A Somewhat Professional

Posted on by pshannon3

I’ll be honest, I hadn’t thought about this in a while. The idea of professionalism is something every person should aspire to emulate. You should be professional in the ways in which you ho about your life, it’s the best of the best. It’s unusual to hear kids say they want to be an amateur football player when they grow up, know what I’m saying? It takes on a whole different meaning however once you get to college.

Professionalism doesn’t mean you have to wear a suit into Grainger every day. It doesn’t mean you need to have 500+ connections on LinkedIn. We’re here to learn how to be professionals, especially in a school like the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Events like the ones offered to us give us a chance to HEAR professionals. To LEARN from them. Not to be them at age 19, because I’m sure as hell not ready for that.

I attended one professional practice event in person, and completed one online. I can say in all honesty I think I learned the most from the online one, but found the in-person stories much more valuable when it comes to learning how to make your way up in the journalism world.

The online module, Storytelling for Advertising Campaigns, was incredibly helpful when it comes to breaking down what makes different aspects of advertising so impactful. The ideas when it comes to story structure and the influence of the six base human emotions is the kind of information that makes me so interested in advertising in the first place, something that is making me semi-doubt my declared reporting track.

The second event I attended was a talk by Judith Valente, a journalist who has worked for basically every newspaper you could imagine ever. She struck a good balance between talking about what she loved most, and the pieces she wrote, and discussing the current climate of the news world, and how it’s under fire. I wasn’t sure what her opinions would be, as she seemed to have a fairly conservative background, but as a journalist, she was not a big fan of our current president, Donald Trump. When you’re able to learn a couple of lessons from a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, it’s definitely a good experience for the professionalism column.

I’m excited to consider myself a professional one day. One day is the key phrase there, because well If you hadn’t guessed it yet, I’m not exactly there. I’ve got work to do, but I’m in probably the best place possible for my growth as not only a journalist, but an all-around student. God, that’s cheesy, but I mean it’s not not true (shrugs shoulders). I’m starting to like this blog thing, and pretending like I have a big audience though. For someone that loves to hear the sound of his own voice, text is obviously tough, but writing like I’m talking makes it ok. Here’s to the hope one day I’ll be a professional something.

Let’s Send It Over to Bucci

Posted on by pshannon3

Some kids want to be a firefighter, some want to be an astronaut, but myself, oh no, I had absolutely no idea what I wanted. Whenever I was asked the age-old question, “Peter, what do you want to be when you grow up?” I would respond with every job in existence that I believed to be relatively cool. The most common answer being, “a hockey playing chef who skydives and is in movies!” Still waiting on my contract for that one, but a kid can dream right? Honestly, it wasn’t until I was in middle school that I truly realized what I wanted to do with the adult years of my life.

I wanted to be a SportsCenter anchor more than anything on planet earth.

One might ask how I got there, and guess what, I’ll tell you.

I’m a creature of habit, I eat the same things, have a distinct routine when it comes to how I go about my day, and one thing that was consistent every morning before school for me was to watch SportsCenter at 6:30 am in my family room. I obviously watched for the highlights, but what I started to realize was that the anchors made it a spectacle. Whether it was throwing out a catchphrase or screaming after an insane alley-oop, they were what roped me in. As I planted myself in the same worn-out blue chair, I would pray that John Buccigross would be behind the desk. He is the one that inspires me most as a communicator, without a doubt.

To be a television personality, you have to differentiate yourself from the pack. While each anchor on the ESPN payroll is different, Bucci is the one who takes his personality, and absolutely sprints away with it. His big thing is hockey, he loves everything hockey, and for a kid that guess what, loves hockey, he was my guy. His rapport with Barry Melrose made me laugh, his emotion when highlighting a tragic event made me contemplate everything, and his genuine love of life is what made me smile. Bucci is comfortable. He does what he loves, and will not settle for anything else.

For a kid that struggled with finding his own voice, watching a grown man laugh at himself, talk about his favorite things, and connect with an audience showed me that I wanted to be that guy. I want to be the guy who impacts kids like myself. I want to emulate everything that he does on-air because that is what I think professionalism is. Inspiring others.

So while he has absolutely no idea who I am, I still like and reply to his tweets, make sure to catch up on his latest segments, and always hope that if I flip on SportsCenter that he’ll be the one on my screen. John Buccigross showed me that you can be that weird guy and do what you love for a living, and I sure as hell hope one day, just one day, maybe people will write a required blog post about me.

How A Late Night Host Made Me Contemplate Human Emotion

Posted on by pshannon3

As I scrolled through the possible options to be motivated by in the storytelling inspiration tab, my mind obviously thought, “which one is going to be the easiest.” I sifted through the texts, videos, podcasts, and I settled on an article about a man who I have constantly heard my Dad call overrated, Stephen Colbert. Give it 20 minutes, and look at that, I’m tearing up in the study room of my fraternity house.

Colbert’s story is far from cliché but can be talked about in such a way that does bring a sense of emotional clarity. Many people dream of being in this guy’s shoes, I mean especially people who love to hear themselves talk like myself, but no one really takes into account the intricacies that are attached to a job like his.

When I winded my way to the end of the piece, to be completely honest, I teared up. I’m a kid that has gone through his own emotional wringer, and while it doesn’t compare to what Colbert has had to endure, the way in which he discussed these intricate approaches to happiness and everyday enjoyment quite literally clarified the tornado of thoughts within my head. I would have loved to have a camera focused on my facial expressions throughout reading, because the genuine reactions of happiness and self-awareness are feelings I haven’t felt in a very long time. This piece made me feel confident for the first time in a while and gave me lessons and quotes that I hope to implement in my own life. For God’s sake, I’m out here taking life lessons from a GQ article, so props to Joey Lovell, because he knows how to tell an impactful story.

The story lasts because of the different aspects of personality that it targets. When writing a feature on a certain celebrity, it’s very easy for the author to just focus on the impact the celeb has on mainstream media, and the best things they’ve done in their career. While Lovell does paint Colbert in an incredibly positive light, he is not afraid to dig into the emotional past of the beloved host, while highlighting certain events of his career.

When picking this article apart the most emphasized aspect is human emotion, and for good reason. I wouldn’t have done anything differently, because I can say without a doubt that I view things differently. It’s not because I love Stephen Colbert, it’s not because of the distinct tone within the interview, it’s because of the authenticity in which he speaks. He knows how to play a character, and he scraps that persona to truly divulge into what is at the core of all human beings, raw emotion.

In conclusion, there are two quotes that I copied down in pasted in my notes on my computer. I know. Crazy stuff. In all honesty, they did mean a lot. As a kid who has never believed in himself, a quote from a GQ article about a late-night host showed me a different way in which to approach my life. “It’s our choice, whether to hate something in our lives or to love every moment of them, even the parts that bring us pain. At every moment, we are volunteers.” So, thank you, Stephen Colbert, for articulating your ways to deal with loss, self-confidence, and making late-night television special. While you may not have meant it, a 19-year-old in Madison Wisconsin appreciates it more than you know.