Day 1 at WABC

Here's a slightly touched up record of my first day at WABC, since I only jotted down notes on the actual day and typed them all up today.


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January 28, 2010 – First day of internship.

To the casual observer, what I’m about to describe may not seem noteworthy. It may even seem boring. But one of the first tasks I had upon arriving at WABC, at the corner of West 67th Street and Columbus Ave., was to read through The Log for today and highlight all the promos. (The Log lists absolutely everything that is going to be airing on a given day on Channel 7, and the duration of each program, commercial, and promo). I was told I would know what to highlight based on the four digit code; promos were listed in the 8000’s (except for the Oprah promos, which were in the 65,000’s). As I was doing this first task (being exceptionally careful to highlight within the lines, and nearly breaking out into a sweat whenever I accidentally highlighted a non-eight-thousand number) I noticed that one of the commercials I saw was actually being played on T.V. at that very moment. And something about that just seemed really, really cool to me. (Okay so maybe my heightened sense of nervousness on my first day added to this.)

It also happened to be snowing, so The Log was subject to change at any time. Case in point, around lunch time, my supervisor got up and ran downstairs to “put a spot in” (aka do the old switcheroo when it comes to programming, I believe). When she came back, I snuck a look at The Log to see what had been changed. Apparently a new promo was going to be put in where a 20 second timeslot for Grey’s Anatomy should have been – the addition was a promo for the five o’clock news, letting people know that coverage of the “snowmaggedon” would be fully covered by the Eyewitness News Team, and encouraging them to tune in at 5PM. Once again, I was mildly impressed. This was a completely different vantage point from me. Even though promos generally fill 15 and 20 second time slots and the promos that I’m going to write are only for practice, I get to see what happens inside a T.V. station instead of just watching the boob tube from the living room. Its sort of like being able to tell the future – if I thought it would impress her, I could call up my mom and tell her exactly what commercials to expect in the next five minutes (on channel 7 at least). It probably wouldn’t impress her, though, so I don’t. But I think it’s neat.

So far I haven’t had too much to do today, with the exception of The Log (my first task every day, according to my supervisor). I’m eventually going to be going to news meetings, meeting producers and directors and working with script writers, researching stories and drafting promos. So far I don’t really know what to expect. I did have my first writing assignment today, though, in which I wrote a letter to all the people in the office who so far have remained elusive. My supervisor, AM, read it and edited it, and then I printed copies to stick in everyone’s mailbox. It made me a little self-conscious to be introducing myself that way, but I tried to be lighthearted and a little funny. After all, I doubt anyone likes a stuffy intern.

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And here's my first writing assignment:

My name is Christina Tesoro. I’m in my third year at Hunter College, currently finishing up my Creative Writing Major and I will begin my Media Studies major this semester.

I was born and raised in Bayside, Queens. People have told me that this is basically the boonies, but I consider myself at least 200% city girl. I live at the Brookdale Residence Hall on 25th and 1st and never intend to leave New York City if I can help it!

I have so many interests. When I was in high school, I was involved in softball and fencing, drama, and Benjamin N. Cardozo’s first A Capella Choir. In my sophomore year, I was the editor of the Cardozo poetry magazine, Salmagundi. In my junior year I started a female empowerment club, and had a lead in SING!, the annual student-run musical theatre production in which all the grades competed against each other for best original musical. In my senior year I was a starter for the girl’s fencing team, and co-wrote and directed SING! with a friend, and that year, we won.

Unfortunately, I haven’t had as much free time at Hunter. Aside from my course load, I work part time as a receptionist in an ophthalmologist’s office. My duties are to administer eye drops and perform visual field tests and other ocular tests and imaging. But ophthalmology is the only career I have no interest in whatsoever. I’m not a huge fan of other people’s eyeballs.

Other than that, I’ve thought about being a detective, a high school teacher, a journalist, a psychologist, an actress, a food critic, a forensic scientist, an FBI agent (or an actress playing an FBI agent), a lawyer, a travel writer, a chef, a pop star (but only for a minute), a magazine editor, a professor, a poet…

The one constant in my life has been my love for writing. Writing is something that I have done for my whole life, in diaries, short stories, poems, and essays. It comes naturally to me and I love it. But it is difficult to find a way to incorporate my love for writing into a feasible career plan. As romantic as it sounds, I know that the life of a starving bohemian writer isn’t for me. Part of the reason I applied for this internship at Creative Services was the chance to take my passion for writing and apply it to something real.

By working at the Creative Services Department at WABC, I’ll be able to research media for promos (something I’m admittedly still a little fuzzy on, but hey – that’s why I’m an intern) and then work with promotional script writers. I want to work somewhere that writing is incorporated into the job, and where creativity is not optional, or merely encouraged, but absolutely necessary. I want to experience forms of writing that I’m not familiar with as of yet. Most importantly, in the future I want to work at a job that I love. Eyeballs just aren’t going to cut it.