Today I was again disappointed that the coffee machine was down. A man came into the break room and I asked him how to fix it. He introduced himself as the Art Director and gave me some insight to careers in broadcast. He told me that there was (almost) no creativity permitted in broadcast news writing, something which I've come to realize this summer. He and his workers often laugh about how the news dept. does the same story every year, he them demonstrated "A devastating car crash killed a (insert town name) man last night..."
He isn't wrong.
He also told me how the consolidation of the media... aka only using the AP, has led to more and more standardized news.
He is still not wrong.
It is a little depressing. Whenever I'm asked to write a reader I'm told to use the wires. There is only one wire, it is the AP. As he said: there really aren't broadcast writers, you re more like an editor.
I wrote another package for Andy today and logged his tapes for him. I'm getting better, he corrects me a lot less. I think next summer I'm going to work in radio.
O, and I finally met an intern who I can hang out with.
9hrs
