2005-02-23 CC Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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T.J." In each segment, T.J. would deliver three clues regarding his location and viewers could log on to our website to register their guess as to where he was. If a viewer offered the correct answer, they were mailed a City Scope t-shirt. At the end of ten weeks staff had received 37 correct responses. We also received quite a few comments from viewers who found the segment very entertaining. Another addition to the department was the initiation of a formal news internship program. We have worked with interns in the van department for some time, but this was a first for the news staff. Aric and Katie worked with two interns, Rachel Wick, a Blaine resident and broadcasting student at St. Cloud University and James Magnusun, a Circle Pines resident and broadcasting student at the Minnesota Business College. Rachel and James worked as a team on stories with James handling the technical aspects such as shooting and audio and Rachel serving as the reporter. The internship gave both students the opportunity to work with shooting, editing, Intern Rachel Wick co-anchors writing, building a story, making contacts an episode of City Scope and setting up interviews, reporting, and, in Rachel's case, anchoring. According to a thank-you letter we received from Rachel at the end of her internship, it was one of the most valuable educational opportunities she had experienced. Another first for the City Scope crew included a foray into the national spotlight. Over the last several years, City Scope has worked with the SBM Fire Department to produce various stories on their fire prevention programs and initiatives. At the request of the SBM Fire Department, Aric and Katie compiled those segments and submitted them to the National Fire Academy in Emmittsburg, Maryland. The Academy is currently using the video in their curriculum for a class entitled "The American Family and Prevention." So, in a small way, City Scope and the SBM Fire Department are helping to train firefighters from across the entire United States. While the department's primary focus revolved around producing meaningful programming, it also accomplished a variety of auxiliary tasks. These included taking the lead on the studio lighting and set development projects for the new facility, tearing down and rebuilding the staff edit suite for the move, (relieving some of the pressure off of our Video Engineer and resulting in only a five-week hiatus for production of City Scope), and the time consuming interview and hiring process when Katie resigned her position. (She got married and moved to Washington D.C.) 11 L