Sami Zeidan from Al Jazeera English came to talk to our broadcast class Tuesday and expressed about the importance of keeping up with current events as well as worldly events.
I am so glad he addressed this issue because as journalist I think it's key that we know , or at least have some familiarity with different cultures,religions and events world wide. He mentioned that its a privilege to be a journalist in the sense that we have a lot of power and hence a lot of responsibility. We direct how an event will be remembered, how it will be labeled or what it's associated with. With the use of images and headlines, we can create or stop disorder.
Tuesday proved to be another interesting day at KOMU. It was election night! Clark residents voted on a proposals to annex the city as well as pay a retail sales tax. All these items were on the ballot due to the Junction Project. The Junction Development Group LLC. wants to put up a mega sports and entertainment complex in Clark on 480 acres of land. That is huge! It will include a paved race-car track, a coliseum for national horse events, hotel, restaurants, gas station, lake, shooting range, night club, as well as retail stores. This place is practically a city. It's a multi-million dollar project that is funded by private investors and will take ten years to complete.
My job was to find out who won and get an interview with someone who voted and get their opinion about the matter. Well, since Clark is such a small town, it's part of Randolph County. I went to the county clerk and waited for the votes to arrive so I could get shots of them counting them. Since the polls close at 7:00 p.m. , ballots didn't start rolling in until 7:30.
At that point I left to go back to Clark to try and find people who would talk to me. I went door-to-door and asked people if they would talk to me. Clark is a town of about nearly 300 people, so it is extremely tight-knit and when something happens, odds are its going to spread like wild fire. I went to so many homes, and people did not want to speak because they were either against the proposal and didn't want their neighbors to know, or they just didn't want to be on camera.
I finally found one lady who was glad to do the interview and explained to me how she is excited about the new complex as well as the sales tax. She said it's not nearly as bad as some other towns, and it would help Clark as a city.
Now, when Greeley says to always be prepared, I experienced this first hand yesterday. I usually carry my closet with me whenever I report, but it was such a beautiful day that I left my jacket at home and thought "Oh , I'm not going to need it." Correction, I did! Don't let beautiful days fool you. I ended up doing what's called an "On-set." The reporter sits with the anchors during the newscasts and explains his or her story.
I was nervous during that "On-Set," but it went well , didn't bomb it , but it wasn't perfect. They didn't ask me to do a package so I tried to read as much information about these proposals as possible. I'm still learning a lot as a reporter and as a young adult with taxes and things of this nature. Frankly, I've never really had to worry about these things because that is something my parents always took care of, but now taxes and part of my reality.
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