Mike’s TV News Stories

Eclipse Update – Video Highlights

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Eclipse Update – Video Highlights

The Solar eclipse was one week ago today. On that afternoon KCRA-TV in Sacramento, California, broadcast 90-minutes of live coverage from 5-7 o’clock, with a half hour for NBC Nightly News at 5:30-6 P.M. As I detailed in last week’s blog, I operated the “Eclipse Cam” for the entire coverage of the eclipse, including feeding a continuous shot to the KCRA website, which continued streaming until the end of the eclipse at 7:30, resulting in some of the highest number of hits that the site’s had in the past year. When KCRA Reports at 5 O’Clock came on with...

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U.S. Army “Wounded Warriors” Practice Yoga–KCRA Story

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U.S. Army “Wounded Warriors” Practice Yoga–KCRA Story

This is a TV news story that I shot, reported, wrote and edited that ran on KCRA-TV’s Common Ground on Saturday May 19, 2012. In daily news we live under very strong time constraints of stories not exceeding a one minute and twenty second running length. Audience attention span is short and impatient so we have to keep our stories shorter, more to the point, and faster paced in order to hold the viewers. On the flip side of that, at KCRA we are extremely fortunate to have a once-a-month magazine program called Common Ground where we can run...

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KCRA Chinese Delegates Visit Sacramento — Expanded

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KCRA Chinese Delegates Visit Sacramento — Expanded

A month ago I reported a story KCRA Channel 3 Reports about a delegation of Chinese businessmen and government officials from Funan County in the People’s Republic of China coming to Sacramento to look at a facility for a distribution center for their imports. They make furniture and baskets from bamboo and other products, all green materials. The location they were visiting was Jon’s Furniture, a 40,000 square foot structure, on Stockton Boulevard. Jon’s has been a family-run business in Sacramento for over 50 years before closing the doors last year due to the economy. When I first moved...

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“Breaking Into TV News” – Breaks Into TV

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“Breaking Into TV News” – Breaks Into TV

This past week I was a guest on KCRAChannel 3 Reports at 7 A.M. with host Adrienne Bankert to discuss my new book Breaking Into TV News: How To Get A Job & Excel As A TV Reporter-Photographer. You think about appearing for interviews like this for days in advance, then once you’re in the moment — and you’re on live TV — all you can think about is not going blank and keep talking, fall back on the handful of talking points you want to get across. Then when it’s over it’s like finishing a full out lap...

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KCRA Olivia Morgan Graduates

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KCRA Olivia Morgan Graduates

Saturday at KCRA, my end of the week. After quickly shooting a story on an auction of California state government surplus i was given printouts for three addition stories for me to shoot quickly throughout the day for use as VO-SOTs (Voice Over-Sound On Tape) — short stories for the anchors to read over. The first story on the list was a college graduation at Memorial Auditorium in downtown Sacramento. The main thrust of the story was Olivia Morgan, a 74 year-old woman graduating after going back to college to get a degree in order to get a part-time...

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“Breaking Into TV News” — Watch The Videos Described In “Writing News Scripts”

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“Breaking Into TV News” — Watch The Videos Described In “Writing News Scripts”

In Breaking Into TV News – How To Get A Job & Excel As A Reporter-Photographer is a section on “Writing” where I present five different stories that I’ve done as a reporter-photographer, starting with my very first story back in 1984 at KWCH-TV in Wichita, Kansas, and four stories that I’ve done over the past year or so for KCRA-TV in Sacramento, California. Each news story includes the story-behind-the-story of how the story was assigned, shot, written and edited. Two of the three stories are accompanied by the actual scripts used, and one of those even includes my...

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KCRA Chinese Businessmen In Sacramento

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KCRA Chinese Businessmen In Sacramento

A delegation of Chinese government leaders and businessmen from Funan County in China are visiting Sacramento, considering setting up a distribution center here for their products — baskets and woven furniture. I’ve seen woven baskets and rattan and bamboo furniture from Asia since I was a kid, but I never imagined that it could provide so many jobs. Also, it’s completely green, relying on renewable plants as the sources for the products. It’s also inexpensive to purchase and last for years and years. It’s been a while since I’ve done one of my reporter-photographer packages for KCRA, but yesterday...

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Matthew Modine – KCRA Common Ground Profile – Part 2 of 3

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Matthew Modine – KCRA Common Ground Profile – Part 2 of 3

Every now and then in the business of TV news you get a chance to meet and do a story on someone who’s work you admire and who had been a part of something historic. Matthew Modine is an actor and filmmaker who has been working in films for almost the same length of time that I’ve been working in TV news. His most well-known work is quite possibly in Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket. It was a film an an experience that left a lasting impression on Modine. Kubrick’s independent style in filmmaking went much deeper than in...

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SPCA 11-11 Pet Adopt-A-Thon Update — We Did It!!!

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SPCA 11-11 Pet Adopt-A-Thon Update — We Did It!!!

Late yesterday I got these text messages from Leslie Korrine with the Sacramento SPCA: “We have been inundated. Running out of animals!! It’s been a madhouse. People lined up at 8am.” Then from me: “Did any other station do a story on this?” From Leslie: “We did Good Day and had some advertising but a lot of people are saying that they saw the story on channel 3 . Thank you again!!” The goal had been to get 111 pets adopted in one day on 11-11-2011. On an average day the Sacramento SPCA adopts out 25-30 pets a...

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My 2010 MMJ Resume Reel

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My 2010 MMJ Resume Reel

A few weeks ago, after I posted my 1995 resume reel, I got to thinking about how long it’s been since I’ve put together an audition reel or a compilation of my work. I’m a different person and photographer than I was then. My thought process and technical methodology has changed. I looked at some of those stories and thought, “How did I shoot that? Everything’s on a tripod — I don’t know if I could do that today.” Then my next thought was the same one that always comes up in news: “What have you done lately?” Last...

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