Internship Report, Week(s) 9-10

Intern Name: Mark Hamilton
Internship Site: KSL Newsradio 102.7 FM and 1160 AM
Emphasis: Broadcast Journalism
Semester and Section: Fall 2008, Section 001
Week Number: 9-10
Number of Hours This Week: 45

Week 9-10 Report:

When I went to write the report for week 10, I realized I never wrote a week 9 report. Sorry about that! I’ll try to re-cap both weeks…

So, after I was offered the position working BYU’s basketball season too, things started changing. All of a sudden, I was “in the loop” about planning and preparation for games. I started getting schedules, getting timing rundowns for the show, etc.

Last week was much like the others have been, since the basketball season hadn’t actually started yet. But then this week was crazy! I did all of my normal football-related duties, but added in a basketball game. That was crazy, because we had to use a whole different studio upstairs in the Triad Center. We had to use that studio, because this pre-season exhibition game was not broadcast on KSL Newsradio—it was only on ksl.com. In addition to the change of venue, it was interesting adapting to only having two people doing the work of four. Normally for football, there are four of us working to cut audio, get ready for half-time shows, etc…but for basketball, we’re basically on our own.

My responsibilities for basketball include—but are not limited to—updating the score on the website for people following the game from Iraq, or wherever, cutting highlight audio during the game, cutting post-game interview audio, and rolling a recording of the whole game for the podcast.

The guy I’m working with did what I was doing last year, and he is now a full-time employee of KSL. He showed me everything I needed to do, and I did my best to go above and beyond what he told me. Really, an offer of a “real” position at KSL would be great, so I am doing everything I can to secure one. One example of what I did was get highlight audio prepared from the first half in time for him to use it in the halftime show. He was extremely grateful for it, since he didn’t even expect it.

Basically, I’m learning that you have to do whatever it takes to get what you want in this industry—something that should help me next week, when I have two basketball games AND a football game, and I will have to drive to KSL SIX times in one week.

Things are going great though! I love what I’m doing!

Thanks,
Mark