The Need to Become More International

Our guest speaker from Al Jazeera International pulled my curiosity to the complete other side of the world to see their perspectives on current events of the world. The first thing that caught my eye on the homepage was the amount of international news that was available to users. I understand that this is an international station by definition, but I feel even our international stations (like CNN for example) fail to give a real perspective of what goes on beyond the U.S. and Europe. The site features more coverage of outside news than it does for news in its own area (Middle East). The current coverage is really focusing on the protests in Thailand. In comparison to the front news on CNN's international home site, it focuses on the pirates that captured a U.S. captain, a boating accident in Florida, Farah Fawcett's battle with cancer, and a side blog about Thai's government. While I understand that a news organization must cater to its audience, I also believe that it's important to give an audience what it needs. Too many U.S. citizens have little to no knowledge of international current events, and after taking a glance at these two sites I understand why.

I completed my second VO Patrol this past week and it was closer than the last one, but unfortunately not my idea. I covered Congressman Blaine Luektemeyer's visit to Columbia, in particular his trip to the food bank. The nice thing about VO Patrols is that you don't have to think about what you say in your stand up or getting an enourmous amount of shots because you only have about 45 seconds to fill and you are completely the photographer with the exception of when you conduct interviews. The food bank was great with letting me film what I wanted and having enough variety inside to get some great shots. The one major limiting factor was the light inside of the board room and the lack of light from my camera because the light went out.

From this shift, I know that I still have to do a better job of focusing my pictures and interviews. When I look in the small screen the picture looks clear but when it actually appears on television, a lot of times it is very soft. Over the weekend I took the time to go into KOMU and just play with the camera. I found the peaking button and practiced getting various shots into focus. I'm excited and nervous about my first reporting shift this week. It will be great to see my work on air but I'm nervous that I won't be able to think of a creative stand up or that something crazy will happen to my footage. Being at KOMU thus far has shown me that we are all dependent on each other, but at the end of the day, you have to cover your own actions. We have the liberty to shoot what we feel we need, but it's important to be able to explain every shot you take. Next week should be very interesting.