Garth Jensen: How did you get started working for WKTV and what has it been like to work for the station?
Andrew Donovan: I started at WKTV back when I was a sophomore in high school in 2006. They were expanding their website offerings on WKTV.com along with text message alerts and needed someone to handle High School Football on Friday nights. High School Sports is a big draw in our area and has a big audience on Fridays and Saturdays, so it’s really a smart place to offer a lot of content.
Clearly, the station management took a huge risk in hiring a 16-year-old but I hope it’s paid off for them. It’s certainly paid off for me and I feel I will always be indebted to them for bringing me on-board at such an early age. I’ve learned so much from being there and working with the people there. They’ve entrusted me with a lot and, again, I hope that it’s paid off for them. It was certainly career-changing for me to have such a strong organization behind me starting in high school and now in college.
GJ: Can you tell me a bit about your role as "digital media" producer for WKTV and what that involves?
AD: It’s hard to give a good job description for what I do because it’s ever-changing, just as our website and digital media offerings are. The simple answer is that I write and produce content for our website. The longer answer is that in addition to writing and covering news articles on the web, I take photos for galleries that enhance those stories, I spread our brand on social media networks like Facebook and Twitter and work to create the most comprehensive features on a news website. I’m usually in charge of creating our special coverage sections for big stories such as the Boilermaker Road Race or the PGA’s Turning Stone Resort Championship. I also still design our coverage for High School Sports.
GJ: You are also behind WKTV's "Freeze Frame" feature that captures local events from the Utica area in photos. Have there been any challenges in deciding what to document, or what you want to showcase?
AD: The biggest challenge with Freeze Frame is when you have a weekend where there are five or more great events that you could attend. Obviously, I’m the only who does Freeze Frame but also you don’t want to offer five new sets of photos one weekend and only one the next weekend. You want to keep it consistent so people know what to expect each week. Also, sometimes there’s an event you want to get to but you have to go to something else because it overshadows everything else with sheer number of attendance. You want to honor the small events too, but it makes sense to be at the bigger one.
GJ: What was it like to be a part of the WKTV team when the station celebrated their 60th Anniversary late last year?
AD: The 60th Anniversary was a lot of fun to be a part of. I actually started working on the 60th Anniversary stuff on December 1, 2008, which was our 59th Anniversary. One of my special projects was to work on the 60th Anniversary section on WKTV.com and I had to help come up with the plans. We went through hundreds of historic photos and video archives, digitized them and posted them online. Also, I got to reach out to station alumni who are all over the country now and got them to record videos or write messages regarding our 60th Anniversary. It was great to research and study the history of WKTV and to know that what we are all apart of now is something so much bigger.
GJ: In addition to your duties at WKTV, you've spent the Summer as an intern for NBC News. Can you tell me about your experiences with that?
AD: Interning at NBC News was a dream experience. They keep me to pretty strict confidentiality rules, but it was an amazing experience and I learned so much. I had many opportunities to work alongside the best in the business, names every household knows, and people I’ve watched for years whose work has sparked my passion. They were amazing teachers that were dedicated to giving their interns hands-on projects. I got a well-rounded experience in so many departments within the news division. One thing that I did that was public knowledge was that I was the man behind the Twitter account @NBCNewsIntern. The social media director asked me to give followers a first-hand account of my internship experience. It was an honor to be asked and certainly a highlight of my time there.
GJ: Your Twitter account highlights your passionate opinions about the TV shows you're watching. Can you tell me what some of your favourite shows are, and why?
AD: I’ll try not to be biased because of WKTV’s affiliation and my internship work, but I think NBC Nightly News has the best broadcast in the industry. They cover hard news like it’s nobody’s business from across the country and around the world. They still have the ability to go in-depth with such a short time allowance and also cover things from different angles. Just look at the B.P. Oil Spill for instance, they are the only network with an environmental affairs correspondent, Anne Thompson, and she’s been in the Gulf region since the beginning. But they won’t stop there. They’ll have Kerry Sanders or Mark Potter at another location covering a different side of the story. I think you can’t beat when Brian Williams actually travels there and anchors the broadcast from the scene.
Also, the TODAY brand is one of the strongest in news and information out there. They cover hard news using the power of NBC News, but also know what information is important to viewers and share that during later hours of the broadcast. That team is the strongest in television.
Outside of news, I love The Office and 30 Rock. I enjoy Dancing with the Stars, The Apprentice and I’m eagerly waiting for Conan O’Brien’s return to television.
GJ: Since you work with digital media, I have to ask, what do you see for the future of conventional television? Will it still be around, or have to adapt into something different (i.e. streaming content via the Internet)?
AD: That’s such a good question, and if I had a great answer, I’d probably be more than an intern at NBC News. On the local level, there will always be a need for local news, weather and sports reporting. You will always have a need for local news organizations and local reporters and meteorologists. On the national level, the same is true. You will always need reporters covering big stories around the country and in foreign parts of the world. I think there will always be people sharing that information with the viewer via video and audio. They key is that there will always need to be journalists uncovering and researching information and disseminating that in a comprehensive and in-depth way to a broad audience of viewers/readers that they can still understand.
The Internet is a huge game-changer and live video streaming will have a lot to do with the future. In fact, we now stream all of our local newscasts on WKTV.com. However, I don’t think anyone is fully content by watching news only on their computer screen. I think the question rests more on technology and how connected one’s computer is to their television set. I’m sure at one point, television programming will all be run through the Internet but it will still be viewed on a big monitor with a remote.
A big thank you to Andrew Donovan for chatting with TV Garth! Check out Andrew's main Twitter account @AndrewDonovan, as well as @NBCNewsIntern for his exclusive take on being an intern at NBC! Also check out WKTV online at WKTV.com
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