Powerless Crazies

Never in my life have I heard so many complaints against the goverment.
I have been a little torn in what I think about this. As a lowly intern having to listen to 20minute rants about how 9/11 was a plot and tax dollars stolen, children taken and unresponsive government officials and media outlets I feel like "o my gosh, they are all crazy.". As a journalist though it makes me a little proud that local citizens are willing... and believe me they are willing to challenge big government and big media.
I have been yelled at from the beginning of the shift by people saying that we should expose expose expose and that instead we use "fluff" for news and are blind to whats really going on. Although the people who have called me do not speak with elequouence, which makes me think theyre just New Hampshire crazies this makes me so sad that I know as an insider that no matter what they say my assignment editors and producers wont care. They can talk and write and yell at me all they want but when it comes down to it gatekeeping is not only real but overwhelming. What my station says people listen to. Last week they were listening to how a cow got caught in a pool, today how there was a racoon with rabies.

Maybe the crazies are right. It is the same 4 stories over and over again.

Did I tell you about the guy who called about playing basketball with Osama Bin Laden in highschool?

Also, I had to explain how broadcasts were not covered by the 1st amendment to one man who called... and believe me he made me use everything I learned in my CMJ classes

9hrs

Today Andy, the crime reporter, asked me to log his tapes. I thought he was being nice like Kria had the other day by giving me something to do. When I finished he actually read through them, asked me to cut some things and add others. I was surprised that he used the camera cuts I chose.
He had known mostly what he had wanted to use before asking me to log them, he wrote the stories while I was working.
I also talked to the people in charge of my internship about cutting my hours. Unfortunately this is costing me a lot of money due to both high gas prices and lack of time to devote to paying jobs. I already have all of my required internship hours and the rest would be to gain a reputation and more knowledge.
There was something that upset me a little though, which almost brings me back to my original displeasure with broadcast. In a NH town today there were military tanks and SWAT members hiding around these peoples' house because they were protesting paying taxes and demanded that an authority figure show them the law. Shots were fired while one of the people were walking their dog. When I asked why we werent covering the story (at all) I was told that it was yesterday's news... although shots had not been fired yesterday. Talk about gatekeeping.

8.5hrs