The Reporter

Is it scary sometimes, interviewing people for TV? Or mainly exciting?

In this episode we will learn what a Reporter for a News Channel really does, with Ronn Grant from 284 Media: https://www.284media.com/videos/the-couch-284-news-team/

Tune in to find out all about working in a TV News Room, including a special tour of the set!

I am a 7yr old. My name is Gwen Rose. I wanted to do this podcast so all the girls, boys and me could learn about what adults do all day. Visit our website for past episodes and to find out what's coming soon: https://gwengetstowork.com/

Produced by Enigma Records: https://enigmarecords.co.uk/

Transcript

Gwen:   0:03
Have you ever been asked, what do you want to be when you grow up?

Gwen's Mum:   0:08
Gwen gets to work.

Gwen:   0:11
I like talking to people. And they like talking to me. At least, that's what I think. One day I asked my mum, "How do I know what I want to be when I grow up?" My mum said, if I interview people about, like, their jobs and things like that, well, I will find out. And, like, all the people who who were listening....umm...you will find out too, if you don't know. Let's Get To Work!

Gwen:   0:50
Hey, guys, we're just on a walk basically, but, um, when I hope you're fine with this Corona Virus. Um, I hope you're not missing your friends too much. Uh, thinking about the claps for the NHS, um and the floor drawings, I thought would, like, the people who work for the NHS and some friends I know of their mum's which work for the NHS, like would they be clapping for themselves? Like my mum's cousin; she might be clapping for herself, which I might be interviewing, which will be exciting.

Gwen:   1:47
In this episode, I will be talking to Ron Grant, a news reporter from 284 Media in the British Virgin Isles.  

Gwen:   2:03
What did you really want to be when you were older.

Ronn:   2:08
When I was young like you, I really wanted to be in television. I didn't know exactly where and when or how; whether it would be as an actor or maybe somebody creating scripts. I didn't really know exactly where I wanted to sit in, but I just know that I liked television. And I wanted to be into show business.

Gwen:   2:29
Um what is it, really? What do you really do all day at work?

Ronn:   2:36
So I get into the office in about seven or 7:30 a.m. And the moment I get in, I am looking at content. I'm looking at stories. I'm looking at news all around the world, not only on my island, but things that are happening all around. I look at videos. I look at videos and interviews of people that I like to watch, and then I start to make sure that it's relevant to my country and what my people are experiencing. So once I do that, then I begin writing stories

Gwen:   3:04
Are you, like, worried and nervous to do it?

Ronn:   3:08
Um, not I'm not usually nervous at all. I'm always very excited when I go into do news every day at three o'clock, I usually get there about 2.30 or 2.45 and I like to go over my script and I'd like to maybe have a glass of juice, so water and maybe listen to a lot of music at my job. We like to kind of have a fun environment. It's a lot of young people, so we kind of have fun and listen to music. But I'm not usually nervous. I'm excited. And once I'm well researched, once I do my homework and I make sure I have my questions that I want to ask, and I know where I want to take the interview, i'm usually fine.

Gwen:   3:44
Is your job hard or is it easy?

Ronn:   3:48
Uh, that's a good question. Uh, it's a little bit of hard, and it's a little bit of easy, and I'll tell you why. I love my job, and I could see myself being a reporter for the rest of my life. It comes naturally. It comes rather easy to me. So in that thought process, when I think about that, yeah, it's pretty easy because I like doing it. But then there are also some really tough moments where I have to be up early or I have to be up late. For example, I worked every day this week and you know everything is about Covid 19. So I've been covering all of that information both at home, and then I come into the studio to do interviews like the one I'm doing with you. So it's sometimes gets a little bit tough, a little bit hectic, and you're expected to know a lot of information. You're expected to understand the information, Um, so it's a little bit of good, and it's a little bit of easy and a little bit of hard.

Gwen:   4:43
Do you ever go wrong or something, when you're asking questions and things like that?

Ronn:   4:48
Do I ever make mistakes? Yes, I do make a lot of mistakes. Sometimes when I'm asking questions, or perhaps I'm reading the news, I might trip up on a word or sometimes I'm talking so much that my lip is dry and I start fumbling like that that that that that that ...

Clip:   0:00
[...]  

Ronn:   5:02
I get my words mixed up so I do make mistakes from time to time. However, one of the cool parts about making mistakes when you're on camera, um, is that it's not always, you don't always have the opportunity to start over. In my case, all of the interviews most of the interviews and all of the newscast and daily newscasts that I do, they're live. And of course, I think you know what live means. It's just on and you know it's no stopping, the minute you turn on the whole world knows. So there's not a lot of room for stop and start over. So what's really cool is when you make a mistake, you just say, I'm sorry and you keep going, you apologise, you fix it and you keep moving forward

Clip:   5:46
[...]

Gwen:   5:47
Is it sometimes tiring at work?

Ronn:   6:15
Ha ha. It's extremely tiring, and sometimes you have to take a break. I like to go to the beach. I live close to the beach. Um, I can hear the water and see the water from my home, but I like to hang out, watch movies. Those things help me to relax when I get a little bit stressed.

Gwen:   6:29
Where do you live?

Ronn:   6:31
I live on a small island that's 25 square miles called Tortola. That's T O R T O L A. It's in the beautiful British Virgin Islands. It's about pretty close to Puerto Rico, not too far from us. They're one of our neighbouring islands as well as St Thomas in the Virgin Islands. Sometimes I think the islands are probably the most fun and exciting place in the whole entire world. There's lots to do this, a lot of fun activities to do. So I would say it's absolutely fun. It could be boring to some people, but I wouldn't call it boring. I just call it easy, easy tropical living.

Gwen:   7:08
When you were a kid, did you do you like pretend videos? Um or, to pretend you're interviewing someone or anything like that?

Ronn:   7:20
That's a great question. I didn't do a lot of pretend videos, but what I was old enough that I could call persons, and I could ask them for interviews, just like you did. I started doing it the minute I could do it, and I've never stopped. When I was in high school, when I was in college, whenever I have would have a project to do, I would not be afraid to pick up the phone and call someone and say, "Hey, I'm Ron Grant from the Academy of Art University and I have a question and you know, I'm interested to hear your response". I would always do that, yeah.

Gwen:   7:50
Did you, like, always like when you were in high school. When did you think that you wanted to be an interviewer?

Ronn:   7:59
So I graduated out of high school when I was, in around 2007, that's when I graduated from high school. And I think I was about 16 or 15 around that age, and as I said to you a little bit earlier, I was just fascinated with television. But I'll tell you when I knew I wanted to be a newsman and a TV anchor and reporter, which was when I was in college in San Francisco, California. I went to the Academy of Art University and I'll never forget my first day of class. Our teacher, our instructor, put us in front of a teleprompter, which is the machine that you used to read information off of. And she said, okay, take a shot at it, I want you to read this and I'll never forget the first time that I started reading. I was like, "Oh, that's it, that's what I want to do that's what I want to do with the rest of my life". And that's the moment that I was absolutely sure "Ah, I found it". And I was pretty certain, I was pretty happy, and I was really excited.

Gwen:   8:53
So is it like scary speaking to everyone? Is it like, really exciting? Like like ready to or I don't want to talk or something like that.

Ronn:   9:06
Okay, I would say it's not nerve racking at all. Um, I don't have a problem speaking to people. I speak to a lot of strangers. Uh, believe it or not, when I go out, whether it's to the supermarket or I take my wife out, a lot of people come up to me and they talked to me even without me having to say anything. They're the ones usually asking the questions. They're the ones usually honking their horns in meeting you somewhere and asking, "Hey, what's this? What's what's going on here?" So it's something that I've become used to. Um, I have no problems talking to people and it's not nerve racking at all.

Gwen:   9:38
Who pays you?

Ronn:   9:42
My company pays me. 284 media. It's a young broadcast company. Pretty new. It's about two years old, and that's how I earn my salary as a reporter.

Gwen:   9:52
How long do you spend at work and not at work?

Ronn:   9:58
One of the beautiful things about my job is that I don't always have to be at my desk. Sometimes I can work from home, or, if I'm on the road, I can take a call. But I get in about 7/730a.m., every morning, and I take an hour's lunch at around lunchtime. I might have much at work or I might go out for lunch, and my day usually ends around sometimes 4/4.30/5 o'clock. Sometimes I am required to go to work after 5 o'clock. A reporter's job is not a 9 to 5 job. It's not a typical job. You're pretty much expected to be on the go all the time if you're not on vacation. So even though it's Saturday or Sunday, there might be an event where there might be something happening but really important. And I have to go, even though it's not within the week or within my usual time.

Gwen:   10:42
Do the people who don't have children stay at work or do they go home at the same time as the people who do have children when they have to pick up their children from school?

Ronn:   10:57
That's a good question as well. Sometimes you have to leave work to go pick up your kids. I don't have any kids, but I know of a lot of my co workers who they have to pick up their kids or sometimes they get to bring their kids to work. It's kind of like half and half. You have some people who have kids, and some people don't or you have some people who have kids alone, so they have to do everything alone. So it's kind of a mixed reaction. But, yeah.

Gwen:   11:21
So what would they do at work while they're waiting for their parents.

Ronn:   11:29
They would be working on homework. They would be doing assignments in the, uh, kitchen area. We have a little area for them at my workplace where they can sit and work, and work on their tablets or any sort of information.

Gwen:   11:43
What time do you leave work?

Ronn:   11:47
I leave work in about 4.30 or 4 o'clock pm, in the afternoon.

Gwen:   11:54
Have you got any tips for being an interviewer?

Ronn:   11:57
So a few tips I would have for you, i'll keep them to about four. The first one is you have to be confident speaking to people. And, um, you know, having conversations is not gonna be easy if you're shy so you have to be open and willing to go out and stick your hand out and introduce yourself and say "Hi, my name is Ron Grant, and I work at 284 Media, and I'd like to ask you a few questions". That's the first thing that I'm confident, all right. Believe in yourself, always have a smile like you do already. And the second thing I would say is that you have to be a hard, hard worker. As I said, a reporter is not a 9 to 5 job. It's not a typical job, you kind of have to work all the time. So you have to be able to work under pressure. We have to be able to meet short deadlines. Your boss might say, "Hey, I need a story in 20 minutes". You're gonna have to write a story in 20 minutes. A good story with all the facts and the correct information. That's the second one. The 3rd one, you have to be able to be okay with people telling you no.

Clip:   12:57
[...]

Ronn:   13:02
Because you might want to talk to someone and they don't want to talk to you, and they're going to say no and you're gonna have to be okay with that. But you're still gonna have to get the information even though it's not from that person. You have to find a different source, Okay? You have to be creative and not get upset if they say no, understand that it's okay and it's their right to say no and have fun. Yeah, at the end of the day. I think it's important to have fun. Be interested in what you're asking. If you're not interested, the persons who are watching you are not gonna be interested. If you're not enjoying it, they're not going to enjoy it. So you have to enjoy it. You have to smile and have a good time, even when you're having a bad day. And always do your homework. It's very important to do your homework, just like you have your questions. All your questions. You're prepared, you're ready, you know what you want to ask, and you get right to it. You never want to show up to interview unprepared and not know what you want to ask the person, so you're on a very good path. So far, you're doing a great job in making sure that you're prepared and you have all your questions ready. That's great.

Gwen:   13:58
Thank you. Last question. Do you have a favourite story?

Ronn:   14:03
So I have a few favourite stories, but I can think of two in particular. One I wrote a few years back for an accident victim. He was not someone that I knew personally, but I knew of him through his family and friends. And he survived a really horrible accident in the Miami, Florida area where he was paralysed and he had to learn to walk all over again. And, um, interviewing him and interviewing his family and hearing their story of recovery and how he was able to get better was one of the most enjoyable things for me. And my second favourite story was interviewing a prison inmate who had received his high school diploma. And, um, he is a little bit younger than me. But sometimes people look at prisoners and they think they're bad people, even though they've just done something wrong. So here, historian, asking questions about how he was able to be determined and stayed disciplined. It was really amazing for me. Those are my two favourite stories.

Gwen:   15:00
Thank you.  

Ronn:   15:03
Uh, we spoke a lot about my job and what I do, and I actually wanted you to see the studio that I work at. Okay. All right. So i'll turn the camera around, and I think you can see it's from here so far. Uh, this right here is the news desk. There are usually two chairs right next to each other, but obviously with Covid 19, we've had to be practising social distancing. And a lot of our viewers and a lot of friends over and our family were concerned that we weren't practising social distancing. So this is the news desk. This is one set, but when we switch it around, it is for another show. This is our news logo right here 284 Media. Right in front of me I think you can see some machines, can you?  These are what help me to read the news and deliver the news. Okay. You, when reading the news, you can't see it, but I have a control or remote control under my desk that's controlling the teleprompter. It controls the speed. How fast and how slow. This right here is the timer. Our newscast runs for 30 minutes. That should not go over Oh, this isn't a timer that helps us to see whether we're under time or overtime. Try to always be within the time frame. Okay? And that is basically it.

Gwen:   16:19
Wow, That looks fun to be in.

Ronn:   16:24
Yes, it is a pretty exciting job i'd say. No day is the same. It's different. Usually. Sometimes you're speaking about a fun topic. Sometimes you're speaking about a sad topic. Or sometimes you're speaking about a topic that's not so interesting. What, you have to figure it out and make the

Gwen:   16:39
Thank you.

Ronn:   16:41
You're most welcome. And can you kindly tell me your name one more time? Nice to meet you. It's a pleasure meeting you and feel free to keep me posted on your journey. How things are going. Continue doing interviews like this so you can practice and get better as you go. But you're doing a great job, and it was a pleasure speaking to you today.

Gwen:   17:01
I will.

Ronn:   17:02
All right, Bubye.

Gwen:   17:05
In next week's episode, find out what it's like to be a dentist on a boat! And guess what colour her Dentist chair is? Make sure you listen to find out. Thank you for listening. It has been nice to have you. Please smash that subscribe button, and leave me a review. That will make me happy. Just tell you, i've loved the reviews of everything that you've said. Thank you very much. Bye!