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RTNDA

I told myself I’d blog about this, I just wasn’t sure when. Between the jet lag and reporting on live TV literally hours after we landed, I would say it has taken me a few days to get caught up on sleep.

I got in to Las Vegas on Saturday afternoon, the RTNDA festivities started on Sunday. I had never been to Vegas before so I wasn’t really sure what to expect. Of course I was there for business, the RTNDA@NAB conference. I learned a lot at all the different sessions. Some of my favorite sessions were about the current state of the industry and new media. I really liked Cashing In on Business and Financial Coverage and The (News) Doctor Is In: What’s Wrong with My Website? Of course I have to talk about Jen Reeve’s Twitter 101 because I loved hearing about how newsrooms plan on using twitter.

It was also a special RTNDA for my news director, Stacey Woelfel. He became the new Chairman of the organization. Congrats to him! Another highlight of the trip was someone who I got to meet, Merv Block. I read his book before I was even in J School so I was very excited about meeting him.

All in all it was a great experience and I would really like to go again if I get the chance. I think the conference did a good job of acknowledging the current economic situation, yet at the same time it wasn’t as negative as I may have expected.

Belated Post - On my way to RTNDA

After a whirlwind week, I’m finally on a plane to the RTNDA@NAB conference in Las Vegas. There was so much to do this week, but I can finally breathe as I sit on this plane with a cold drink on the tray table. (Incase your wondering I wrote this on the plane with the intention of posting it when I landed. I planned on posting it until I found out the internet was $15 per day at the MGM.)

Last night I anchored the 10. After the newscast I edited a franchise story for KOMU’s Your Health segment that aired on Sunday. Then I burned a bunch of DVDs, went home, packed – next thing I know I’m on my way to Vegas. I’ve been looking forward to this conference since I started going to our local RTNDA meetings three years ago. Now I’m the secretary for our chapter. I am just so excited to meet new people, so excited to learn new things, and yes I’d by lying if I said I wasn’t excited to go to Vegas.

Teaming Up for a Visit

Last week I shot a story for KOMU's Your Health franchise. I followed University of Missouri football players as they visited sick kids at Children's Hospital. The football players also handed out autographed pillowcases to the patients. I knew, I had to bring a still camera to get some good pictures of this story. I also created a web extra video to tell the story behind the pillowcases.

Link to the story: Teaming Up for a Visit

Everyone is talking changes

This week the Detroit Free Press made some major changes. The paper will only be delivered Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. This is a huge step for a major metropolitan newspaper. As a journalism major and an avid Freep reader I was really curious about these changes. For my capstone class I am taking part in a project called Media Giraffe. The goal is to interview people with an innovative media presence on the internet. I figured these bold moves by the Free Press definitely qualify as innovative. I contacted the Freep through twitter to setup an interview. They responded right away and I was able to interview Steve Dorsey. He's their Deputy Managing Editor for Presence and Innovation. The interview was extremely interesting, I think we talked for 30 minutes. It wasn't only an interview about the Free Press: it was an interview about the future of journalism and the state of the industry. I am currently writing my piece for the Media Giraffe site and I'll link to it when I'm done.

The newspaper industry isn't the only one experiencing changes, TV is changing too. The University of Missouri School of Journalism had a special guest. Russ Mitchell came in to talk about The Real World of TV News. He also showed a clip from his KOMU days - priceless. Russ took questions about everything from how he got into journalism to changes at the network level.

Both of these experinces brought me a lot of hope. Ask about the future of journalism and I bet 9 out of 10 times you'll get a negative response. I think we need to start seeing the positives in this industry. When this happens I think it will be easier to move forward even if that means a doing journalism differently.