Broadcast journalists cover election night: Greta Wall

Election Night 2014 was an awesome experience for us as student journalists to get a peek into what the real world of journalism is all about. Katie Seals and I teamed up to be the mobile team, running between the Civic Center and both Democratic incumbent Scott Peter’s and Republican candidate Carl DeMaio’s election events. It got a little crazy.

We knew Peters was going to be at the Westin Hotel, but we didn’t think about the fact that there are two Westin hotels located downtown. Of course we walked to the wrong one, the farthest one. So we hopped in a Lyft to get us back to the correct location in the Gaslamp. Thank God we got a ride!

We walked in the tiny conference room with people packed in like sardines just as Peters was getting up behind the podium to give his speech. I quickly set up the tripod, popped the camera on and hit record. Whew! We were amazed with our impeccable timing. Once he finished, we packed up to hit the road and go to DeMaio’s event at the U.S. Grant just around the corner.

As we walked out of the building, Katie turned to me, “Greta… Do we even have a microphone?!?” How in the world were we going to film stand-ups and interviews without a microphone? So before the U.S. Grant, we had to run back to the Civic Center where all the gear was and a grab a microphone. It’s funny how frazzled your brain gets when you’re just trying to get to the right place at the right time. Once we grabbed the mic we had forgotten, we headed on down the street to DeMaio’s event. It was blazing hot in there so that wasn’t very fun, but we made it in plenty of time to record both Chris Cate’s speech, DeMaio’s speech and even film some stand-ups and interviews.

The world of TV journalism seems so daunting when thinking about it as a senior who is about to graduate but the people in the business are amazing. We met some of the nicest reporters and cameramen at DeMaio’s event, willing to go out of their way to make sure we got good shots and good sound. Every time I think about the fact that I have to get a job in six months, it terrifies me. But meeting the people who work in this business every single day and hearing their encouragement reminds me that even though it looks scary, it’s a fun world to be in.