One of those days where the morning meeting melts into the midday meeting (which came with lunch) which transitioned into a conversation which filled up the time nicely before the next meeting.
Actually not true. I did have just enough time to miss my turn, come back around, try again and then sit in my car and tap at the keyboard for 15 minutes. In my car.
It is even more glamorous than I’d hoped it would be ever since I first saw it casually dropped in a minivan commercial all those years ago. There’s a stream, and a van with sliding doors on both sides. And in between them is the van owner, pecking away at the never ending TPS reports.
He wrote a memo about it once, but the memo was ignored because, in his passive aggressive way, he did not put the cover sheet on the TPS memo. And previous office literature had clearly stated, no cover sheet, no memo.
That was before the minivan. And he’s much better now, thanks. He can exit out of both sides! Stream? Turn left! Field of wildflowers? Exit right? How could you be bothered about problems at the office? Or even TPS reports. You’ve got a laptop in your van. Down by the river!
Yes, I just mixed imagery from three different sources. That’s been the sort of fun, delightful, not tiring, but full, not tangible, but productive day it has been. I’ve not made anything with my hands today. I haven’t anything on which to put a cover sheet. But it was a good day.
This afternoon my class took a field trip to see the nice people at WIAT CBS 42. The news director introduced them to the director, who’s been in broadcasting, it turns out, longer than I’ve been alive. We walked them through the interim studios — they are rebuilding. We visited the old set up. We sat in the newsroom and talked with one of the evening anchors and had passing conversations with other employees.
The news director, Scott MacDowell then asked his trick questions. He says he asks these in every interview. I’ll share one of them: What three things does every story need?
A beginning, a middle and an end.
He showed us the new backpacks some of the reporters are using. Think cell signals and air cards. He said they can run for two hours continuously, generate different shots than you’ve ever seen on a regular newscast (changing the way they approach storytelling, no doubt) and cost a fraction of what those suddenly unnecessary microwave trucks cost. In a time when you see iPad and iPhone videos on the newscasts, here’s equipment that ways about 20 pounds, that requires one cord and lets you go deep into buildings or weaving anywhere else a person can walk. Game changer.
I think I was the one the most interested in that.
We had the opportunity to watch the first block of the newscast. Here are a few of the students checking out the 5 p.m. newscast at WIAT:
One of our graduates, Kaitlin McCulley, had the lead story in the newscast.
And then that led into the day’s next meeting, the weekly critique of the Crimson. They’re doing such a nice job with the print product at this point. I’m proud of them. We found only three obvious errors and one more judgment call in the entire paper this week. Their hard work is paying off, too. I arrive to emails and walk into meetings and receive compliments on their behalf. That’s great to watch happen for the students, because I know how much hard work they put into the product.
Anyway, that meeting skipped right into dinner … and now I’m looking for some TPS cover sheets. I probably left them in the car.
