journalism

Goodbye, Hello

A little bit of a status change has occurred today and will continue, hopefully, next week. Today was my last day at WAAY-31, after a year and about six months or so. I will hopefully be taking over the reins of Webmaster at WAFF-48 next week.

It’s a very bittersweet feeling. I absolutely adore the folks I’ve worked with, especially everyone in the new media department and in the newsroom. Unfortunately, many negative things have been said about the station in various places over the past year (not telling tales there — do your own Googling if you care to.) But I can honestly say that the folks I’ve worked with in the newsroom are like warriors and have managed to produce some amazing newscasts in some less-than-ideal situations. And some of the afternoons with me, Andi and Mike just keeping up a running string of snark have been priceless. It’s all great material for my future TV show treatment.

Likewise, our site has managed to build up to the highest Alexa ranking for TV station sites in the state of Alabama. A lot of hard work and some tears went into that effort, and I can’t say enough great things about Ben, Leslie, Brett, Ward and Jamie for what we all have done as a team since relaunching the site last July. I have no doubt that they will continue to prosper.

I’m stepping into unknown territory here, and it absolutely terrifies me. It’s funny that I’ve done such brave/insane things like packing up and moving to LA, where I knew exactly two people, and then coming back and going to Carbondale, where I knew absolutely no one. But for some reason none of that scared me as much as committing myself to staying in this city for at least two more years. As REM once said, it’s easier to leave than to be left behind, and I’ve been feeling that on several levels lately.

But I also crave stability, and I’ve always seemed to have looked for a reason or a person who needs me to be somewhere forever. And with my dad’s illness (he’s recently been diagnosed with Lyme’s Disease) and my lovely sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew living pretty close to my new station, it’s good to be around to be there for Daddy’s treatment (which is apparently a lot like chemo) and to see the kids grow up and hopefully become the cool Aunt Dana who plays with them and spoils them rotten.

In any case, I made it my policy to never talk about my workplace here, and that won’t change. Nor will I be telling tales about what’s happened at WAAY, just like I haven’t about WRAL and WKRN. The day job is great because few people get to sit in front of a computer and just gather news all day long, and I’m a total news-a-holic (watching Mumbai coverage over Thanksgiving was almost overload.)

But when the day’s over, that’s where this blog starts, and y’all get to hear about British TV and hopefully more social media stuff. I hope everyone sticks around. If nothing else, “I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here!” has its finale tomorrow, so you’ll soon be done with that.

© 2008 A Place to Crash.