Chelsea... Lately!

This week I would like to take some time to dedicate a thank-you to someone outside of the Westminster College network, someone I have never actually met but that I greatly admire. This person is Chelsea Handler, a hilarious comedian that is taking the entertainment-news world by storm. If you have never heard of her, I highly recommend watching some of her stand-up comedy or you can catch her nightly on the E! Network with the show “Chelsea Lately.”
As one of the nation’s fastest-rising female stand ups stars, Chelsea has performed to sold out audiences around the world including the Montreal Comedy Festival and the HBO Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen. After her successful stand up tours, the E! Entertainment Network invited Chelsea to tape a pilot of her first nightly talk show, “Chelsea Lately.” The show was a hit and the E! Channel has just signed her for another season. http://www.comedycentral.com/comedians/browse/h/chelsea_handler.jhtml
The reason why I admire Chelsea Handler so much is because of her hard work and motivation but also because she loves what she does and can fun with it. I can’t imagine a more perfect dream job then talking about entertainment news and gossip to the entire world on your own television show. She started out as a comedian, but has worked her witty sarcasm into the field of media and entertainment with her nightly talk show. I make sure to tune in every night (or at least catch reruns) to get all the latest updates on celebrity news. It’s also very inspirational to see how she has handled her own in a typically male-dominated market. The late night talk show world is known for hosts like Jay Leno, Jimmy Kimmel and David Letterman but Chelsea has definitely proven she’s funny enough and tough enough to hang around.
Chelsea knows how to make her audience laugh and have a good time but she is also very good at what she does. I think that’s a very valuable lesson to take into any field of work you may go into! Her continuous joy of doing what she does helps me even more move towards my future in broadcasting and wherever life takes me!

My Mentor

I have had a lot of teachers/professors/coaches in my life that have inspired me… but when thinking about my future in the field of communications, one person really jumps out as a true mentor that took me under their wing. That person is my internship advisor from this summer at WKBN, Maggie Henderson. Ever since my first day at the station interviewing, Maggie has been very understanding, patient, and willing to help whenever. I thought for sure I wouldn’t have gotten my internship in the newsroom this summer because I got lost in Youngstown and was consequently late for my interview. Maggie was understanding though and actually very relatable to because she told me she was from Pennsylvania and that she went to college in PA so she known how confusing Youngstown can be at first. This automatically put me at ease and I knew I could talk to her about anything I needed from there on out, it was also nice that she is in her twenties so she knows what it’s like to be a young professional in the field. Throughout my internship, Maggie watched over my fellow interns and myself and always made sure we were learning something valuable from what we were doing. The list of things I learned this summer from my internship is never ending, but some of them were running Avid, writing scripts/teases/VOSOTS, producing and promotions. I spent a good amount of my internship experience going out on the field with reporters, but whenever I was in the newsroom I learned how to enter press releases into the day book and how to take phone calls. Maggie helped us get into contact with the promotions department one week, where we learned how promotions ties into the newsroom with producing commercials, special features, graphics and much more. After that, I asked Maggie if we (the interns) could job shadow her as a producer. She was more than willing to help and show us how she times out a show, how to make the show flow and how to write short and concisely. She also gave us very informative packets of information for anything we needed to know about producing or being in the news room. Overall, Maggie Henderson made my internship experience very valuable and very special to me; I think without her, I wouldn’t have appreciated what I had done for 3 months so much!

Public Relations & The Media

Being a broadcast communications major and a public relations minor here at Westminster College, I’ve experienced many classes and projects. When I sat down and thought about which class most impacted my stay here at Westminster, I would have to choose Public Relations and The Media. At first, I wasn’t too sure what this course would entail, besides the obvious of pr and media practices. As we got deeper into the course however and as I studied the text, I began to gain respect for the information I was being taught. The text we used was a small paperback book, approx. 300 pages long, but it sure did pack a good punch. I learned how to prepare the perfect press kit, how to organize a press conference and how to deal with reporter’s deadlines. We even had several mock press conferences where the class was divided up into half reporters and half public relations staff. The goal of the press conference was to experience how it feels for both parties of the press conference. Being a broadcast communications major, I had a slight idea of how it felt to be a reporter and what it was like to try to get the biggest, most newsworthy story. This is a reporter’s job, and sometimes it may seem we are being insincere, but we are just trying out hardest to do the best job we can. On the other side of the press conference, are the company speaker and their pr team. This course really opened my eyes because I got to experience how it felt for a pack of reporters to come at you during a conference, and you be on your toes AT ALL TIMES! I learned that you should always treat the media with respect because if you get on their bad side, then you lose important contacts for when you want to promote your company. This course definitely shaped my future career goals and senior project by showing me both sides of the media/public relations field. My senior project is to implement many strategies to promote our television station here on campus. I want to make sure to make good contacts and improve my broadcast/promotions skills for not only my senior project, but also my future career!