Everyone has a story…<\/p>\n
How they got started, how they got someone to take a chance on them…<\/p>\n
Freelancing, working for the student radio or tv station in college is a great beginning but it doesn’t usually pay the bills…That’s where the challenge comes…<\/p>\n
My story is written in hieroglyphics in the building at 640 Comm, formerly known as the School of Public Communication…Too many decades ago that i care to remember while researching a story on this revolutionary thing called cable television, i stumbled upon a small local station in beautiful downtown Malden that was producing more than sixty hours a week of local programming…I sat through a local news show they did with one anchor simply reading stories he had re-written from the Malden Evening News ….When it was over, the Program Director, who had to direct that news show, granted me an interview for my project…After asking all my questions i said to him, \u00a0“I notice that Howard (Kaye) doesn’t do any sports in his show”. The P-D said, “Oh Howard doesn’t know anything about sports”. \u00a0To which I summoned up enough courage and said “Well, how about me?”…He sat there, and sat there and sat there some more and finally said “OK”….That was a Friday and I was on the air Monday never having done ANY television before, my work in SPC excluded…Monday rolled around and I had no clue…Howard, of coure, \u00a0was more than happy to give me four minutes out of his fifteen (so he didn’t have to fill it)…And off I went…Truth be told, at the beginning, I too re-wrote stories out of the Malden Evening News…But it didn’t take long for me to realize I had to do more…Within a week I started going to the track meets in the afternoon, the basketball and hockey games at night, Porta Pak <\/a>in hand…Rushing back to the station I’d edit what i could (usually the long jump because it was the first event)…I made sure I told everyone at the meet “this is gonna be on the Channel 13 News tonight”….And you know what?…The next time I showed up the kids (and the parents) would come up to me and say “Thank you, no one’s ever done this before, are you filming today?”….And so it built…We started doing football games on Saturdays, tape delaying them, basketball and hockey, even baseball, some with ONE camera but the people in Malden didn’t care that it was shaky or grainy, they were on TV!…And this newcomer was on his way…<\/p>\n Tom Leyden<\/a> of WFXT and NESN’s Michaela Vernava<\/a>\u00a0joined us at the Boston University Sports Journalism Seminar Series recently and both told similar stories…Starting in small markets isn’t the most glamorous, Leyden in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Vernava at a cable station in Marlborough, Massachusetts, but it had its benefits…”You’re gonna get paid very little money but don’t think about that, said Leyden, the way your should view your first experience is like going to grad school but getting paid. And don’t ever think you’re better than where you are because the reality is you’re probably not”…<\/p>\n I certainly had no allusions…Vernava told the group, “I felt like draft pick number 199. Why should I be the one that makes it, that gets a job, that winds up being good at this? \u00a0And then I would remind myself that I just believed that I could”<\/p>\n Starting that first job is very much like starting college again…You learned no one was going to make you dinner (but at least you had the dorm)…You learned no one was going to do your laundry (but the dorms had washers and dryers)…You learned to budget your time (there always an all nighter)…The first job is the same…You have to re-learn everything…It’s genuinely scary but amazingly exciting at the same time…<\/p>\n Leyden had a great piece of advice for “newbies”…”Wherever you go, determine what those people really care about and cover it. \u00a0Because guess what? \u00a0If you cover it and cover it well, the people you’re serving are gonna like you”<\/p>\n Isn’t that what it’s all about?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Everyone has a story… How they got started, how they got someone to take a chance on them… Freelancing, working for the student radio or tv station in college is a great beginning but it doesn’t usually pay the bills…That’s where the challenge comes… My story is written in hieroglyphics in the building at 640 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":901,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/901"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":406,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions\/406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}