Items

• 2020-10-06

  Anchoring the news through a pandemic

  In January of 2020 I was a wide eyed Junior at Arizona State University, trying out for an anchor position on Cronkite News, which airs on Arizona PBS. I had heard that typically Juniors were not selected and neither were sports journalism majors, like myself, who the faculty did not know as well, so I wasn't expecting to get one of the 10 spots. Somehow of the 60+ people to tryout I was selected and thus began my news anchoring experience. From the first time the red light on the camera turned on I was hooked, hooked to the feeling in my stomach unlike anything I had ever felt before knowing that messing up was not an option. My co-anchor was amazing and we built a great friendship that made every show even more fun, I was having the time of my life every Monday for two hours. Then, Spring Break came and with it the cancellation of basically everything due to the Coronavirus, including anchoring. I had other things cancelled like an internship and covering the Olympics in Tokyo that are much bigger deals in the journalism world, but for some inexplicable reason this one hurt the most. A few weeks later and we were doing our newscast from home; suit on the top, pajamas on the bottom and while it was good to feel productive, that feeling in my stomach was gone. That irreplaceable adrenaline rush of confidence and nerves that only came with someone counting down and a red light turning on, was gone for the foreseeable future. Summer passed and there was nothing to do. I knew I would be returning to school again in the Fall of 2020, but would they really let me anchor twice in two semesters? It seemed unlikely. A few weeks into the semester and I was playing it off, telling friends it was not a big deal and I, again, was not expecting to get one of the spots. The audition went well and then we waited. Suddenly I got a notification from Slack. It was a list of the anchors. I've never skimmed something so fast in my life. I found my name and a sigh of relief was mixed with pure joy, we were back. The pandemic tried to take something away from me, and I know it's nothing big, and I know millions and millions of people went through something that truly hurt or killed, but it felt good in that moment to beat it in my own way. Now, we're three shows in to semester number two and that feeling in my stomach is back every Thursday, as the floor director counts down 5, 4, 3, 2...