Digital Highlights
KANSAS CITY, MO COLUMBIA, MO (at bottom)
KMBC Digital Content
I grew up in Lee's Summit, MO - a suburb of Kansas City, MO and one of the city's KMBC covers often. I grew up going to the Landmark Skating Center or Rink for birthday parties, field trips, etc. When I saw the rink was closing, I knew the city/area would be devastated and would want to share their experiences there. People would want to share this on Facebook, tag their friends, etc. I knew this would perform well in a newscast and digitally. So, I decided to write up the story on day to help out the digital team. The screenshot is from KMBC 9 Facebook feed, and it has a high engagement rate, shares and comments for a 'pacer' story. It even inspired a follow-up piece from one of our MMJs. If you would like to read the story for yourself, click on the image and you will find it hyperlinked to the story from one of our weekend morning newscasts.
Boulevard Brewing Co. is a very popular locally-owned company in Kansas City. I saw it post on Facebook asking for particular bottles back - which is unusual. When I looked more into it, I knew people needed to hear about it, so I wrote an article for our website. Plus, I added it to our show. This was such a heartbreaking - and yet warming story - that I knew would benefit from being told in a newscast, but also perform well online. When something does well on social media, you know it will perform well in a newscast.
If you would like to read the story for yourself, please click on the image to the right.
Digital Work & Projects
COLUMBIA, MO
KOMU 8 News & Sports Digital Producer
2018 Election Season: Facebook Live Producer means coordination, planning and cross-platform promotion
Missouri captured national attention during the mid-term elections in November 2018 mainly for the U.S. Senate Race between Claire McCaskill (D) and Josh Hawley (R)
KOMU 8 News Facebook Live Schedule
For this section, I was put in charge of KOMU 8's Facebook Lives from reporters in the field all over Missouri and from the newsroom. I created a schedule for the night spanning several hours of what race or issue would do a Facebook Live and when. I communicated with reporters, anchors and digital reporters to coordinate when they could go live on the station's Facebook page.
KOMU 8 News Facebook Live Newsroom Tour
This is one of the Facebook Live videos we did from the newsroom. We wanted to highlight what we were doing for the community to make sure they were getting the most up to date results in the elections.
Our viewers really liked seeing the behind-the-scenes action of a newsroom.
Breaking news, sharing on social, follow-up
For this story, we got word a prosecutor formally charged a Columbia police officer nearly a year after she hit and killed a four-year-old girl while patrolling at a Columbia high school.
I wrote the breaking news webstory gathering facts our previous reporting and finding the court documents.
Once I posted it on social media, our viewers debating in the comment section for days.
While monitoring the comment section to make sure viewers were following our community guidelines, I came across a comment that appeared to be from the four-year-old's mother. After searching for her on the internet, I found out she was the girl's mother, and immediately told management and reporters.
This lead to a follow-up interview with the mother that had some very emotional sound. We were the only station in our market to get this interview, and I would like to think it was because I helped locate her and made sure the reporter was delicate in the interview approach.
Field Producing, Digital Videos, Cross-Platform Promotion
Around holiday times, it's hard to find local stories - that aren't the run-of-the-mill traditional packages. So, I put together a behind the scenes look at the man behind a major mid-Missouri holiday site. I field-produced the TV version of this story and had a main anchor front it live.
While filming and getting to know the magic tree creator, I knew this story would perform really well on Facebook, so I decided to make a social video promoting the TV story and Columbia's Magic Tree.
I loved working on this story because I had the opportunity to film and edit (which I don't get to do a lot as a news producer) while producing something that would engage the digital audience.
For the full webstory, click the screenshot above.
Creating engaging, interesting digital video and content for the social audience
I worked on this story for my digital capstone class. I wanted to find a place or topic that would promote high engagement on social media. I drove to Marceline, Missouri in Linn County to learn a lot about the man behind the beloved character Mickey Mouse. As of January 2020, this story was shared 134 times and the video itself had more than 10,000 views which is high for our market and audience. On the left, you can watch the video. On the right is screenshot from Jan. 2020 to show stats from the Facebook post. The image is hyperlinked to the webstory.
KOMU 8 Friday Night Fever Sports Digital Producer
I was a part of the digital team for KOMU's football coverage, known as Friday Night Fever or FNF. I curated the digital reporters' tweets and embedded them into a live blog we do every week for FNF. This enterprise is a huge success in mid-Missouri attracting thousands of eyes, shares, likes, etc.
The live blog was updated every couple of minutes with tweets, videos and pictures from our reporters.
I was also in charge of retweeting the reporters, but I had to make sure they spelled everything correctly and had accurate information.
KOMU Sports reporters went to the game to get highlights, and then KOMU Sports digital reporters followed along and sent us digital content plus the scores.
Another part of my responsibilities were keeping the FNF sports producer up-to-date with scores which got hectic when it came down to the wire before the 10 p.m. sportscast.