After heavy rain soaked the Tri-States one week, residents were forced into detours after mudslides occured in our northern viewing area. I'm trying to explain this in a standup as one bug in particular becomes too much of a distraction. Add Comment "What do you want to know?" 08/11/2011
These are the days I have so much fun doing my job! I was fortunate enough to meet this Hannibal woman, originally from Silex, Missouri. She just celebrated her 108th birthday this August. It took her a while to figure out why I, someone from the media, was there, but once she got talking it was the funniest thing!  The Tri-States got hit with a HUGE snow storm this week. It began early Tuesday morning (2/1/11) and didn't stop for the next 24 hours. Truly an epic snow storm. We at KHQA were, of course, all over this winter coverage. Aside from our live coverage and great use of reporter creativity, we rocked the social media aspect. Throughout the last two days, our news and sales team worked together posting every school/activity closing to the web and Facebook as soon as they were called in. But what really seemed to stick out with our viewers was these behind the scenes videos I shot throughout the day. Every hour, I'd take my phone and shoot whatever was going on in the newsroom and posted it to our fan page. The videos consisted of our meteorologist going out every hour and measuring the snow amounts, our producers meeting to discuss how to stack the show and a look inside the studio showing how the whole show comes together. These received the most views and comments, all speaking very highly of how great we'd been keeping our viewers updated. Below, you can click to watch a collage of the many videos I shot. A new chapter 08/03/2010
 No Fear. Those were the last words I took home with me before leaving Columbia. Needless to say I had plenty of fear. Moving to a new city. Starting a new job. Being on my own for the first time in my life. I knew it would be a great experience, but more than anything, I just wanted to go home and stay there...where it was comfortable. I moved to Quincy, Illinois on May 29. Two days later, I became KHQA's weekend anchor, reporter, and producer. The biggest challenge yet! I cannot begin to explain how much work is involved when you take on almost every aspect of a show, but I can tell you how amazing it felt to have every co-worker graciously come to my aid when I needed help. They made the transition to Quincy and to KHQA unbelievably smooth. I truly feel apart of the "family." And that makes going to work so much easier. As much fear I had coming into this new chapter in my life, I can easily say it's all gone. I have a great job, great friends, and reason to smile every day. No fear. The Kramer Family 03/14/2010
 I'm collecting donations for a special family I recently met. While meeting with them for a story I'm working on, I realized their story is much more complex than one I could fit into a minute and a half package. Mary Kramer, a single mom, spends most of her days at Children's Hospital in St. Louis with her very ill daughter Emily, diagnosed with DiGeorge Syndrome at birth. Now nearing her ninth birthday, Emily and her mom have spent 800+ days in hospital rooms, having been Life Flighted, transported by ambulance and Missouri ICU'd 31 times. Every few days, Emily becomes stable enough to go home only for a few more days until she needs medical attention once more. Their last visit to Children's Hospital has left Mary and Emily living in the same hospital room for almost 6 weeks now. And to make matters worse, with a very weak immune system, Emily can't even leave her room. She gets to take "field trips" every now and then to have x-rays and surgeries, a number well over 50. Mary's other children have spent their days apart from her with extended family at their home near Jefferson City. That is until their house exploded last week when their clothes dryer sparked an explosion. While no one was critically hurt, the Kramers now have NOTHING and are still separated by all of Mary and Emily's trips to the hospital. This is truly a sad story, but one with much hope and grace. I'm blessed to have received word of the Kramer's story and want to help in any way possible. So whether it be clothes, appliances, toys, anything-please donate. Let me know if you can help! In Columbia? You can bring items to KOMU or to me personally. In STL? Contact me by email and we can agree on a place to meet. UPDATE 3/15: Mary emailed me today with even more news on Emily's health. It's not looking good. She turned worse the day after we met and will now need more inpatient time at Children's before her and Mary can go back to the rest of their family. I asked about the necessities they're in need of-Mary said gift cards would be the best way to help, since she has no real time frame of when her and her four kids will have a home again. For the latest story on the Kramers: http://tinyurl.com/ygrp7yq  CoTweet-Get the news out first 12/28/2009
 CoTweet is a must have for all news stations. It's "how business does Twitter." CoTweet enables companies to engage with the public on the latest news and marketing strategies. CoTweet allows multiple people to communicate through corporate Twitter accounts. You can also incorporate "cotags" at the end of the message, to let viewers know the person behind the tweet. At KOMU, our assignment desk and web producers help manage our brand's CoTweet account. Every reporter at the station is responsible for Tweeting the latest news released on their story throughout the day. They do one of two things: They tweet the news from their personal account with the KOMU tag so the assignment desk will receive it, or they sign in to CoTweet themselves and tweet the information to all of our viewers at once from KOMU. It's a great tool in getting the latest breaking news out to all of our audiences at once. Even when reporters aren't on the scene of a breaking story, we are able to follow government officials, etc. and can immediately post their Tweets as a first look at what's going on until we're able to verify the news ourselves. It's a world wide web source of connections and information. A must-have for the corporate world. Even more recent is the new "GeoTag." Now, when you post a tweet, you can give your viewers the option to see where exactly you are located, down to the building you're in. For reporters on location, this can be a great tool in verifying your location in a breaking news story. It's still too soon to tell how much of an impact this could have. The Business of Journalism 12/21/2009
The business of journalism is a challenging one. Change is constant, making it that more imperative that journalists and media professionals keep up with the times. If your media outlet falls behind, so will its ratings. KTVI-Fox 2 Web Producer Jill Hampton says everything’s going digital for the web. That’s why it’s so important for reporters and anchors alike to have more skills than just writing and speaking to video. "They are now having to write for online print and do it before anything goes on air,” says Hampton. This information comes too late for some who have already received the boot or are taking furloughs due to the economy. Many local television stations across the country have made their mark on getting the news to the public on air the fastest. Now, it’s a matter of who has it up on the web first. People can’t turn on the TV to find local news running 24/7, but “they can go to the Internet, listen to their pod casts and read content blogs, ” Hampton explains. As journalists, we have to constantly find new ways of delivering our content, or the so-called citizen journalists will get there before we do. Not only do we have to be the watchdogs of our community but we also have to watch out for ourselves. The Year of Social Networking 12/20/2009
 Facebook, Twitter (CoTweet), Myspace, YouTube, Linkedin, Ning, Naymz, Xanga and Delicious. These are only some of the world's largest social media sites. While for their original purposes of bringing people together, connecting and socializing online, these sites have, for many members, become their News sources. In many cases, breaking news is found faster on Facebook and Twitter rather than local news pages and national sites like FOX and CNN. We have the technologies to post anything online in a seconds time on our iPhones and Blackberries. Whatever we think, see and hear can be shared with the world in just one click. When Michael Jackson died, who broke the news first? TMZ. When News organizations take public opinion polls, where do they tell you to comment? Facebook and Twitter. Now, instead of interviewing celebrities and government officials, entertainment stations now look for their sources' status updates and simply post them on air and online. No further interviews needed, right? Even retailers and businesses in the food industry are taking their PR online. Why mail coupons when Papa Johns can post its specials in a free Tweet? It's been a year for a wide variety of connections, friend requests, sales and breaking news. The question is whether there'll be a point when it gets to be too much. At what point will we decide we want accuracy over immediacy? Or will enough of us care? Compared to my last HFR, this one only took about a week to put together. I compared a recent murder case, the murder of 9-year old Elizabeth Olten and a case very much alike back in 2000. David Dewey, 15, was convicted of second degree murder for the death of his 12-year old neighbor, Sheena McDonald. Not only were the ages of the offenders the same-more than half a dozen other factors were echoed in each case. Even more twists and turns are found in my web story here. I'd like to thank Boone County Prosecutor, Dan Knight for his time and knowledge of these cases. It truly made a difference in my understanding and in the story. Meet the KOMU 8 Team 12/11/2009
This is a 4 month long project I've worked on for our komu.com site. It's a Meet the Team page that includes our reporters, producers, directors and other staff. I never knew how hard it would be just getting everyone in front of the camera. A team of 2 colleagues and myself took photos of everyone, gathered their bios and researched different social networking sites that would be most compatible. We found Flickr to be easily accessible and updateable. Check it out! |
