Day And The Life Of A News Photographer

Hey have you ever wondered what really goes on behind the scenes when a news story is being covered? well a lot of this i can not tell but some info i can share which you might find interesting, well at least i hope that you would. On an average day i show up for work in an "unmarked" news truck which is equipped with a two-way radio, a police scanner, and often a well-seasoned reporter. Many times we are heading out to cover a "scheduled" news story. For example a press conference which was planned days or weeks in advance. Ok we arrive to the press conference which may be only 20 minutes away, but in most cases you will have to give yourself another 20 minutes in local traffic to arrive. Also you have to give yourself another 15 minutes or so to "set up" your camera on a platform, etc and to "run" your cable of (audio) to a podium where speakers will conduct this press conference.

after running the mic cable up to the podium and connecting the mic, it's time to check my audio levels to be sure the sound is ok. I will also at that time check out my camera to be sure i am receiving my video ok, and playback and all that. Everything checks out to be ok. It is now 5 minutes before the press conference starts. Let's say this press conference starts at 10:00 am. We were told when we left the station that we have to get this press conference back to the station in time for the 12:00 pm news (in two hours). Ok so i'm cheking my watch...it is now 10:15 but the presser has not started yet. Another 15 minutes pass by...now we're a little nervous. The reporter decides to call the news desk and tell them that this is running late. Remember we still have to shoot this presser and then drive it back to the station, again giving ourselves time in traffic, breaking down our equipment, etc....so the news desk says stay as long as you can then bring back whatever you have and we will deal with it.

ok now finally the presser starts. It is 10:35 am. There were about 4 speakers and of course the man we needed was the last speaker. We had to think quick. The reporter went over to the person who we needed (in this case the mayor) and pulled him aside and asked if we could get a quick interview with him because the presser ran late and we have to get his comments back to make it in time for the noon news. He agreed. Oh yes. So we pull the mayor off to the side and do the interview which took about 6 minutes. We shot a little of the other speakers and quickly broke down.

We drove back to the station. Now we were faced with "ingesting" our video that we shot. It takes "real time" to ingest the story into a computer which stores this information. So i think the total amount of minutes i shot on the disc was about 18 minutes. It was about 11:05 we we started the ingestion. So the earliest that it would be ready to get into the hands of an editor would be about 11:23. The news starts in roughly 37 minutes. On this day the editor was able to make it on the air without problems. It could have been a lot closer. There are always problems that pop up, etc. This was only the first two hours of my day. Only 6 more hours to go now. This could be a long day. More stories to follow. Enjoy. Terence.