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Sara Schulz can’t believe she’s working for WDIV, the NBC affiliate in Detroit also known as Local 4.
“It still feels surreal,” Sara said of her position as a news photographer.
It wasn’t an outcome she expected after crossing paths with a media personality she first met as an LTU student.
“We just got to talking and she said, my husband is a photographer at Local 4 and has a bunch of positions open. I’ll hook you up and you two can talk,” the 2018 media communication grad recalls. “Next thing you know, I’m working in Detroit.”
After six years at a television station in Lansing, located in a smaller market, it’s a welcome change, although she values everything she learned there. “I will always be in debt to that place because it shaped my career, taught me how to be a journalist and about the true ethics behind journalism.”
At WDIV, she spends her days filming “in the field” alongside a reporter after she loads the video camera and other equipment onto one of WDIV’s trucks. That she drives.
Together, they edit footage, submitting different versions of their assigned story to the station before the day’s deadline. She also captures live footage for the broadcast, making sure the reporter “looks good on live television.”
She loves the excitement of her job and enjoys learning tons from industry veterans. “You don’t feel the egos,” she said. “Everyone wants everybody else to succeed.” Similar her instructors at LTU.
“I had a teacher from every single station at the time (FOX 2 Detroit, WDIV Local 4, WXYZ Channel 7) who had a wealth of knowledge they were ready, willing, and able to pass on.” She’s particularly grateful to former Channel 7 news reporter Cheryl Chodun, an adjunct faculty member whose contacts helped Sara land that first job in Lansing in a very tough job market.
She’s also indebted to LTU professor Corinne Stavish, who helped Sara find her journalism voice by insisting on an assertive communication style, which she found challenging “but in the best way possible.”
“Her courses made me speak what I want to, when I want to, and how I want to,” Sara said. “It really changed my career to be able to say things with authority. I lacked a lot of confidence before I was in her classes.”
While she’d love to win an award one day for her work, right now she’s focusing on becoming the best photographer she can possibly be at WDIV.
“This is an opportunity I’m so blessed to have,” she said. “I’ve achieved a huge dream of working in the Detroit market. There are so many cool things going on here. I sowed my seeds in Lansing, and now they’re blooming.”
AUTHOR: Pam Houghton
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Use Your Cell Phone as a Document Camera in Zoom
From Computer
Log in and start your Zoom session with participants
From Phone
To use your cell phone as a makeshift document camera
