Yesterday, I visited KSLA in Shreveport, LA. It was a great visit and I really liked the station and people.

Now, Im just enjoying watching the local Dallas Fort Worth news in HD---stunning!

Almost here...

Friends. Family. Fun. This weekend is going to be filled with wrapping up all the memories I have to share at the greatest place on earth--Mizzou.

I have had a great run here with many ups and downs, its been real as ever though. Reality is upon me and I am prepared for whatever comes my way. The state of the biz is just that the state of the biz, I am going to take it and run with it and along the way learn from it. Its only changing because the people are changing...We have to understand that no one wants it the way they did in the 50s...or even the 80s and 90s, for that matter.

Its going to be a wild ride, but I'm ready for whatever comes my way. I'm excited to embrace the changes that may come even as soon as I walk across that stage on Saturday. Its awesome!

So prepare for an update sometime next week about how the job search is going...I leave Tuesday for Honolulu, Hawaii. Should be fun, my family and when I say family --- my dad and I are going there for a celebratory gift after grad. We're staying on the Waikiki beach. Should be a good time, since I haven't taken a trip with him in YEARS.

Til next time, later!

Wrapping things up

Tying up loose ends here and trying to end things on a good, positive note.

I was walking to the library yesterday and walking past, Brady, our old student union--and its getting torn down for a new BIGGER AND BETTER Student Center. The memories came flowing through my mind. I can remember the first story I shot for MUTV--the college television station--freshman year on the Legion of Black Collegian's list of demands to MU higher-ups.

That wasn't the only memory I had of that place either...but, Im kinda bummed I wont even get to really use the new "Brady." What are they going to call it anyway? LOL.

Off that topic...before I start thinking about how Im going to MISS all the GREAT people that I've met over the past 4 years! :/ I'm excited to embark on an entirely different experience though---starting my career. I am excited to learn new things, use technology to its fullest potential possible in my future job, I want to get more people close to me on Twitter too. I want the Mom on it, since she could text updates. She didn't understand Facebook. She's coming to visit for the first time for graduation.

To wrap things up here, the last few weeks have been crazy...Vegas (RTNDA), finishing the big multi-platform BusinessWeek.com project with my group members and working on my capstone project with iTunes U and the incoming journalism freshmen...Its been a HUGE challenge getting everything done...oh and not to forget job hunting and my other classes.

I'm looking forward to traveling after graduation!!! I'm going to Hawaii with my dad and I really want to go hiking in the volcanoes (not the HOT ones I hope). This should be a fun trip and a great time to catch Dad up on my life and catch up on his as well.

That's all for now. I'll make another post sometime this weekend...Have a good one.

In the meantime, read this article about stations "sharing video," times are changing--any effort to save money, managers are doing what they can...sounds all too familiar from RTNDA. Here's the link to the article: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-tue-rosenthal-0505-may05,0,7639093.story

So much to do...

Hahaha...random thought of the day: Meet the Press' intro is so dramatic...the music and all is crazy! Gotta love it though.

Right now I am catching up on a few classes and watching MTP update on Swine from leaders working closely with it in the US government.

Its interesting to note Swine flu is making its way all over the US---Louisiana even announced cases today in a news conference I was able to follow via twitter from KATC down in Lafayette, LA.

In other news, Columbia's weather has been weird as ever---looking forward to Hawaii in a couple weeks! It doesn't even feel like its this close. Can't wait to soak up some sun and see a different part of the country...oh and volcano hiking with Dad should be fun!

SWINE FLU!!!

Not to scare anyone, because I feel like a lot of the national media is hyping the swine flu thing up way too much BUT: KOMU 8 reported today the first case of swine in MO.

Its not in mid-Missouri, but instead near Kansas City.

Nixon is working to get vaccines to Platte county, where the virus was detected.

Officials aren't saying much about the case itself. Hopefully we will hear more soon.

I was watching nightly news tonight and the reporter said the masks don't do much help, which totally makes sense. The particles of the virus are small enough to seep through the masks. Interesting.

Stay tuned.

Vegas

woahh...What a week that just passed. I went to the RTNDA@NAB conference in Las Vegas for a week of broadcast journalism! It was a great experience and I learned a lot.

The industry is going through a lot of changes right now and the name journalist is going through a transition to multimedia journalist. We, as journalists, have to be able to submit content to different platforms, be able to edit and what not in the field and use other elements of the internet to capture the attention of our viewers.

I didn't know this, but some stations are already using Skype to do live shots from distant places. I talked to a news director in Indiana and he said some of his reporters are doing that now. I think that's awesome. I'd love to be able to just travel to a story, gather my elements for a pack or VO/SOT and edit it on my laptop send it to the station then do a Skype live shot from the scene. I can see this being really useful in the future and I'm sure the quality will get better.

This industry is changing, but there's only one way to live through it right now--adapt! I am totally all about the technology that is allowing journalists to report more efficiently and I hope this isn't the end. I'm sure it isn't.

There was a job fair at the convention, there were a few television corporations...it was sort of interesting how many students were there, but not as many corporations. I passed out tapes and resumes to a few corporations...made good contacts as well.

It was a great learning experience and I hope to attend again in the future years. Now---OFF TO THE JOB SEARCH 2.0.

Job Search

Woah...Its been quite hectic lately....getting everything together for the beginning stages of my job search.

First, I had a meeting with a Dallas News Director about two weeks ago. It was interesting, he had some good advice of which I took into account and changed my resume tape up a bit. I also met with Kent Collins, he is a professor at the J-school. We met about cover letters, resumes, resume DVD and the state of the biz and what not. It was really informative.

My website (www.NickGuillory.com) is pretty much done and ready to be presented, I am still adding things to it here and there whenever I get new samples.

Last week, I anchored the morning show on Friday...I love anchoring the morning show---it's so fun and Lauren is a trip. She had me laughing and having a lot of fun doing it. If I ever got the chance to anchor a permanent show, I would definitely pick mornings over evenings. But, right now I just want to focus on reporting---telling people's stories.

I also had the time to go to Jos A. Bank and pick out some new suits for the search and just for the career. They had a pretty good deal and they are really friendly there..I'll definitely keep them in mind in times to come.

That's all for today...this week upcoming I am preparing myself for Las Vegas and RTNDA conference. I still have a few things to finish up before that...like this never-ending HFR. :-)

WORK

This week was pretty standard. We worked on posting the 5 & 6 stories to the web when we both arrived in on our shift.

The first story I added stuff too was the Columbia Economy...It was a fairly easy story to work with. I added pictures and posted the video.

I also worked on Candice's live shot...just added video for that one. Cate and I need to tweet more on our shift, we havent been doing that as much now...:( LOL. We'll start back up again tomorrow. I'm working the desk now and I have tweeted a bit.

Our capstone project is going well, we have gathered quite a bit of content and are meeting with Mark Jarvis again this week to try set him up with access to our content. We wanna do more dorm tour videos this week too, since its much warmer out. Christine said she could help us.

See ya soon! I didn't get a chance to set up a meeting time with you yet...I am going to send you a time soon.

This week (3.4.09)

As far as the web shift, For Christine's story, I worked on the captions for the images and editing of the story with Jenn. It was pretty painless.

Dhomonique's story had a good longer interview that she wanted as a web extra. I think its good when reporters have this additional information on their stories, it provides more insight into the story.

I also worked on the text of Reed's story for his liveshot in Jefferson City. Overall, it was a good week at the dot com desk.

Capstone activities include: setting up interviews, gathering more tour footage of dorms, talking to iTunes U guy and compiling our teams content thus far to show to the iTunes U guy.

Sad day for Journalism..hopefully not a sign of the future

What a sad day for journalists EVERYWHERE....Hopefully this isn't a sign of what's to come in every city with two papers. Its definitely disheartening to see where the industry is going as a fresh college grad, we just have to keep in mind the only thing that's going to help journalism survive is innovation! Look how fast Twitter took off (this month). I feel like everyone "tweets" now. We need to figure out more ways like that to get the news out.

It just sucks to see what seemed like such a great paper and hear the stories of those reporters just be deleted overnight.

Hoping for the best as we continue through the recession. Keep journalism alive.

WEB x 2!

To the left is an image of the Corey Griffin, I worked on the Sarah's Story about him today. Most of the time I just cut images for stories...and posted video for the 5/6 stuff. A link to the Sarahs Story is here.

During my shift I also posted two other stories to the web...Top Industrial Plant and Economy Closes Dealership. I added the video and changed up the captions on a couple photos.

There was a missing reporter, so the work load wasnt that much. I also gathered some stuff for my resume DVD and got Stacey to look over a cover letter. I am sending off my first batch (2) "applications" today.

That's all for now...Im working on an '8 On Your Money' story for Saturday, details on that tomorrow or Thursday.

What a day at the Fire House

Yea, as crazy as that sounds...I had the opportunity to ride along with Columbia Firefighters today for a future HFR I'm working on. So it started out with the guys fixing one of the trucks, because a belt snapped. Those trucks are freakin' huge! But, they got the truck in service really fast..and I think it was one of the fire fighters that fixed it. It was cool.

Then we got our first call. It was really weird because they didn't like hop, skip, jump really fast...we just kinda briskly walked to the truck and got in. It was NOISY, BUMPY and a TIGHT SQUEEZE. It was just a call for a lady with chest pains though, so no fires. Columbia FD responds to all medical calls, they arrive along with a local ambulance. We were first this time. The response was fairly fast here, but more on that later.


After the call, we went back to the house and waited for the next...but, let me tell you there wasn't another one while I was there. I got a tour of the quarters...which are quite nice. They each have their own beds (they share the bed with 2 other people on other shifts). After that we just sat around and waited more...their conversations cracked me up. They were really a close group of guys...they chat a lot, poke fun at the new guys and they are really nice. It seemed like a boy scouts or something.

So, Im working on an HFR about fire response times in Columbia...it will air later this month probably. I'll keep you all posted on that. I am also going to create some sort of flash element for the story, as I learned how to do basic flash today. I'm going to post a lot of pictures from the event too. So look out for all of that interactivity stuff soon. I'll post a link to the story when its done.

Have a good week-end!

THIS WEEK ON THE WEB

Howdy,

This week was fairly easy getting stuff on the web. The main story I worked on this week was the story about Precious Brown. I added pictures to the main story and even made my first Flickr slideshow. I think those are really cool, it took me time to figure out how to categorize it though in order to get it to show up I had to use the SWF Extra Category (DUH!) That's flash...DUH...DUH...DUH. Anyway, I got it after a while and bugging the engineer guy, but I taught him how to do it too.

Another story I worked on was just adding a video interview to the story about the homicide. Julia had extra information in an interview that I added to her story--here.

I am also working this week to get content for my capstone...I'll update about this mid-week or end of the week.

Also working on the giraffe thing this week...as well as an HFR that I hope to do BIG things for on the web....may need your help with some stuff there, but I'll talk to you about that whenever I get it together.

WEB, WEB, WEB

NEW ON THE WEB:
This week's shift was swell, the newsroom was a buzz as always. I started my shift going in and fixing some P's that I saw in a few stories and I went in and deleted them. They are annoying, I make the mistake sometimes and hate what they do. Anyway..on to the shift:

I worked on the Sarah Story "update" sort of on the Poetic lady. I made 3 captures for the story and posted them to the story. It was fairly painless.

I also assisted Zak again this week with a few editing things. He's still learning, but progressing. I wrote up his web story but Cate posted the pics.

PROJECT:
We met this week to go over what the work would be for our iTouch app. I love our project idea...it has so much freakin potential to be huge over the years here at Mizzou. My goal is to get 2 content items done this week and submitted.

GIRAFFE:
I need to do this interview this week with my person. (Reminder to self)

That's about all for this week...it was a fairly FAST week. These weeks are flying by. I am also needing to update my site tremendously..haven't had time.

Shift 2 DOWN!

This was a much busier shift than last time. I not only posted stuff to the web, but helped a reporter out too. He needed help with editing his story.

On the web side of things, everything technically worked well til the end. We had a bit of a problem transferring video...but, then it finally went through. I guess the engineer guys were working on the server to get new technology in place or something. I worked on posting more images under my stories that I posted this week and hopefully they came out okay, Kat helped me figure it out again in PhotoShop.

Here's a summary of my stories that I worked on and the stuff I did to make them more "visually appealing":

1) Max "Reiss'" story was fairly simple to work with, he had a lot of links and extras which I added to the story and I added the image Kat made for the story to make it more visual online. I am still wanting to make stories better than I do now though. I want to make a slide show next week. Cate beat me to it this week, but that's cool.

2) I also worked on the Lincoln story, there really isn't much else there but a picture. :( Unfortunately there was really nothing else I could have done with it, I don't think...any ideas?


3) And then Zak Sos' piece was another article I posted. I also helped him with editing his piece since he is new to KOMU.

I also used the @KOMUNEWS Twitter to update viewers on upcoming news at 10 and had a blast doing that. I hope we can make Twitter more useful in the future at KOMU.com and be able to link to it on our website.

Next week goals: Do a slide show!! ALSO, do you think we could have a tutorial lesson on how to use flash or something in the future in class? And how to use that mapping flash tool? I think that'd be useful to add to some stories, but I don't know/remember how to use either.

Good solid week so far. I am also narrowing down my "Giraffe" picks so I can e-mail those off by the end of the week and we need to get going on our project this/next week. So hopefully my group can get together after class on Monday to discuss ideas...

First Dot Com Shift In a While!!!

Today's shift was kinda crazy at first because the B3ers didn't know how to post stories on ACM. Kat and I helped them get their stories into ACM. That was fun.

It was pretty easy getting back in the swing of things with ACM and posting stories. The trouble I ran into tonight was getting a couple stories on because ACM would freeze up or not work at times...but other than that I got it!

I really want to learn how to do flash and stuff so I can add that to web stories, because I feel like those flash maps and stuff are useful. I also want to maybe learn and mess around with Photoshop some.

Now that the shift is winding down there is really much to do. All I have to do now is wait for the video to finish capturing for the show so I can put the video up and peace out.

:-) Good first shift back...I need to work on my personal website too.