You're only as good as your last story

Yesterday I finished my second reporter shift at KOMU. I was much more prepared this time and I was excited to contribute to the ten pm show. I felt pretty good after my last reporter shift and was confident I would produce another excellent story. I know that producers and news directors do not care about your last story, but the one your working on today.

The story I covered was on two shootings that occurred in the early morning hours of Jefferson city. The unique part of the story was that shoots are rare in Jefferson City and both shootings were unrelated despite their close proximity. I called the officer who faxed us the press release and asked him for an interview. One problem was the officer agreed to meet with me but only if he had time. I waited in the station for two hours to get my sound bite. When the officer finally came to get me he told me I had five minutes to talk to him and refused to use the lav mic. I had to finally convince him to use the mic but he put it far to low on his shirt. As I left the station I felt like I had wasted time and I knew my audio was poor. I need to work on dealing with police officers in the future.

The next problem I had was finding a resident in the surrounding neighborhood who would talk to me about the shooting. I talked to over a dozen people and only had success with one person. I really wanted to interview a man who ran a daycare right next to where the shootings happened. However, he refused to go on camera saying it would look bad for his business. I drove around and knocked on doors with cars parked outside to make sure someone was home but nobody would talk to me. I had to go back to the station with only two interviews.

I think I need to work on convincing people to talk to me. I know that being on camera can be intense for some people but I should have tried harder to get people to talk to me. I really felt defeated but I tried my best to make the edit look good and it turned out very well. The only thing that needed work was my audio levels, I will pay more attention to my mic location for next time.

my story