| Topic Name: |
Your Career in TV |
| Message Name: |
Been doing this over 30 years, |
| Date Posted: |
05/10/2005 |
| In Reply To: |
...and have felt as so many of you have at one point or another. This is a heart-breaking business and really doesn't always live up to what we make of it in our minds when we're young eager students and want it so bad it hurts.
I've gotten over the humps and come to terms with this career by seeing it for its downsides, but working to try to make it better. I'm lucky because I'm at a station that allows that kind of attitude. I'm at a station that allows us to actually BE journalists from time to time (often enough to make us happy and keep us going).
A way to do the kind of stories you want in this business -- start setting them up yourself (if your desk will allow you). Find the hard news peg, set the story up and sell it to the producers and desk. Shoot, if it's one less thing they have to do, the better. And I'm not talking fluff features all the time. The more you can call your own shots, the better for you, the better for the newscast.
And for all those hopeful newbies out there -- I've said it before, I'll say it a million times more -- right now, write on a piece of paper what you want out of this business. Write down how you think this career will fulfill you. What are your expectations, what are you willing to live with and what is absolutely intollerable to you. Then, down the road, when you feel these frustrations, look at that piece of paper. If you aren't getting out of it what you wanted -- you'll KNOW it's time to leave. |
| Message: |
and still can't believe how cool it is to be paid well for doing something that, for the most part, I love to do.
Oh, there have been good owners and bad; good stations and bad; ditto news director and gm's and fellow anchors. I've been on-air from 40's to top ten, and it's more similar than you'd think.
Viewers can be great and they can be terribly unfair and picky, while tv critics are uniformly vapid because their view is so clouded by jealousy due to the fact they're a critic and not a player. Oh sure, I've read and heard all about how local tv news, and sadly, local tv sports, is dying and we should run for cover quickly. Somebody please let me know when that happens; I'm having too much fun right now.
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