The Tapes That Almost Broke Me

I like to listen to music and read inspirational quotes to get me through the tough times, and as an intern we are expected to do grunt work and have a few tough times that make us really question not only our selves but our career choice. This week I had a lot of questions regarding if sports is where I want to be, and if I am cut out for what the sports world has to offer. besides from talking with my friends who all reassured me that I was in the right spot I heard a song by Pink that said, "Where there is desire, there is gonna be a flame, Where there is a flame, Someone's bound to get burned but just because it burns,doesn't mean you're going to die, You've gotta get up and try " and I realized she was right. I needed keep trying despite my spirits being down.

Photo By: Nikki Romanuk

As an intern we are required to do grunt work. I get “paying your dues”, and what not but I just felt I was the only intern paying them. Here is what killed my spirits. There is this wall full of old sports tapes, you should know before everything went digital believe it or not we did record everything and kept all those tapes.

Any ways all of those sports tapes are kept in a giant wall and were only organized according by team; the major four Boston sports Patriots, Red Sox, Celtics and Bruins. There is also a section of old high school and college tapes. The producer had asked us interns on different nights to organize the tapes according to years, because they were already in teams. 

I had already done the Celtics and the Bruins and created labels for them using posits because I had no tape or stickers. Anyways the other two interns were supposed to have worked together to organize the other two teams, seems reasonable. Well Chad had asked me when all the tapes were edited to write down what labels needed to be made so he could print them out. 

Here is the problem. When I went to look at the tapes, I noticed that the Patriots and the Red Sox were not organized at all. I saw all the years mixed together with random labels thrown on the shelf to make it look like they were organized. When I told Chad I was asked to redo the wall. 

I took me over four hours to organize just one of the teams. This was on a Thursday night so there was another intern there. What upset me is ,I was organizing tapes, and wearing a dress which I have to mention I got some rug burns, and the other intern was playing golf in the studio, and watching me do all the work. I felt very upset.

Photo By: Nikki Romanuk

The next time I came into the studio was on Sunday, I assumed that the other team would be done, but just my luck I received an email from Chad asking me to finish the wall and organize the last team too. I was not happy about this because I felt like I was doing all the grunt work while the other interns got to cut highlights and shoot standups. 

I finally talked to one of the producer who is only there a few nights of the week who advised me to talk to Chad about the problem. I did finish the wall it took me another four hours to finally finish. And I did finally get to learn how to cut a highlight (which I hope to teach myself more of). 

Later I will get to talk to Chad, and that will be a whole new post.

Breaking News: Bobby V is Fired

Today was a stressful day at Fox 25 Sports, Bobby Valentine the manager of the Boston Red Sox was fired!. I first found out about the firing on my drive into the studio. The firing was not unexpected, having a season full of losses; you should lose your job. This is exciting for me. Why would someone losing their job be exciting? Well it makes a good sports story.

Brendon the anchor was at Fenway when I arrived to the station. Since there will be no formal press conference from the Red Sox, Brendon was able to get an interview, leaving the producer Chad running around and me here trying to hold up shop. This includes answering phone calls and calling other stations. Now I know answering phones is pretty easy, but being an intern, you do not get a lot of information so I did not know any answers to the questions I was being asked. I had to return a phone call to the LA office, which is all good about our interview and getting the information out to their station, but I realized I had no idea how to make a call out. Office phones are all set up to call people in the office, and no one told me how to make an actual call! I did not want to let anyone down so I went for a walk to find someone in an office to help me out.

I ended up talking to one of the managers and someone working in financial office, which helped me out. This means that I also got to get my name out there to other people in the office. Not a bad thing. I was able to return the call, with little to no information to the guy in LA. I feel bad about that.

My task was go through an interview that some reporters got on the street from Bobby V. I basically just had to listen and mark what was said where so the producer can find what he needs quickly. That is a pretty easy basic task for an intern.

The Problem

We have a few new shows, working from 3:30 to 11:30, the 6pm news, the 630 news the 10pm news and the 11pm news. Normally the 6pm news is not an issue, sports does not always make the 6pm news, but on days like today when a BIG sports story hit, we make the 6pm news. That being said, Brendon is still MIA. Well he is not really missing; he is at Fenway waiting for his interview time with Bobby V. Since he does not have a time for the interview, this might mean we have to push the story back. Also the producer will have to work really fast in producing the interview so it is good television. It is a little crazy, and extremely fast, but that is how it works in the news world.

Brendon finally got back to the station around 8ish. He came in talking about how he was the second to last person to get the interview. The Red Sox decided to do individual interviews instead of a press conference, which is a bad idea because everyone wants the same story and people that have to wait get screwed in their news story. Brendon knew he was one of the last people to get an interview and he tried to joke around with the owners by saying “So what can you tell me that you have not told anyone else?” they did not budge.

Once Brendon got back I did not have a lot to do. I got my press pass for the Patriots Broncos game, and headed out a little early. The next day I would be interning, I would be at the game, until next time guys!