Challenges for Journalists

By Jenn Ghelardini

I just became a student in the Journalism school. Until recently I studied Marketing in the Business school. I have had business internships, and have a pretty good idea of the types of work to be done. I however, did not have a real grasp on the professions in the field of journalism before this trip. There were various setbacks and challenges that I had not expected.

Throughout the Media Maymester, every student overcame many obstacles including: technical problems, a lack of compatible equipment, the varying weather, difficulties scheduling interviews and contacting people, unfamiliarity with the local transportation, permits to film and physically carrying around camera equipment.

There are always going to be difficulties in any field and on any assignment, but these setbacks were aggravated due to the language barrier, difference in customs, and being in an unfamiliar land.

One setback, that was most uncomfortable for everyone was physically carrying around all the camera equipment. Being an advertising student I had never used a camera before, so I was not used to simply putting it in a car and driving to location, like the broadcast students. I eventually felt their pain as I went to many of their interviews and b-roll shoots with them, as I was happy to help out and learn something new. By the end of the class, I think everyone was happy not to have to lug around the big, heavy and awkward camera and tripod bags.

Another factor that no one predicted to be such an important determinant to when, where, and how we could do our work was the variability in the weather. In South Carolina, there can be change in the weather throughout the day, but it does not compare to the dynamic change in Munich weather. This was an important aspect for the the broadcast students since they needed to shoot their outside takes in good weather and lighting. For the most part, the weather was pleasant and perfect for shooting video, but it always seemed like the weather would quickly end up dark and dismal on the days set aside for shooting.

This was most challenging for Sarah who planned on shooting a great deal of environmental footage for her story the last few days before she flew home. She wanted to shoot some of her stand ups with large smokestacks in the background for her story on the environment. We tried several spots, because the weather was overcast and we just kept trying to tweak the camera and get good lighting anyway. I never realized how important and tricky lighting is to broadcast journalism- it's just one of those things you don't usually think about. It was just so trivial, we wanted to show the smokestacks in the background, but we also wanted a good shot of Sarah's face. When Sarah's face was best illuminated the smokestacks would completely fade out of the shot. Its converse held true so that when the focus was on the smokestacks, Sarah's face was not in focus and shadowed.

Another difficulty that came about was dealing with the constant stream of walkers present in Munich. There is always someone walking in Munich, or rather, a lot of someones. It was hard to set up shots where there would not be a lot of traffic in the background. Many times we had to quickly dodge bikers and move the camera out of the way. Sarah and I actually hiked across a muddy field to avoid the heavy Munich pedestrian traffic. This wasn't so bad for me since I was just helping her, but poor Sarah was dressed in her nice clothes for her stand up, and it mattered that she got a little muddy.

One difficulty I personally encountered being part of the IMC (integrated marketing communications) team was (everything) with computers. I took an advanced computer programming course in high school, but am by no means advanced when it come to any kind of technology. I get easily frustrated with computers and they are not my forte. It was all silly setbacks. For example, I put all of my pictures on Maddy's computer; Maddy left to go to Paris. My American flash drive actually crashed a German Apple computer. Blogger conveniently shut down while I was at an Internet cafe. The computer that I saved my inDesign presentation was the only one that supported the video programs fro the Broadcast students. Sigh! Like earlier mentioned, I am not a technology whiz, and it just seemed like anything that could go wrong would against all odds. After a while, you just have to laugh it off. "Well, I worked on my Blog entry until Blogger went down." Now, that I am back in the States I feel more comfortable because I can save all my work to one computer with Internet access. It's a very calming thought.

Luckily, we had the HFF students and professors help us out. They greatly lessened the problems of the language barrier. They also helped us attain permits to shoot, as well as informing us of the various permit laws and regulations. The also showed us around the city, which when in a city as large as Munich, local citizens are much better than any map.

This Maymester really showed me the difficulties of being a real journalist, and this could not have been taught in a classroom. I never really understood all of the work that broadcast journalists have to do for their 30 second- 2 minute stories. Now whenever I watch the news I really think twice about the newscasters, and have a great appreciation for their work. I also could not have anticipated the setbacks to simply working out of one's environment. I just assumed it would be just like at USC; boy was I wrong.

Any student who wishes to gain real-world, hands-on, outside-the-classroom experience should consider the USC Media Maymester. It gave me a new appreciation and outlook on the journalism careers.