The best way to learn about a job that interests you is to follow an accomplished person for a day. Here’s what I learned while job-shadowing KMTR reporter and news anchor Tasha Emmons.
Being a journalist is no walk in the park. Emmons’ line of work is replete with deadlines, stress and the moral conviction to get the story right. However, she hasn’t let that stop her from enjoying her job and learning from the many unique experiences presented in this challenging atmosphere.
Take, for example, Emmons’ story on a shooting of a mother of two in Saint Joseph, Mo. This was no ordinary incident. A woman, blind in one eye, was with her two kids when a man walked out of his apartment strapped with guns and explosives and began shooting. The mother of the two children was shot in her eye and became blind. Emmons was inspired by the woman, who told her that she was glad it was she who got shot and not her children.
“Meeting incredible people and the situations that people are put into is interesting. I learn something new every day,” says Emmons. Although she prefers spot reporting, Emmons loves the excitement that comes with every story. “You’re never know [what story you will be assigned] that is exciting,” she says.
Emmons reports to work at 9:15 a.m., stepping into a crowded newsroom filled with computers, televisions showing morning shows from all the major networks, desks covered with notebooks, newspapers, old family photos and bumper stickers. She holds a can of Slim-Fast because it’s convenient and contains vitamins and nutrients, and because she cannot cook her own meals — not even macaroni and cheese.
After a daily meeting at which reporters are assigned stories, Emmons records teasers — a series of clips that will be used in commercials promoting the 5 o’clock newscast. Next, she calls her story contacts and sets up interviews.
“It’s always good to personalize the story,” she says. She slowly gets into a station vehicle with her cameraman and begins to prepare her questions while the cameraman drives to the location.
Besides camera operators and anchors, there are many different positions in broadcast journalism. KMTR News Director Mike Wesley encourages graduating seniors to “consider an area in television that is not an on-air position [such as] a producer, news writer or assignment editor, which is an easier way to get a foot in the door.”
Broadcast journalism is only one of many fields that journalism graduates may enter. Photography, newspapers, magazine journalism and public relations are just as unique and challenging. University journalism professor Scott Maier used to work as an international reporter and traveled to foreign nations such as Nicaragua, El Salvador, Mexico and Cuba.
“I wanted to be where the news was happening,” says Maier. Whether in South America, Washington, D.C., or right here in Eugene, news stories are waiting to be found everywhere.
Today, Emmons’ story features a new type of laser hair removal. After interviewing a nurse and a doctor, her cameraman gets film of a patient being treated while she writes down how the procedure works for her conclusion. When it is time to tape the conclusion, several takes are needed to get it right. In television, nine times out of ten, nothing is perfect, she says.
After returning to the newsroom at 3 p.m., Emmons writes her story and prepares for the newscast. She and her co-anchor Marc Mullins are the only ones in the studio. As the KMTR intro is rolling on a television, Emmons reads over her script one last time. When 5 p.m. rolls around, mistakes are not allowed.