In-Progress Highlight Reel

An aspiring reporter’s not much good without a way to show off his work! Here, you’ll find assorted pieces I’ve worked on throughout my college career, including videos for classes, packages I assembled at my internships, and some challenges I did just for the fun and learning they entailed.

This story is my go-to example of why reporters should go to events with an open mind and discover the story while they’re there. I went to a Super Tuesday watch party expecting to see politics students energized as the results came in, but what I found was just the opposite, so I ran with it. I got some wonderfully honest answers from students who were simply burnt out, and that helped bring this package together.
An all-you-can-eat breakfast for dinner and the opportunity to do some good combined at this event, hosted at Drake University sorority house. This package was the end result of a semester spent really learning the fundamentals of good techniques for shooting and editing video, and I’m fairly proud of it as a result. As a bonus, KCCI’s Eric Hanson, who’s acclaimed for his “This is Iowa” series of stories, praised my storytelling in this package!
Speaking of KCCI, this is my favorite package I assembled during my summer with them. It’s the closest I’ve come to covering a crime beat as a student journalist, and it includes a walking standup that I’m actually really proud of. Believe it or not, walking and talking into a camera at the same time is harder than you’d think!
Being in quarantine during a pandemic involving a stay-at-home order has forced my TV news class to get creative. Separated from our beloved video cameras and ability to travel to find interview subjects, we’ve mostly been assembling packages from home. Because of that, I’m especially proud of how this particular story came together, and as a bonus, my professor for the course labeled my reporter standup “the best we’ve had in the class.”
Finally, I wanted to include a passion project of mine. As a lifelong video game hobbyist, I jumped at the opportunity to write a review of one for a class. I then promptly hit a wall when I realized how many steps it actually entailed, but for the sake of nothing but my own interest, I stuck with it. All of the footage in this video was captured on my Sony Playstation 4. I wrote the script, voiced it, then edited all of the pieces together. It was an amazing challenge to myself that, while not my most professional and hard-hitting piece, was definitely one of the most rewarding.