Thursday, August 23, 2007

It's news to me

The news is easy. Well, let me rephrase that. Reading the news is easy when my co-anchor, Jaime Lee, does most of the work and just tells me what to read and when.

This week, I'm filling in as a news reader, since our regular news anchor is on vacation. It's different, and that makes it fun. Again, it's also easy. Not to give away any secrets or anything, but it's basically reading what a news agency has written, perhaps tweaking something here or there.

As a newspaperman, I always considered myself a journalist who just happened to cover baseball. I didn't like the idea of being a baseball writer who happened to work for a newspaper. I always felt that I could write news and report on news stories; I just didn't want to do that, because sports are way more fun. Besides, these days, there's just as much "news" writing around a baseball team as "baseball" writing. And I liked the versatility involved.

Anyway, I felt Jaime and I had good chemistry on the air, especially when one of us would do a "light" story heading into a commercial break. That's when you read a story, such as 80-year-olds having sex more often these days, and then we both express how grossed out we are by that for 10-30 seconds before the traffic is delivered.

It's been a fun week. There's more to do, so the time goes by faster than doing the sports three times an hour. It's also easier because doing the sports, you have to write your own scripts, find your own highlights, package it all together, and make sure your timing is just right.

But I will be glad when the week is over because then I go back to my normal schedule, which means doing my Modesto Nuts game notes and preparing for that night's broadcast inbetween my sports updates.

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