Meghan Reistad Is A Reporters Shadow

Written By: Meghan Reistad

This week involved shadowing a reporter at my internship. I enjoyed learning the process of putting a story together from the beginning to end. Our first stop for the evening was the St. Joseph City Council meeting. We made sure to have a copy of the meeting agenda, and specifics to developing stories, on hand when we arrived in St. Joseph.

Our job for the evening was to follow-up on a few stories from the previous week and make sure we reported on the specifics. To be completely honest, I was extremely confused by all the formalities and technical lingo when we first arrived. Fortunately, the reporter I was shadowing said she felt the same way when she first started reporting on city council meetings. Overall, the experience was a great way to be introduced to reporting a “beat,” in-depth reporting on a particular issue.

The next day, I assisted with a video shoot of a local photography studio in St. Cloud. We began the shoot by setting up our equipment and making sure the lighting was set up properly. One of the most important aspects to being successful on a video shoot is making sure all of your equipment is ready to go for filming. Fortunately, all of our camera and lighting equipment was charged so we could begin setting up our shots.

The reporter I was shadowing focused on filming the main interview and close-ups of the subjects. My job was to film the little things that make a video interesting. In a very small space, I managed to get footage of many different aspects in the photography studio. I am anxious to see how the video turned out! I know the reporter I was shadowing found it helpful to have me as an assistant. Sometimes, two heads (or cameras, in this case) are better than one.

In the next few weeks, I’ll be volunteering to help with the “World’s Largest Garage Sale.” The event is organized by my internship location and many of the interns will be helping out at the event. In my next post, I’ll be writing about my experience as a volunteer, and hopefully a few good deals I find, as well!