Television News Reporter Career Information

Video Transcript

"If you'd like to be a television news reporter, some of the skills you need to master are, primarily, people skills. This job is about dealing with people, communication, learning about things, you have to be very curious about the world around you. You have to be very curious about the people around you. If you're not interested, that's going to come across, you're not going to be very good at this. If you're not interested you won't be able to convey the message or the information to the people at home. When someone is watching the news in the evening they want to know that you are interested so that you can share your experiences, and share your curiosity, and share the information with them on a personal level. So, you really have to engage people and you have to want to engage people so that you can do this properly. One of the biggest challenges in television news reporting is your next big job. One of the tricky parts is, you don't, the way you move up in this business is by moving into bigger and better markets. More people can see you that way and then you can make a little more money, and you can deal with bigger issues. Local levels have smaller issues in a lot of cases. Big issues in big markets. So, in order to do that you have to get into that next big market and the competition is fierce.So, one of the challenges I face, and a lot of reporters face, is proving that you're ready to take the next step. I've been doing this in this market, it's a medium size market but it's an excellent starting market, it's an excellent place to get your feet wet and learn the trade, learn the craft and hone your skills. And now that I've done that for a few years, it's time for me to move somewhere bigger with more important issues or better issues, or more interesting things ,or more wide spread, or national or international interest. So, I've got to convince that next news director that I'm the person that can do that job. Bring that level of excellence to their news department. And once I do that I'll have the opportunity to move up."