By Dylan McDonough
Last year I reported on WZZM Channel 13 News Station. This year I went on a field trip with Koinonia Homeschool Co-op to the Fox 17 News Station. I had a great experience and learned more than before.
Clara was our guide through the news station. She is the Special Projects Producer. Clara has worked there since 2001, so she was knowledgeable about the news business.
We first went to the weather news desk. Most people turn on the news for the weather report. The reporters need to make the weather interesting otherwise people will flip to other stations.
The tricky part of being an on-air weatherman is that you always have to be moving. When being filmed, weathermen hold a remote in their hands that controls the slides. They watch the time and know how long they have to talk for each slide.
Predicting the weather in Western Michigan can be very difficult because of the wide ranging variables from Lake Michigan. In fact, weathermen want to report in Western Michigan to stretch themselves since the weather is so hard to predict. Lake Michigan is the biggest deciding factor in our weather. For example, Wisconsin might get snow but when the storm moves over the warm Lake Michigan, we just get rain in Western Michigan. Other difficult areas to predict weather patterns in the U.S. are Chicago (also because of Lake Michigan), areas with tornados, northern areas with snow drifts and the East Coast due the Atlantic Ocean. We learned weathermen in Yuma, Arizona, for example, need to jazz up the weather reports so people still watch since it is nearly always hot and sunny.
The Newsroom was rather empty when we were there. Why? Because news happens outside the newsroom. The Assignment Desk is like an Air Traffic Controller. The News Director is like a builder and the Producer is like an architect of a news program. Directors do many shows (at least two) while a Producer only works on one show. The hardest part of the day for everyone is the end of the day when the show is actually on. Fox 17 gets a lot of tips from people emailing them.
They used to have to make beat calls—calling the police, fire departments, and health departments every hour. They also listen to police scanners.
Everything changed for news on September 11, 2001. People wanted news around the clock. They wanted news fast. Sales of printed newspapers went down. Online news surged. Right after 9-11 2001, the news was constant with no commercials which meant no revenue for a long time. Sadly, most people did not go back to newspapers.
After viewing the newsroom, we headed to the Production Control Room. It was dark with lots of screens that held video news feeds. Here they put everything together and then send it to the Master Control. That is where they add in the commercials and other things. Then it is broadcast to TV viewers.
Some people can be very mean to news reporters. Sometimes viewers do not always agree with what is broadcasted. Reporters are faced with comments like “You wear that outfit too much,” or “The weather forecast wasn’t right.” This can be very discouraging. Lots of newswomen use a different name than their real name.
Our last stop was where they film talk shows and other kinds of programming. We pretended we were celebrities interviewing one another. We also stood in front of the green screen. The kids who were wearing green looked half invisible on the camera!
This field trip was very interesting and educational. Clara was an organized guide. The next time you are going to watch the news or weather, consider switching on Fox 17 News!
