Behind The Scenes of a News Station...

The 7-day Forecast and local crime reports are what take up most of my time while I'm at work. I split my time doing both weather and reporting at a local televesion station in Memphis, TN.

On an average work week I do the weather Saturday and Sunday night...and then Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday mornings I'm out on the streets of Memphis hunting down the latest breaking news scene. When I say morning...I really mean early, early mornings. I get to work at 3:00 a.m. and am usually sent out on a shooting or homicide the minute I hit the door. Memphis was recently ranked the 2nd most dangerous city in America, so you can imagine the crimes that I report.

Most mornings my photographer Ben and I are out the door trying to find the most active crime scene. It's pretty exciting most mornings...especially seeing what people like to do at 3:00 a.m. here in Memphis. At times I'm amazed to see that people are still clubbing at 3:00 a.m. on a weekday...do these people have jobs or do they not sleep?!?!? PAAAAARRRTTTY PEOPLE!

(Ben and I in the parking lot with all of the live trucks)

A lot of times we see homeless people sleeping in whatever they can find to stay warm during the winter and sleeping wherever they want during the summer. It's really sad to see how many people are homeless out here. It gets kind of crazy when they see the news truck because they come up to it while we're inside and ask for money. Most of the time I have food with me for breakfast and offer that to them...some of them don't want the food, only money.

As Ben(my photographer) is driving to the scene he's usually ripping through the streets while I'm trying to put on my make-up. HA! It's probably a very funny sight to see. Nonetheless I've gotten pretty good at putting make-up on in a moving vehicle.

One morning we were covering a guy that was shot...a woman had shot him. We started knocking on neighbors doors to see if they saw anything and wanted to talk on camera, keep in mind it's in the middle of the night. Finally a woman came to the door. She was really nervous when she answered and seemed wide awake. We later learned that she was the shooter. WHOOPS!

Other times you have to knock on family members doors that just lost a loved one. That’s probably one of the hardest parts of my job. They have just been through tragedy that struck the night before or hours earlier and you want them to talk to the world on camera. You almost hope they don’t answer the door, just so you don’t have to face them and ask them how they are feeling.

As a reporter and covering someone’s death, you want to handle it with sensitivity. Sometimes you cover so many murders that you start to lose that emotion and become numb to the fact that someone was brutally killed. Then there are days when you meet the victim’s devastated mother, their tear-streaked sister, and broken down brother. That puts things back into perspective for a reporter or at least it does for me. It makes me realize that someone has just lost their son…daughter, brother or grandson over senseless gunfire.

This is the control room where all the "magic" buttons put video on tv.

I don't know how to run any of this equipment...that's Jay's job.(He's pictured on the left)

And then there's the weather... it's such a relief to not have to shove a microphone in someone's face at least 2 days a week.

This is the green screen...It's a wall painted green. I have to look at the television monitors off to the side to see what I'm actually looking at. It takes a while to get used to. I can't wear green when I do the weather...if I did that part of my body would blend in with the wall and I would disappear. That would be a good April Fool's joke.

The weather is CRAZY here! Before I moved here I had endured a -30 wind chill in the land of "ICEBURG" or otherwise known as REXBURG, Idaho. All of you that have lived there know what I mean when I say that the wetness in your eyes freeze. Utah of course has a lot of snow. And Hawaii...heavy downpours and gorgeous temperatures. But in the south you deal with TORNADOES! And because we get such severe weather here...being a weather person is like being a doctor...kind of...because you are constantly on call. There are some days where we will be on television reporting weather for 6 hours straight without a commerical break. Now that's crazy stuff. And if you happen to break into programming that is really popular...watch out! Angry viewers will call and want the weather people to get off their tv screens.

So far I haven't had too many people get upset with me for not getting the weather right. I've heard that one weather guy here in the Memphis market got punched in the face, which broke his nose, because the viewer was mad he didn't get the weather right! That's a little extreme...and hopefully I won't be faced with that situation! HAHA!

I love forecasting the weather. Most of the time it's pretty laid back. HOT and HUMID is what I'm usually talking about in the summertime.

Overall I really like my job. It's definitely an experience that I will never forget.