Category: Summer

Lessons New York Reminded Me

6/6/2014

This Sunday marks three weeks since I moved into New York City for the summer to be an intern for CBS News. I haven't written much about my experience with CBS, but I did realize I've learned and been reminded of things in the past three weeks that are probably worth noting about my overall and general experience.

Without further ado... in no particular order:

Always leave extra time to get anywhere.
You'd always rather be early anywhere than late. At least I would. So leave early and get to work 15 minutes early. That's what I do. You just don't know when the subway is going to be delayed or too crowded to fit in the car, or how many crosswalks you'll have to wait at. Just be early. Even if no one notices you're early, they'll definitely notice if you're late.

Nobody really cares about you.
I don't mean this in a bad way. I mean in New York City you can walk down a street and pass a multimillion dollar couple, an interracial father and son, someone who might be homeless and someone who might be crazy. And nobody ever turns their head or thinks twice. That's why weird things happen on street corners and weird things happen on the subway but most of the time people keep their heads down in their books. New York is the media center, the fashion capital, the financial pulse, the theater district and more of the country. Everyone has better things to do than care. It's kind of like high school. Those things you think people care about, they definitely don't.

Days off are for you only!
Working on a Saturday morning show, my days off are Sunday and Monday. So last Monday, I woke up with a really bad cold and I took a hot shower, made an English muffin with peanut butter, moved myself to the couch and fell asleep. I napped on and off all day and I believe after that I went into my bedroom and watched TV. Your days off are only for you and if you need to spend it napping a cold away, you should do so.

The best thing about anywhere you work is always going to be the people.
From the Tonys to NBC to CBS to wherever I'm off to next, this proves to be true. Further than that, you're never too old to make new friends. I've been so happy to see what a nice group we've formed of the CBS This Morning interns. We plan to do things together, we ask questions about each others homes and schools and we are becoming friends. No matter that there might not always be enough to do, there might be too much for anyone to do, or any range of situations in between, the truth is that the thing that is going to keep you getting up in the morning and on the Subway to Columbus Circle is that you like making television with really good people who also like making television. Okay, that may be my thing that keeps me getting up but yours can be different.

Blisters are awful.
But wearing cute shoes is awesome for more than one reason. That's where this one ends.

"When people show you who they are the first time, believe them." - Maya Angelou
One of my friends at CBS told me this quote and it took some thinking about to actually find a way to apply it. But now that I've read it over and thought about it, it really is true. If someone says they are going to call you and they don't do it, they're showing you something. I'm not saying things don't come up. This is life and we get busy and our phones die and we forget to call. But don't make those excuses for too long. It's quite possible that the person is the type of person who says they're going to call and doesn't. It's also quite possible they aren't that type of person but there is another thing that I know to be true which is that people make time for those they deem important. If it's important to someone to call you when they say they will, they will call. One more truth in this category: anything that you can imagine being really nice and romantic with a certain person will be 10 times as nice and romantic with a person who genuinely wants to be there with you. I promise. Anything you can imagine being wonderful to share with a significant other will really be 10 times more wonderful if you can share it with someone who wants nothing but to share it exactly with you. Remember here that people make time for those they truly want to make time for and they don't for those who they don't. It's human. Don't try to deny that. It's true.

0 Comments

Choosing a Life in Television (Starting with Internships)

6/4/2014

0 Comments

Though I always loved a camera :)

I've been involved in performing in some way my whole life. I started like many little girls do, in a pink tutu and ballet shoes. I moved on to tap, jazz, lyrical, competitive dance, the whole thing. I took voice lessons through middle school and high school, and I was involved in theater from the age of 10. By the time I was leaving high school I actually think I was pretty good.

So when it came time to decide on a University and a major, it was hard to tell the theater no. But I knew it is a life of auditioning and rejection and call backs and moving on and waitressing and you truly have to have a heart full of a special kind of love to do it. That love has to be your purpose for living. It has to drive you every single day to wake up, to audition, to understand you might not get this one and to say you'll try again tomorrow. And more than saying you'll try again, it has to drive you to actually do it. About a profession in theater, I was once told if I could picture myself doing anything else, I should.

And I could.

It was television.

Today at CBS, someone asked me how I ended up in television and I was glad they asked. I really had to think about it. I was always interested in a lot of things and for a while it's why I struggled to settle on a career. I love travel and thought I wanted to work on cruise ships. I love English and thought I wanted to teach it. I love weddings and thought I wanted to plan them. But television is a career where you are allowed to be interested in so many things. Each time you meet someone or do a story, you become a bit of an expert in that subject. When I was at NBC, we did a story on citrus greening and I became a bit of an expert on a tiny part of that world. That intrigues me in so many ways about television. You can learn forever. You can know so much.

For a girl who naturally needs to know and needs to understand, news is everything to me.

I also ended up here because of the type of person I am. I am to the point. I do not waste time. I need something to be right the very first time. So when I learned broadcast writing is about saying what you have to say in as few words as possible and saying it in a way the listener would understand the first very time, I was hooked.

I wish everyone was so succinct and forthcoming.

At the CBS News Internship Program Orientation two days ago, Jeff Fager came to speak to the interns. Jeff Fager has been at CBS for 32 years and is the current Chairman of CBS News and Executive Producer of 60 Minutes. I love that he did that because it proved to me what I already know, which is that CBS does an amazing job placing value on their interns and trust in what the program is designed to do. Jeff gave us a lot of advice as we began the internship: stay in touch with the people you meet, be assertive and take advantage of the opportunities you're given.

I appreciated hearing all of those things, but what I loved best of all was the extremely candid conversation Jeff engaged us in about television. He said the best reporters are the best of people in terms of building relationships. He said CBS aims to help people better understand what's happening in the world we live in. He said CBS covers what's interesting and what's important.

He said, "I've seen the world at CBS News."

That.

I've seen the world at CBS News.

What a way to spend your life.

He went on to clarify that at the same time, the craft is a calling and a real responsibility to help the audience. It's just not a burden to take lightly. But if you can take it, you can see the world at CBS News.

It was in that moment listening to Jeff Fager that I reached an intense clarity about my reasons for choosing news. Every single thing you could watch on the news takes place in a moment of unity. Between the anchors and the audience, between the anchors and the reporters, between the reporters and the audience. There is this innate sense of togetherness. Together with an anchor, a reporter, a producer, a cameraman and a sound guy, you can go anywhere and see anything for the story, for the responsibility, or just for the adventure.

Later on at Orientation, we heard from a group of 17 CBS employees who were all once interns. Again, another example of how CBS truly values the process and the ability to turn these 10 weeks as an intern into a career at CBS News. This one particular employee told us he started his internship with 48 Hours on September 10th, 2001, also known as the day before 9/11. On being an intern on that day, he said "it was intense but it taught me I was in the right place."

It was in that specific moment I learned I want to be in the right place for the rest of my life.

Being where I'm at now, having covered Hilary Clinton, Lisa Ling, Arianna Huffington and more, the advice I was given about becoming an actress is as true as it's ever been. Back then, I could picture myself doing something else. And now that I've found that something else, I cannot picture myself doing any other thing.

I don't know what network it will be at and I don't know where I'll begin, but I do know television is the absolute only way I could spend my life.

Who knows, someday I, too, might see the world at CBS News.

You heard it here first,
Jordan

P.S I do happen to have a full scale plan of how I will one day return to the theater and make my Broadway debut. But that is another blog post for another day :)

0 Comments

GAD & Dinner with Linda Ellerbee

6/29/2013

0 Comments

I sat down in Linda Ellerbee's West Village living room and she told me about the first episode of Nick News on April 18th, 1992: "We had a big beach ball that looked like the globe... and we found Baghdad, and we spun it around and found the U.S. and I said 'Saddam Hussein doesn't have a plane that can get from here to here without stopping to refuel... and every country in between the two have said he cannot stop to refuel. So you can sleep safely here tonight.'"

That last line. You can sleep safely here tonight.

Let me digress for a moment- I've diagnosed myself with general anxiety disorder, which is exactly what it sounds like: a general sense of anxiety about things that really shouldn't be that scary... things that are not rationally anxiety inducing. I'm newly anxious about most things, actually. I'll never walk alone at night, and any restaurant, movie theater, mall that I walk in could really be the next Portland, Aurora, or Newtown. While a little fear and heightened awareness is healthy, it's scary and unfair and horrible to always assume the worst.

I will be taking self-defense classes and seeing a therapist regularly in the fall, for your information.

*Thumbs up; We're A-Ok.*

I don't know where it comes from- the anxiety and paranoia and all-consuming fear. And to be honest, I feel awful when I judge the person who sits across from me on the train and assume they've decided they want to hurt me and they know how they're going to do it. I realize how irrational that is as I type it. That is part of GAD... knowing the fear is irrational but being afraid of it all the same. But I think it comes partially from the breaking news alerts that come to my phone about a person who has lost their marbles and decided to take it out on the innocent people in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But not all people are bad. I know that. And even the bad news has a silver lining. Mr. Rogers said that when scary things were on the news, his mom told him to "look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping."

And when Linda Ellerbee told me I could sleep safely in this country tonight, shivers went down my spine. Because even through my self-diagnosed GAD, I believe her with my whole heart. Because sleep safely I can. Not all people are bad. And where they are bad people, there are helpers. There are also reporters, who are helpers in their own right.

I have met my match and a true role model in Ms. Ellerbee who believes curious kids deserve to know the truth, too. (And not in a dumbed down way... but that kids should truly understand things.) A genuine journalist, a sweet heart and a kind soul.

Andy Cohen tells a story about the Oklahoma City Bombing and how after 4 days of constant news coverage, he took a shower and sobbed. And then he sobbed the whole way home. Sobbed for the victims, sobbed for shutting off what he felt inside in order to tell the story for people who couldn't do it themselves.

So when I question how to do this, how to shut off the self-diagnosed-general-anxiety-disorder human inside, and become unfeeling and separated, and let the first responders respond, and let the reporters report, Mr. Rogers and Linda Ellerbee have taught me what to do. Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.

And because of them, you can sleep safely here tonight.

You heard it here first,
Jordan

0 Comments

Lessons New York Reminded Me

Choosing a Life in Television (Starting with Internships)

GAD & Dinner with Linda Ellerbee

Categories

Archives

Get in touch.