Love My Job/Hate My Job

Long week and it's only Tuesday. I'm gonna vent, so....

Being a TV news photographer can be great. Like yesterday, did a story on the record number of Bald Eagle nests in Ohio. Saw an eagle at WB Sunday and thought it was timely. Late in the afternoon, the scanner went nuts. Police chase in Akron where a police vehicle overturned, trapping an officer inside. I was monitoring the chase on the scanner and was a minute away from where it happened, but got caught by a darned train!! Got there though and shot the roll-over, ambulance transport, etc. Turns out, the guy they were chasing had a meth lab in the trunk of his car, plus one at his house, and was the subject of a story another reporter did. Sometimes better to be lucky than good.

Today, did something I'd always wanted to do. Went to a press conference inside the BIG airdock out by the Rubber Bowl. Lockheed has built an observation airship they can spy on Iraqi insurgets with. Really neat in there. My Dad worked out there before he went off to Europe in WWII assembling P-61 Black Widows. Neat plane. Anyway, it was awesome in there. The building is over 300 ft long, 22 stories high. They can play 7 football games inside, SIMULTANEOUSLY!!! Really awe-inspiring. The bosses wanted to pull us off it to do a story on some upset middle school parents out of the paper. Sad. Plus, with Lebron getting NBA Rookie of the Year, he made some football comments about teh Clarett situation. I have Lebron video from when he was a sophomore and junior, playing football. Not one thank you. Nothing.

I love my job because I see so much, meet so many really intersting people, and DAILY have the opportunity to inform others about the communities they live in and give them information they can use.

I hate my job because when I do meet those interesting people, or cover events or stories that our viewers can use, the bosses shoot it down for some mundane, braindead junk from a newspaper that happened yesterday or the week before, or some quirky story that has NO RELEVANT PURPOSE.

So, please remember, when you look at local TV news and see junk, just know, that out there, behind the scenes, is someone trying to get the RIGHT stories done and out there.

Thanks for letting me vent some.

Carl