The Wonderful World of the Web Teammate

Since this is my third rotation doing the web/graphics teammate, you would think I would be progressing and getting better at my job. In a lot of cases, I am doing better. However, I think I'm only remembering the big things and sometimes forgetting the "little" things. In working together to create a broadcast and a website, this is not good. The key, however, is to stay proactive. 

This week, we had a rough morning coming up with some stories to start on for the web. All of the main USC stories we could write on were later on in the day and there weren't many local stories to write about. But, after searching around the internet and talking to fellow colleagues, I came to realize it was "National Distracted Driving Month" and the USC webmail had been down for hours. It took a little bit to figure it out, but all we had to do was stay proactive as a team to brainstorm ideas. Just lounging around and waiting for a story to come to you does not work. You have to go out and find the stories yourself and make it your own. 

When I switched over to the graphics teammate in the afternoon, everything started off really smoothly. We had the majority of the graphics done by 3:30 p.m. and just needed to work on fixing little things. However, once Stacy checked all of them, we had to fix many things and all of my teammates were working vigorously to get them done. What we forgot to do though, was call the studio and tell them to re-load all of the graphics we just fixed. Therefore, when the show aired, all of the old graphics were on the screen and none of the new ones made it. 

Not only was this a stupid mistake on my part, but it really upset me. If I would have stayed proactive and double checked everything, this would not have happened. My mistakes and oversights don't just affect me, but they affect everyone and the entire show. 

Obviously I cannot change anything now, but going forward I can learn from my mistakes in order to become a better producer and successful contributor to both the web and the newsroom!