Man on the Street

Its all about Dogs

While briskly walking around the streets of downtown New York, I find that it seems to be missing a very essential element to life. It is almost as if Times Square has an age limit of fourteen years or older. In an unofficial way, I suppose it does. I understand how dangerous the city is. I wouldn’t bring my children here either. But I think what interests me most, is that hardly any of the people in New York have children. It is obviously a very career oriented city, full of high profile business men and women, foreign tourists, as the homeless dot the corners of sidewalks. But in the midst of high profile people, to busy for a family, I have seen a few children on the subways. The mom or nanny usually looks completely frazzled dragging the little kid in by the arm telling them to sit and be quiet. One slapped her son’s hand when he reached in her bag for some Pirates Booty. I wondered what they would do if they saw a Utah mom and her six kids. That would be a culture shock. Now, if you walk around the parks or playgrounds, you will see dogs that are impeccably groomed. The poodles have collars with bling, a chiwawa was pushed in his own mini stroller. Today on my run, it was sprinkling outside. A woman had put little yellow raincoats on her three dogs. I tried not to laugh. It seemed almost ridiculous. Some people are kind of mixed up. Dogs are not children and children are not dogs.

My Addiction

Yes I got better...luckly it wasn't swine flu;) A producer at work did tease me about it later on. But I feel I am lucky for more reasons than just my recovery. Being an intern during the prime time news, I have more responsibilities than interns who work during the day with five other students on one show. I not only observe a national broadcast being produced everyday, but I feel like I am part of what they call the "Greta team", it consists of all the producers, APs, editors and camera crew for Greta's show. Networks aren't as glamarous as I had imagined them to be, in fact, its not glamarous at all. However, I find a different satisfaction and value working with a network news station that I never expected. During the day, I spend my time finding and cutting video through a system called Ardome. I watch other news programs like the View, that air in the morning, to see if our station's competition had any news we weren't getting, or if we wanted to use any of it for the kicker at the end of the show.
But out of all of my jobs at Fox, I would have to say, my favorite part is the last few hours of the day when I go into the control room. You see hundreds of flat screen T.V.'s flashing CNN, NBC, ABC, and any other station that airs during the same time as On the Record. Then on the rest of the screens you see Fox cameras at every angle and shot getting ready for the show. I sit down to a desk with my headset and begin cueing in guests at other fox affiliate stations. Suddenly the show comes to life in a way that I've never expierenced network news before, not because I am watching it from the Fox station, but because a producer sitting next to me sighs when Greta finishes an incredible interview. I ask her if she was the one that put it together and she says, "yeah, I had to edit that so fast." I am shocked when a booker tells me how much Fox paid the guest on the show to get interviewed on national television, and how many phone calls it took to reach her. I talk to the people who just realized thier brother in law is a murdurer, as I cue them into the show. I suddenly feel like I am a part of something greater than myself. I become a piece to a large puzzle that news directors, editors, producers, reporters, and photographers piece together everyday in order to keep millions of people informed. I find myslef looking up news just for fun and researching breaking news from other stations. This is precisley when I know I am just like everyone else...who is addicted to finding the next breaking news story.

It was once said that a black man would become president when pigs fly...now there's swine flu

The worst possible thing that could ever happen to a person working in the news is catching the epidemic that is talked about 24/7. The people they work with are experts about the disease, how many people it has affected, and what states have had the most contact. New York happens to be at the top of that list for swine flu. I don't know why, its pretty far from Mexico. But everyone here, except for Brad (a producer), is terrified of catching the dreaded disease. Tracey (AP) came in two days ago and said, "I am scared to ride the subway after what Joe Biden said. Someone next to me sneezed and now I'm probably gonna die." The story meetings are filled with jokes about banishing all people who have the swine flu. And finally, we find that a boy in Texas is now dead. Two days ago Brad asked me if I was scared to get the swine flu now that I moved to New York. I said, "I'm not freaking out about it. But I don't want to get it, especially because people are dying of this disease." He said, "Psh...one person in the united states died and he was probably Mexican. No cases have been reported in Manhattan." What he doesn't know is that I got an email from the house president that someone in my building went to Mexico on spring break and has swine flu. This person lives in Manhattan. But like I said, I'm not freaking out about it. Yesterday I went on a run and for some reason felt extremely exhausted afterwards. It took me forever to get ready and the pollen from the trees was making my nose run. I went into work and like normal signs were flashing all over the desktop TV screens about swine flu. I felt my nose running again and wondered how pollen could get to the eighteenth floor in the middle of a city. In the story meeting that day I constantly felt like sneezing. Have you ever tried suppressing a sneeze? First of all its not a pretty sight and second its almost painful when the reverse process takes place. I did sneeze and everyone looked at me, not really in a good way. Justin is a field producer and constantly goes out with Greta to whatever state she may be in that day. He wasn't there so they gave me his desk. I constantly tried to hide my running nose. But it was one of those things that couldn't be helped. Plus it was progressively getting worse. Finally I couldn't help it any longer and had to constantly run to the bathroom to blow my nose. The sneezing couldn't be helped either and came at involuntary moments. Suddenly everyone could tell I was getting sick but they didn't want to say anything. I felt like crap, not only was my nose all red, my head felt congested, but my throat began feeling raw and my body ached.
I felt exhausted and would realize that I was zoning out when Gissel was trying to get my attention, "Erika? You ok?....Can you email that info to Sam?" By the time the show came around, I wanted to die. I was glad that the control room was dark so no one could see my suffering pain. I sat like a zombie with a tissue, frozen in one position so my nose wouldn't start running all over again. Brad kept making jokes and talking to me, but I accidentally ignored him for half of them. My goal was to just get through the show. I sneezed and everyone in the control room said, "bless you" during the middle of a commercial break. Final it was over and everyone started heading out. The executive producer, Meade, said, "How do you like the show? Good. Have a great weekend. And try to recover." Try to recover?! All my attempts to hide my sickness never got passed Meade. She is aware of everything going on around here. Journalists just have to be more aware I guess. I was embarrassed, the subway took eternity to take me home, only to have the worst night of my life. I was in misery. My body hurt, my nose kept running, my throat was raw, I wished I was dead. I don't think I slept much last night. Today all the BYU students went to the Statue of Liberty. I told Kathrine to tell them to leave without me. How Depressing!!! I've always wanted to see that, but I don't think I would have survived. I walked to Rite Aide and bought day quill. The lady at the counter laughed. I turned around and saw disposable masks on sale. I really didn't think anything was funny.