This Reporter Loves Her iPhone!

So I’m driving from Sacramento to San Francisco for my night-side reporting shift when I get stuck behind an accident. No worries, I’ll call into the 3pm assignment meeting.

I get my assignment: People are calling into quit-smoking help lines in record numbers… find a local angle.

Great story… except its 3pm on a Friday and I’m still an hour away from the city. How am I going to line up interviews with doctors and smoking clinics before everyone leaves for the weekend?

Enter the iPhone… Without disconnecting from the conference call, I google quit smoking SF. Up pops a list of hypnotists, hospital programs, and (wait for it…) quit smoking hotlines.

The beauty of the iPhone is you don’t actually have to dial the numbers from websites. Without taking my eyes off the road for more than 2 seconds (I’m dead stopped in traffic anyway) I click on a website, click on the contact number, am instantly connected.

After each call, the iPhone sends me back to the station conference call so I can continue to listen in between calls.

By the time I reached the station at 4pm I had all of my interviews set up. I met my photographer, hit the road and was back at the station by 6 ready to write.

Oh, and did I mention, I also found all the stats for the story by using iPhone news apps?

Once again, iPhone saves the day (or at least the story :)

Now if only I could get AT&T to quit dropping my calls…

So is this freelance or are you going for KCRA?

Neither.

Sam and I are traveling to Sierra Leone as a combo vacation/mission trip… but the journalist in me knows there are important stories to tell there (that wouldn’t be otherwise told). So, I convinced my news director to air those stories upon our return.

Considering the economy, local stations just can’t afford to cover stuff like this any more... especially in an election year when domestic news is more relevant. In-depth stories on things of international importance are more likely to air on PBS or National Geographic… to a limited audience.

The nature of local news can often be summed up in one sentence… “If it’s not relevant to me, I don’t care. “ But I believe that if we present international stories in creative ways, we can make them relevant to local viewers … and reach a wider audience in the process.

So, I figured if I found some local angles and funded the project myself, (Huge thanks to my amazing husband who agreed to let me do this!) I might be able to get these socially significant stories aired on mainstream media. Needless to say I was relieved when my news director agreed to give me a camera and air the stories I come back with. (Big thanks to Anzio too!)

As I mentioned, the initial plan is to put together a 5-part series for KCRA (outlined in previous blogs)… and a 30-minute piece for the KCRA show, Common Ground. And yes, I am shooting/editing the piece… and will have the amazing Mike Caroll (KCRA Photog/Editor) clean it up when I get back.

Labor of Love: www.KCRA.com/kenya

Check it out…
It’s been a labor of love for the past month or so and I'd like to share it with you.
www.KCRA.com/kenya

In an effort to get a local audience to think outside of their zip code, I found a local hook (Micah, a photojournalist & friend) to an international story (ethnic cleansing in Kenya). The trick… creating a broadcast story out of still photos. You can watch the story as it aired on KCRA at the bottom of the web page linked above.

However, broadcast stories are brief and rarely get to the meat of an issue this large… thus the interactive web site. In addition to what aired on KCRA, I used excerpts from Micah’s powerful interview along with his photos to tell a complete story online (finally using that Online Journalism degree!)

I hope the story enlightens you, inspires you or simply makes you think.

Enjoy!
-Julie

(Disclaimer: I am responsible for the content and design... but had help from our amazing web guru Aaron Slavik with the code & flash :)