Own It!

Coming into this semester, I was scared, to say the least. I had worked at ATVN every single semester since I was a freshman, but now I was getting the chance to sit in the driver's seat. It was going to be my chance to be in control and, as much as I had been looking forward to this moment, I was also worried that I would screw something up.

Then there's always the added pressure of what I like to call the "professional preview." This is what I've wanted to do as a career for a while, but I'd never actually done it yet. Now was finally my shot--but what if I didn't like it? What if I found producing so intolerable that I knew for sure that I didn't want to go into it as my career? Then I would be stuck with little to no life direction, and a whole lot of thinking to do.

But I threw my hat into the ring anyway and just went for it, and I'm so glad I did. Not only did I gain a much more profound respect for the newsroom and an understanding for how things work, but I think I aced my "professional preview," because I really can't think of any job I'd like to do (realistically, of course) more than producing. I owe a lot of that to what I got out of this class, to which I don't think I would have learned that much if I didn't give 150 percent all the time. In a sense, I was owning that I was in charge, that my decisions could affect how the day worked, how crazy everyone was, and what went on air.

There's a certain sense of pride that you have to have when you're crafting that half hour block of time. You have to realize that this newscast has your name on it, but you also want to leave your own special touch. Whether it's how you put your show in order, what you pay a little more attention to, that extra angle you might get on a story or how you write your teases, you want to feel like you put yourself into your show. And when you go ahead and own it, not only can you walk away feeling like you accomplished something big, but you know you did a better job because of it.