Breaking News...

When news breaks, my first instinct is immediately the 5 W's and H... Who, What, Where, When, Why and How. Answering those questions, gives a reporter the very basic needs of the story. While it might not be the most eloquently written story, it gets the job done. It gets the nitty, gritty stuff accomplished.

When I was working on this shift, a fellow KOMU 8 reporter, Kathryn Lucchesi called and said we needed to get to Providence and Old Plank Road. She said there were police and ABC 17 on the scene. We had heard a shots fired over the scanner, but nothing really came about from it (aka Joint Comm playing dumb, and no more traffic on the scanner).

Once we got the call, we started to send a new reporter on the scene, so I offered to go with her. Thankfully I did because it was one of those neighborhoods that you wanted help. This wasn't my first time covering spot news, so I knew my way around the watering hole. We got to the scene, and the other reporter with me was more awestruck than anything, but she was able to help talk to witnesses as I got the video we needed.

I should mention all this happened around 9 p.m. so obviously our producers wanted this for the 10 p.m. newscast. As a producer, reporting is one the best ways for me to learn. And being in this situation of spot news I'm glad I answered those questions of the 5 W's and H, but it absolutely annoyed me when my producer was saying, "Is that all?" and getting upset when I couldn't answer his specific quesitons about things we didn't know yet. I knew he was trying to get the information for his newscast, but at the same time, the dynamic only works when the producer can trust the reporter to do their job. I know how to report -- that's why I went to Mizzou, to get the whole package on learning -- but it was so frustrating when I was being patronized for information I didn't have and was trying to find.

As a producer, it taught me to remember, the reporter isn't trying to screw over your entire newscast... they're just trying to get the story done right. Sometimes that doesn't mean keeping everyone updated, every minute they're there... but it means trusting the reporter that they know what they are doing so they can get their story on the air.