Personal Reflection: Reporting Shift #3

I learned a great lesson while reporting this week: even with planning ahead, sometimes nothing goes according to plan.

 Here is what happened-I arrived for my nightside reporting shift at KOMU 8 News yesterday. After pitching several ideas during the story meeting, I decided to cover an anonymous donation of 100 vouchers for turkeys to a food pantry in Hermann, MO. I was immediately interested in covering this story as it is in Gasconade County, which is relatively far from Columbia (about 1.5 hours) but is still in KOMU's viewing area. Also, this is a timely story as local food pantries are gearing up for Thanksgiving next week. Unfortunately, after making several calls, I discovered this food pantry is open on a volunteer basis and nobody would be in for the day. This would be perfect if I had a reporting shift next week!

After almost 2 hours of struggling to get contacts for my other story pitches, a producer suggested I do a story on "hunter safety." I made a call to the Department of Conservation but was told my contact, as well as anybody else knowledgable on the subject, was not in the office. I then hit the road and went to the nearest store which sold hunting equipment. There, I spoke with a gentleman who had been hunting for 50 years. Next, I went to Target Masters, an indoor facility where hunters and gun-owners practice shooting in a controlled environment. However, nobody was there practicing which left me with no visuals or opportunity for natural sound. While there, I spoke with the owner of the business, who also happened to be along-time gun owner. Next, I drove to a bar in Millersburg, MO, which tends to be a local hangout for hunters. Unfortunately, I stayed there for 30 minutes, with no luck-the establishment was empty as well. 

After leaving Millersburg, it was past 7 p.m. and I returned to KOMU. After speaking with producers and the script/video editor, we decided to "kill" the story. The reasoning behind this was the lack of "meat" in the story and little/no visuals. After this decision, I was extremely frustrated as I had spent the afternoon trying my very best to get a story completed. Not only did I let myself down, I also let my producers down. 

While this shift did not have the best outcome, it served as a learning experience. I had the opportunity to meet and interview people, traveled to a new town (Millersburg), and truly realized the difficulty of this profession. 

Let's hope I have better success in my shift-I'm determined to never let this happen again!