Fly by the seat of your pants

When you walk up on the news assignment desk, you are flying by the seat of your pants through your entire shift.

Having the skills, the experience, the contacts and being a multi-tasker is a plus. But what comes your way is never a sure thing. Always in flux!

You never know what problems will arise but have to be armed, ready and organized enough to mobilize quickly!

Today, for instance, whether or not we were going to be live out at Berea Browns Camp was up in the air for a while so I just started a live truck to the location. You can always turn it around. And that's what I had to do. Sports decided to be in studio. No worries. I had a story to shoot on the west side so I rerouted my crew to the other story. Worked out perfectly!

Then we had a live shot downtown near an RTA bus stop. The truck generator died before air. Again, no worries, one of my crews took another truck to the scene and we were dandy.

And information is constantly coming into the station. We received an updated agenda for the Obama visit on Friday. Can't just toss this into the file. Pertinent information such as this must be distributed to all the parties who may be handling or eventually disseminating the details.

A reporter may come up to the desk needing more b-roll or needing some video looked up in our archives. Another duty to tend to....Paul needed a crew to shoot some b-roll in the field to augment his story. Lydia needed video which we had in house looked up. She searched but I assisted her to find it faster.

There is never any downtime on the news desk, at least not during my shift. And if there is, well, there isn't! If there is down time, there is always stuff to do on the web or future planning....or checks to make....or archiving....

The phrase "I'm bored" should never be heard on a news assignment desk because that is just not possible!