I spent my afternoon impregnating fertile and impressionable young minds.

I got a call from a former coworker of mine from down on the river about coming over to the University of Memphis to speak to her journalism class. Some of you may remember Lurene Cachola who left reporting to pursue academics. She is now Dr. Lurene Kelly at the U of M and asked me to spend a couple of hours with a producing class. She said part of their work dealt with on-air work and she asked me help with some on-camera work in the studio. (Yah, I guess she couldn’t get anybody else to come out on a rainy Thursday). As I explained to the class, there are usually three ways of doing anything and my way is just one way. I shared some of my experiences with them and was under the impression that I was just going to critique their on-camera performance. Dr. Lurene asked me to read through some scripts on camera so they could see how I did it.

I have to admit, it was kind of strange to sit in front of a prompter and on a set again. But as I sat there, I began to have this feeling of deja vu’. I told them that the set really seemed familiar to me and that’s when I was told, it was the old WREG set. The colors were changed and there was no Memphis backdrop. I started to check under the set to see if some of the gum I put there might still be chewable but I decided not to.

Afterwards, I was chatting with one of Dr. Lurene’s coworkers who is working on his Masters at the U of M. As I’ve said before, I think there are only about 300 people in the TV News business and every few years they all change jobs. This guy had worked at WVEC in Norfolk and remembered working with Bruce Moore who was a reporter at the time. Moore just arrived this week to assume the head honcho position in the news department down on the river. Talk about a small world.

One other note about my experience impregnating fertile young minds. I emphasized to them that if they ended up as an anchor to remember to be nice to people. For some reason, some of the folks who get to that post in the newsroom feel they have to talk down to co-workers and feel that they are someohow something special. I told them that an anchor is merely a cog in the news wheel and without all of those editors, shooters, producers and reporters; the anchors don’t have a heck of a lot going on and would get really lonely sitting on that big set. Remember what you learned in kindergarten. Just be nice to everyone.