Yes, I am still broadcasting. I promise.

This semester has been very strange for me, mainly because I am so used to being on the Westminster campus all the time and spending all of my time in the newsroom. It's so much different now. I'm in the newsroom on Tuesday mornings, but that is the only day I have free time at all, so I have been scheduling oil changes, orthodontist appointments, etc. for Tuesday afternoons. On Thursdays, I split the entire day between the newsroom and the Holcad office. I am always in the newsroom for about an hour before my night class on Mondays and Wednesdays, as well. It's pretty safe to say that things are insane for me right now.

It's so weird hearing people talking about Titan Crew games and not being a part of them, or listening to DJ shifts and not having one myself, or watching the County Line and Coach's Corner and knowing that I haven't contributed to them. It's kind of sad, actually. I remember last fall, I had two DJ shifts, two news shifts, I ran tapes for Titan AND High School Crews, I did a couple of packages for the County Line and anchored an 88.9 on TCL, I floor directed Coach's Corner, I covered a borough meeting, I took pictures for web stories...I did it all, pretty much.

Right now, since I'm the news director, that's what I've been doing in broadcasting at WC. This week I crafted a checklist to help keep things organized in the newsroom, and I also went over the Titan Radio News Protocol and revised it a little bit. I'm going to send it to Mr. Weaver for approval, then I'm going to send it to all of the BC 311 and 120-B students.

I do the noon newscasts on Tuesdays and Thursdays because everyone else has class at that time, but I also have a class at 11, so I have to pre-record them. This past week turned out to be a strong one for me. It's not easy reporting, producing, and anchoring a newscast entirely by yourself.

On Tuesday, I did an act about mammograms in PA because it's currently Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get sound from anyone local because I was pressed for time, but I did get some sound from the web. I certainly think the story had enough impact to affect people in our area, localized or not.

My main goal for every newscast is to make everything LOCAL and RELEVANT. On Thursday, I had the best content for a newscast so far this year. I led off with breaking news about the accident that happened on Route 158. Now, I'm not sure how much sense it made, because Pam came in and told me about it just as I was going to record my newscast and I scribbled some notes down and read those. I also called Karen Miller, who gives Amish tours through the Lawrence County Tourism Bureau, and asked about the local Amish reaction to the shootings in Lancaster. I got enough sound to do a double ACT, and I think it turned out well. Every story in my newscast was local except for my kicker, which was the news that the Pittsburgh Penguins were sold. I had to stick that in there, of course.

I've also been getting some decent hours at WKST. This week, in particular, I did the news on Sunday mornings as always. News at WKST is very much different than Titan Radio News, but that's a whole other blog entry (seriously, I am going to blog about it). I do some board-opping and editing on Sunday mornings as well, so it keeps me busy. I also ran the New Castle football game on Friday night and did the Saturday morning news.

My internship is broadcasting-related, but I am involved with the PR/media relations side and not the production side. I still get to mingle with producers and anchors and see the processes of running a cable television station, and I can understand all of the lingo, too!

So, there you have it. Although I'm not on campus as much as I'd like to be, I am still very much a broadcaster.