Covering News... With a Sportsman's Eye

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By Tom Wylie

My business card reads as follows:

Tom Wylie
Sports/News Reporter
(& Part-Time Renaissance Man)
PH: 1-800-AWE-SOME
E-Mail: twylie@kfbb.com

Some of that is accurate; some is not.

Anyway, I digress. If you’ll pay attention to the second line - it reads Sports/NEWS Reporter. Not just sports, but news as well. As the capital city market, Helena is unsurprisingly a hotbed for news.

Not a day goes by where there aren’t numerous newsworthy things happening. And sometimes it gets a little daunting for our station’s capital reporter to cover it all…

So that’s where I step in.

In my short tenure here, I’ve been tasked to cover a hearing on the state’s wolf hunt quota, a controversial sex-ed curriculum proposal, a wildfire and a several other choice stories…

From a photography standpoint - sporting events require you to follow the action with a lot of panning, tilting and zooming. At hearings, trials, and press conferences? Not so much… You generally point your camera at whoever is speaking and press record.

The main issue I’ve run into while covering news is that sometimes it’s hard to turn my sports brain off. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing… It just leads to some interesting internal dialogues.

Tom’s brain transcript from a recent school board meeting:

… person steps up to mic… person begins speaking… person says something controversial – but what’s this? QUICK PAN, ZOOM!!!!! LADY WITH SHOCKED FACIAL EXPRESSION!!!! ACTION!!!... back to podium…. New person at mic… person is holding cup… frame shot loose enough in case said person throws cup…. ZOOM, PAN!!!! MAN IN BACK OF ROOM SHAKING HEAD DISAPPROVINGLY!!! … this action is HEATED!!!

When shooting sports, there’s never a dull moment. And I do my best to keep that same approach at news events. My camera and mental focus is trained on the speaker, while my eyes and ears scan the crowd. Always looking for the dynamic cutaway shot, or listening for a commotion or an audible “Harumph!!”…

Please believe if someone were to stand up at a trial or banquet and do an impromptu touchdown celebration, I’d be all over it.

Thanks for reading.

TW

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BC said on Tuesday, Jul 27 at 3:41 PM

Hey how did you get that on your card!!

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