A different process

Jordan Mason

A faint sound woke me up. It was my cell phone ringing beside my bed.

As I groggily answered the phone my friend asked in disbelief, “Are you asleep?”

“Yes,” I said as I wondered what else I was supposed to be doing at nine on a Saturday morning.

And then it hit me—it was Monday.

This is my life now that I am done training as a studio production intern and the beginning my normal schedule. This means that I will generally work Wednesday-Sunday from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m.

Yes, these hours are unusual, but they actually appeal to me because I don’t have to get up in the morning and I have most of the afternoon to be as productive or unproductive as I see fit.

But, most importantly, I enjoy the work. I am responsible for deciding what will be in the highlight of whatever game I am covering that night in Baseball Tonight and SportsCenter.

In addition to putting together the highlight, I create a shotsheet, a general overview of what is in the highlight for the anchors to read, and a cutsheet, an overview of the highlight for the director.

Needless to say this is different from anything I’ve done in print journalism except for logging the games, which is tantamount to scoring games in baseball.

But I enjoy the creative process of creating a highlight, which is not very different from deciding what goes into a story.

One of my supervisors said “you want to make your highlight memorable.” There is generally an example of this everyday on SportsCenter.

A highlight is often bigger than the scoring plays and I enjoy the process a finding what can make it memorable. It can be a mascot or a fan or an unusual play.

And that creative process is why I love this internship to this point.

And not having anywhere to be at 8 in the morning is a plus too.