My first election coverage...

This week, I got my feet wet in covering an election. I was a reporter for the live KICK FM election night special.

I was stationed at Sam Katz's election night headquarters - a swishy ballroom at the Radisson downtown.

I filed four live reports for the station, each of about one minute in length, to provide colour from the the event. I was lucky enough to be stationed at the winning camp and that definitely made the night more enjoyable.

Here are the top five things I took away from the experience:

5. Reporting live is tricky - You never know what is going to happen and you never know when you are going to be needed. I had to be ready to go whenever I got a call from my instructor, Garry Moir. You need to be ready for anything and you need to believe in yourself, even when you are nervous.

4. Trust yourself - CreComm gives us the best preparation we could ever have to do this type of thing. Sure, I was a bit nervous about going live on a fairly popular radio station but I knew that I had all the skills I needed to succeed. At the end of the day, you just have to think of it like you are talking to a friend about the scene you are at. We CreComms know this stuff. Just make sure you remember that.

3. Get out and talk to regular people - Sure, I was on radio and I wasn't going on TV and doing interviews or doing having to actually quote people for a print story, but I still made sure to get around and talk to people about their feelings. This made my live reporting a lot easier and a lot more interesting. I didn't necessarily have to quote them exactly, but the fact I could say "I spoke to..." and then reference someone from the event surely made things more interesting and informative for the listener.

2. Never forget how your friends can help - First year CreComms were doing an assignment for journalism class on election night and a couple of them were assigned to the very same place as me. One of them, Chadd Cawson was a big help throughout the night. We worked together to talk to people and get information and it was just nice to have someone to talk to in the crowded room. Another, Pamela Vernaus, was also very nice and allowed me to listen in on an interview she was doing for her assignment and use one of the quotes on air. Bottom line, you should never be afraid to ask talented people for help. It is clear that the future of CreComm is in good hands.

1. Everyone in CreComm is lucky - Our program is truly great and it gives us so many opportunities to do awesome things like this. It allows us to test ourselves in tough situations, but situations that will make us desirable to employers moving forward. We should all be proud to be in the program and never take it for granted. We might be students, but we're proving we can hold our own compared against professionals in the industry. Never forget that CreComm is the reason for that.

All in all, the experience on election night was a lot of fun and something I would love to do again.

Maybe when the provincial election rolls around, I can even get paid for my work.

keith

Election Fever

This Wednesday, my journalism classmates and I will be covering our first election.

The 2010 Winnipeg Civic Election has been an unusually exciting civic election campaign and I have really enjoyed every minute of being a part of it. You definitely get a much better understanding and feel for things when you spend so much time with it.

All of us in the class will be involved with some sort of professional coverage on the 27th. I was chosen to be one of the four reporters covering things for 92.9 KICK FM, our campus radio station.

I will be at Sam Katz election night headquarters filing live reports for the one hour program, so please tune in!

Here are some of the key story lines that I am following:

- Can Sam hold on to the momentum he seems to have gained in the last week or so and get a third term?
- Has Judy run out of steam? Her support seems to have flat lined. Will she turn it around in time?
- Can the understated John Orlikow hold of the Michael Kowalson challenge in River Heights-Fort Garry? This has been the best battle of the campaign for sure.
- Is there one more rabbit in the hat for Ol' Harvey in Daniel Mac? He looks certain to lose his seat but has proven he can't be counted out.
- Who will win the ridings in which there is no incumbant? Old Kildonan, Elmwood-East Kildonan, Charleswood-Tuxedo and Mynarski all look close.
- Will there be an upset? Justin Swandel looks to be in trouble in St. Norbert and Grant Nordman could be unseated in St. Charles.
- What will the voter turnout be? With a record number of Winnipeggers casting ballots at advance polls, the turnout figures to be well over 60% this time around. This would be awfully refreshing.
- Last but not least, what will Marty Gold yell into his microphone about once the election is over? Knowing him, I am certain he will find something.

If you get the Free Press, check out Bart Kives comprehensive election preview in today's paper. It paints a good picture of how things may unfold.

Overall, covering the campaign has been a really positive experience for me as a young journalist and something that has truly opened my eyes. The best part? It's been fun as well.

Harder than it looks

This morning, a group of my classmates and I walked practiced running a live newscast for our Broadcast Journalism class.

I am just going to put this out there right now, it is way tougher than it looks on television.

As someone who is used to watching the professionals do it on television, I just assumed that it was as easy as they make it look. Everything runs seamlessly and mistakes are so rare that it seems like a huge deal whenever the do.

That was not the case with us.

Sure, we kept things going pretty well as we rotated through all the jobs associated with a newscast, but we also made a lot of mistakes. My self included of course.

Being the director was obviously the toughest job, as our instructors said it would be as you are in total control of everything and a slip up by you throws things into chaos.

Other tough jobs were audio, switcher and anchor.

There was one job that really shocked and was easily the biggest surprise of the day. I will give you a hint, Sylvia Kuzyk.

Yeah, thats right. Weather. It's hard!

Everyone basically gives the weather guy (or gal) a rough ride and they are stereotyped as the dumb one of the group. It doesn't help of course that there are a lot of brutal weather men out there but I will certainly be giving them a lot more respect from now on.

From memorizing your high pressure patterns to finding something to say about pretty mundane stuff to learning how to pivot properly so you don't point to Montreal while saying Winnipeg, presenting the weather on news is far more than just telling the audience about sunny skies.

I'll leave you with an example of what can happen if the weatherman doesn't do his homework. Talk about a natural disaster...

The forgotten man.

Something has been bothering me a little bit lately.

In our journalism classes, and all throughout CreComm, people have been celebrating Dawna Friesen's appointment as the new anchor on Global National. This is not what I have a problem with, however over the top I think it may be, sometimes.

What has bothered me, and maybe this is just me being too contrary, is the lack of mention about Kevin Newman in basically any media, particularly Winnipeg media.

I admit, I haven't spent the past weeks actively searching out tributes to Kevin Newman and this is a personal opinion.

And, before anyone asks, I know he left by his own choice and wasn't forced out or anything.

It's just, amidst all the unbridled joy, I feel like Newman has been somewhat forgotten by Winnipeggers and CreComms for the great work he did for a decade.

Newman took over the fledgling Global National in 2001 as their first anchor and executive editor. Competing against much more established newscasts on CBC and CTV, Newman took his network to the top of the game.

By the time he left, they had pulled even with CTV as the most watched national news in Canada. Not bad for a program that had started less than a decade before.

Newman was a multiple Gemini winner as Canada's best anchor and came up with the idea to go on a cross country tour in covering the 2004 Federal Election, an idea that has been copied by all other major networks these days.

His final show featured many emotional tributes from groups thanking him for his work through the years. It was a great episode and a fitting send off for someone who really revolutionized anchoring in our country.

Kevin Newman is the guy who really got me interested in television news and always made it more interesting and easier to watch then it had been in the past. I don't think people should forget that simply because the new anchor graduated from our program.

Maybe that's just me but either way...thanks for the memories Kevin.