KING’S SENIOR LANDS JOB WITH NEW YORK TV STATION

Senior John Wagner only has nine more credits to take before he gets his Politics, Philosophy, and Economics (PP&E) degree with a concentration in Media. He should have a pretty laid-back semester, then, right? Wrong.

Wagner has just taken a full-time job at New York 1 (NY1), a 24-hour news station on Time Warner Cable. Located on Ninth Avenue between 15th and 16th streets, Wagner found the job through a connection with ABC's Channel 7, a local news station where he interned previously.

After completing several weeks of training, Wagner’s ready to begin working. That will involve two major tasks.

According to Wagner, his responsibilities include serving as cameraman for reporters as they file stories. He will set the frame for the shots, transport reporters to news event, and capture all the footage a reporter may need. At other times, he said, he will film smaller events by himself, such as fires, protests, and press conferences, and conduct interviews for those events. "I think that I'm going to get to go to a variety of interesting events," he said.

His prediction is coming true. He’s already covered a basketball player's funeral, the unveiling of a new monkey at the Prospect Park Zoo in Brooklyn, and a mock funeral for a subway station that closed due to budget cuts. Recently, he interviewed a Queens district attorney, filmed in the New York Knicks locker room, attended an event with Rev. Al Sharpton, and covered several fires. His favorite experience so far has been getting paid to go to a Knicks game and filming NBA star LeBron James’s press conference.

Wagner also tries to get background sound in Spanish to use for NY1's Spanish news programs—NY1 Noticias—whenever he goes on assignment. He also gets to drive in the city, something he’s always wanted to do. He even got a GPS for Christmas to help him. Still, the GPS can’t find him parking spots, something he calls “a pain.”

Despite the pain, Wagner knows this job is preparing him for his future career. "I want to report on air, and if I go to a small station, I'll probably have to do it all: shoot video, report, and edit video together. This will help," he said.

Wagner also thinks PPE is good preparation for those aspiring to go into journalism. "I think I'm coming away from college a lot better prepared to ask good questions and I know what I'm talking about more than students graduating with a simple communications or journalism degree," he said. Wagner also recommends the World Journalism Institute summer program, which is discounted for TKC students, and takes place on campus every summer.

Wagner plans on working at NY1 into the fall and hopes to find another job by then. He wants to "get really comfortable using the camera, find some mentors, and hone my interviewing skills."

Wagner's experiences working full-time serve as a good transition from an internship to a real reporting job. "I love this job because it's so closely aligned with what I actually want my career to be," he said.

A version of this story originally appeared in the student newspaper The Student Voice. Peace is a freshman from South Carolina studying PP&E.