Where to begin? When I first learned that I would have the opportunity to intern at WAVY TV this Summer, I was excited, but also nervous. At that point I had only worked in the radio side of broadcast, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I made the transition over to the television side of things. I also live on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, so the commute to and from Portsmouth seemed intimidating for someone used to the tranquility of traffic on the Shore.
After my first official day as an intern, however, those fears were put to rest. What started as a mixture of excitement and nervousness quickly turned into excitement and eagerness. Everyone I’ve met so far has been incredibly kind and helpful, and I’ve yet to meet someone at WAVY that I haven’t been able to learn anything from.
Now, here I am on my fourth day of the internship, and I’ve already had the opportunity to watch newscasts from the booth, learn about the editing process for video packages, practice writing teasers, and attend a morning news meeting with all of the producers. I’m even sitting at the information desk right now as I write this post, listening to police reports and phone calls that will hopefully lead to the creation of more news stories.
Being in the newsroom is a very exciting experience for me because there’s always something important happening in one way or another, and I’m lucky to have someone like longtime producer Bob Bennett as my internship direct supervisor. Bob has been showing me the ropes since I started here, and he’s already arranged a “test” of sorts for me that I’ll be taking later today (I’ll have an update on that in my next post).
Finally, I’ve been told that I’m starting at WAVY during an exciting period of time. There are new producers who are being trained at the same time as me, a new studio set is being built, and a new snack “oasis” has been added to the break room. Overall, I’m only at the beginning of my intern journey here at WAVY, and I’m sure that it will only get more exciting as time goes on.