My View

Hardly a week goes by when someone doesn't ask me what I do for a living. Sometimes the question is a form of "small talk" sometimes people are actually curious. On a busy Thursday afternoon, I thought I would share with you "what I do" or at least what I have done today.



I sit behind a brown desk - constantly looking at my computer monitor. Above my door which opens to the newsroom, three monitors where I monitor my competition all day long. Truth be told, I sit in here as little as I can. I am constantly checking a computer program we have that provides us with content from the Associated Press. I am a curious person so I check often - every time I sit at my desk. I check Twitter regularly, Facebook as well. I'm always looking at CNN.com and a handful of other websites to see if there is news I don't know about. At the same time, I am answering my phone. Sometimes it's people wanting a job, sometimes it's people wanting me to buy a subscription to their random news service. I get calls about various groups asking us to sponsor them and I get calls from viewers angry about stories we covered. While answering calls, I typically respond to emails. I get between 400 and 600 a day. I'm also looking into the newsroom watching our Assignment Desk. It's amazing how I can tell if something big is happening by body language alone. I look at "producer row" - as our producers scramble to put their shows together. In the time it took me to write that last sentence, someone came into my office to tell me his story fell through. I gave him another idea and he's off and working on it. I worry about our ratings (and they're good right now) - wondering what we can do to get them higher, I am thinking about our open positions - wishing the right people would apply so I can get some of my employees the newsroom the relief they need. I just changed a couple of schedules in anticipation of a new newscast we start soon. I put the paper work together for an employee that starts soon, heard about an employee's dog that has some issues and changed our 6pm lead.



That's my view of the past five minutes and that's what I do...a lot of stuff involving a lot of people and a lot of things which is exactly how I like it.

-Ryan