Five Minutes....

See me on that chopper baby? Try not to drool, it's still me. Except now I'm an ass kicking SOB that will steal your girlfriend without ever needing to put my Pall Mall down. And my facial hair has increased ten fold. It almost matches the intensity of my chest hair.

Story 1

Story 2

Above are two stories I researched, wrote, and composed that were on the radio this week. The story about the lawsuit was actually quite pressing. It was the intro story on local news that night. Psshhh, local TV news...we got that story up two hours after they took the case to court. They are a bunch of boobs. But, we did take the idea about the foodbank from local TV; so it's a give and take relationship.

There is quite a process to making the news. It starts as an achingly slow procedure that lasts hours, to holding onto your sweaty head because the story has to air in three minutes madness. Take for instance the lawsuit story. I show up to the radio about 9, and just mill about on the internet for an hour. I'm constantly checking every source-from our email to the AP Wire to weird political blogs. In the case of the lawsuit story, we got a press release from MALDEF. I then take the press release to the editor, who tells me that this is important news, and he wants a story for his noon newscast.

I then call up the attorney for MALDEF. Number one rule to journalism is- anyone you call will never pick up. I leave a message and hope for a callback so I can get the clip. I wait until 11:20, realize they won't call, and try to write half-cocked copy from the already limited press release we received. I write the story and speak it into the computer. Then at 11:40 the attorney calls me. I perform a ten minute interview.

It's 11:50. I tell the boss that I want to rewrite the copy to include a clip, and he says that's the plan. By 12:10, after completely redoing the whole story and rerecording my voice, my boss comes into the computer station during his commercial break to listen to my story. He tells me it's good, but I need to ad the word 'alleged' to the story, and that he wants it to air in five minutes. Upon hearing this my sphincter tightens. He leaves the room and I cry salty tears while I try to rerecord the story. I miraculously get it done with 1 minute to spare. I take the story to the chief and he high fives me before I exit the room. While leaving the station, I can hear my disgustingly-unenthusiastic voice being broadcast throughout northern New Mexico.

Ohhh. I wrote nifty little intros for each piece that the newscaster spoke, but I couldn't figure out how to put those intros online. They don't start as abruptly as they seem here online.

That's how it goes down. I really love it. Now I just need to get paid for this stuff. Little steps, grasshopper, little steps....

In my spare time I write useless copy. I try to take an original approach, but I mostly amplify my amateur status. Here is a piece I wrote that will never be used. I want this kinda copy for www.youngperspective.com. News that is interesting. If you have any desire at all to write, please help me once I get the website online. I'm hoping for a January release date.
This is an unedited example of a type of story I would like on youngperspective. To all my friends-start thinking of stories you would like to write about.

They may have jumped the gun, but The New Mexico Sun News is making headlines across the nation. In the latest issue, New Mexico's by-monthly publication has preemptively declared Barack Obama the presidential nominee. With the headline, "Obama Wins," the the editors of the paper are calling the Sun News the first paper in the country to declare the winner of the presidential election.
The article explains that claiming Obama the winner of the election is a strong statement, with the potential to bring a lot of publicity for the paper.
"If we wanted to be first, we had to be bold," explained an editor.
The usually under-the-radar local paper is now making news of its own across the country, with the title drawing plenty of attention throughout the political community. Ultimately, Sun News hopes to avoid a situation like the infamous "Dewey defeats Truman" incident of 1948. Until that happens, Sun News continues to bask in the light of being the first paper to name Obama the country's next president.

I don't write for a paper, so I'm sure the grammar is off. I think it's an interesting story, and I want news like that on youngperspective.