(Clearwisdom.net) Greetings, Reverent Master! Greetings, fellow practitioners!
I would like to share my experiences of being a reporter for New Tang Dynasty Television (NTDTV).
1. Overcoming initial difficulties as a new reporter
At the time NTDTV entered the New York City area cable network, each of our reporters was independently responsible for the entire news-production process from filming, to writing the scripts, narrating and video editing. I was reluctant to undertake such a responsibility, as I had never used a video camera before. Carrying the camera and tripod on and off the subway and walking across several blocks exhausted me. In addition, I was not familiar with the background of the news to be covered and I was required to go to events I had never gone to before. I was required to interview complete strangers, so I had no idea of how to deal with various situations and how others would treat me. Since I needed to cover new topics, I also needed to search the internet for background information and accurately translate the English news into Chinese. In short, I had to face many obstacles.
Our deadline every evening is at 9:00 pm. While the video editor was already asking for the news footage, I was still listening to the recordings from the interview. Once I put on my headset, three people might start to ask me questions one after the other. The reporters' working area is in a busy corridor of the station, the busiest traffic section. Adjacent to this area is the marketing department with the marketing staff busy making phone calls to their clients. Sometimes, when they encounter clients who are difficult to convince, they raise their voices. As others get off from their regular jobs and come to the station, they warmly greet each other in the corridor. There are also some TV station staff members who leave their desks and come to the corridor to make phone calls. It is under the tempering of such a chaotic environment that the reporters on our team have acquired the ability to turn a deaf ear to everything around us. Because much work needs to be done, the TV station employees come to the station in the evening and they need to pass through the corridor many times, or talk to the reporters about something. As I listen to the recordings, I need to put on and take off the headset, thus I cannot even finish listening to even one complete sentence without getting interrupted many times. Sometimes in order to beat the news deadline, I feel all my body cells become fully alert. Although I feel rushed, the gratitude that I feel after finishing a difficult news story cannot be obtained through any other means.
This situation didn't last just one or two days. It is the same even today. In the first three months, four reporters left the reporting team for various reasons. Although we lost half of our manpower, we still have much news to cover every day. Those of us who remain have to go out almost daily. At times, I really want to take a break, but I cannot do so, as the tasks are still sitting there and I have to continue working and finish them despite my reluctance. However, I have realized that my work hours have been very precisely arranged in terms of how long I can continue without stopping. Usually, after I complete the work that I am supposed to do, I have time to take a break.
In this way, my capacity for perseverance has been expanding, little by little. Somehow, I always hold the mindset of indulging myself. I thought that, being a female, I should need at least one day a month to stay at home resting. Perhaps this was meant to help me get rid of this attachment. I could never really stay at home during those times. Once, when I was relaxing at home, the news coordinator called me saying, "As you do not need to go out to film today, how about doing a piece of brief news on how sea water from an artificial waterfall in New York affects the surrounding trees by using the video footage we already have now." I accepted the assignment. How could it be acceptable if I finished the news without showing footage of affected trees? So I carried my camera and went out to film them, otherwise my mind would not be at peace. I took the train to Brooklyn and then walked a very long distance, encountering a sharp slope, just for that one shot.
Another example concerned a press conference organized by the New York City Department of Labor. It was about a factory that failed to pay its employees on time. How should I report the news? To make it simple, I could just simply cover the press conference. But I decided to go to visit that factory itself. After I got off the train in Queens, I walked alone to the factory area, but there was no one there. I walked back and forth several times without finding the place. Exhausting my efforts, I finally found it and noticed that the factory gate was tightly shut. However, I saw a mainstream TV station's broadcast van parked nearby. Their reporters were waiting to make a live broadcast. So I not only had a chance to clarify the facts and introduce our TV station to the cameramen, but also witness their professionalism. Although I was working alone and they had a full crew, my efforts also achieved the desired effects.
With a whole day's worth of work, I feel it is really a challenge to me, both physically and mentally. In this year's Shen Yun performance, the Story of Mulan was put on stage again. I then thought that this maybe was a reminder to our female practitioners that we cannot indulge ourselves too much.
2. Maintaining A Low Profile
As I matured professionally by witnessing and experiencing different situations, I gradually learned how to handle different subject matter and deal with different event organizers. I have become at ease with the techniques required for news production. As a result, I have developed a solid sense of confidence. Unfortunately, I have also gradually developed a mentality of looking at things with a sense of superiority.
I now work as a reporter overlooking responsibilities in coordination. So how can I maintain a sense of professionalism without being bossy and assigning work to others without sounding like a dictator? This requires me to be truly modest, maintain a low profile and a mindset of serving others.
When our TV station just entered the cable network last year, I was eager to do well. I required and pushed myself to be better than average in my news-production techniques or in terms of the number of news items that I produced. A practitioner who was once a newspaper reporter joined our news reporting team. She did not pay attention to the rules and she felt that it was satisfactory as long as the news was finished. After being at the station for so many years, I was very confident in news editing. In the beginning, I was patient in telling her how to edit the news. Later, I realized that she only wanted to stick to her own way. It took me a long time arguing with her and it was difficult to convince her about whose view was correct or wrong, as each of us had attachments to eliminate. Then I took the approach of not interacting with her. During one instance, I noticed that she was working too slow and would not be able to meet the deadline, so I began to work on the same news myself. In the end, the editor chose my news report, which hurt her feelings very much. As a result, we engaged in a two-hour long argument at midnight. I insisted that I was right because I claimed that I must ensure that the work be finished in time for broadcasting. In the end though, I sent out an email to the group to make an open apology to her. I had forced myself to look within. I felt as if I were a hedgehog whose spikes had been plucked out, and the feeling was really painful. It was only later when I again read Master's "Teaching the Fa at the 2003 Atlanta Fa Conference" that I got over this tribulation. Master said in the lecture, "When doing things for Dafa, your competitiveness, desire to show off, clinging to your own emotions, feeling like your reputation is being challenged, and other attachments might be mixed in."
3. All sentient beings are waiting
After a year's efforts, we have come to feel that the iceberg is melting. The various groups, whether they are from Chinese or Western communities, have all become very friendly and have started to pay attention to us.
When I was in the process of conducting an interview in Chinatown, an elementary school student saw our TV station logo and told her schoolmate, "This is the channel my family is watching." The western mainstream society has also come to know us very well. The employees of an entertainment company near Times Square have remembered the names of our reporters. When a different reporter visits them, they ask about the previous reporters. The press secretary of a U.S. Senator's office commented, "Your reporters often come to report all of our events." When we went to another senator's office during office hours, she voluntarily placed herself in front of our camera and started to speak without our asking her to do so. At one time, when I went to the City Hall to cover one of the mayor's press conferences, I was setting up my camera while taking out the connection cable, when a cameraman from a western media company extended his hand to help me plug the cable in. This year, when I went to interview the Mayor of Newark at an event, he was surrounded by various media reporters. When he saw me and made eye contact, he greeted me with a smile, as if we had known each other for a long time.
Physical challenge is not a critical issue. Sometimes, I was very reluctant to go out to cover certain topics that I was not familiar with. I clearly felt that there was some invisible substance existing as a barrier. For example, during the piano competition, I really did not want to go. However, after I finally got there, I found that the contestants spoke not only surprisingly well, but also straight to the point. From this experience, I realized that sentient beings are waiting for the Fa, that everything has been arranged and it just requires us to take that extra step forward.
New York has many interestingly named places such as Queens, Prince Street, or Kings County where Manhattan is located. Once, I overheard the conversations of two people, "Oh, you need to walk four blocks away to get on the bus. It is so far." I suddenly came to understand the meaning of the concepts of distance like "far" and "close" and the human perception of dimensions. Perhaps, several streets away from Manhattan resides another kingdom. So when we go to visit different places and different communities in the city, isn't it a reflection of our walking through thousands of mountains and rivers, although we are still on this small island? Through our media's platform, those who have established predestined relationships with the Fa can show the TV audiences their righteous ideas, a normal society and upright moral values. Isn't this the same as their making contributions as well?
There are numerous Dafa projects in New York and there are many events happening daily in both western and Chinese communities in New York City. When the New York City news reporting team was established in 2008, there was only one full-time reporter and the rest were all part-timers who needed to work elsewhere to support themselves. Although, this year we have two full-time reporters, some have been assigned to other posts. So there is the situation of a decreasing number of reporters while work has been incrementally increasing. Every year we must cover all Dafa activities, some important anniversary events, as well as the Nine Competitions. Based on the interviewing opportunities brought up by the Marketing Department Personnel, we need to cover not only the events in the Chinese communities and the New York City governments, but also include the events in the Korean, Japanese, Romanian and, other ethnic groups' communities. Last year, our New York City reporters produced more than 1,800 pieces of news.
By the end of May this year, we had already published over 700 pieces of news. Just through these reporters, we have covered the fifty-five Shen Yun performances in eighteen cities, from Florida in the south, to Hawaii in the west and to Vancouver in the north. In the meantime, the reporters who stayed in New York City had to pick up the responsibility of covering all the local news. The practitioners in various cities, after the Shen Yun performances, may be able to take a break, but the reporters here have to persist and go on.
4. The synergistic effect of team work
Besides improving our physical and mental endurance, we also need to strengthen our sense of teamwork. On certain days when all reporters need to go to an event and when we support each other, the energy field amongst us will be very good. Sometimes, one reporter alone covers several events in one day, but the reporter cannot finish all the remaining work alone, so at this time, other reporters will come to help. Our highest number of news articles recorded in one day came from ten events. Since there were so many to choose from, it was hard for the news editors to use them all.
As far as teamwork is concerned, here is another example. Once, I encountered a police officer who was trying to stop a street fight. I quickly filmed the scene and then left for another event without waiting to see the end result. Coincidentally, another reporter also happened to pass by and witness the event. She also immediately took out her camera and filmed the scene. She carried a heavier load than I did, she had carried three bags and one meal box in her hand. Experiencing this event, I can say that we have adopted a strong sense of responsibility as reporters. What she filmed was the part where the police were tying the youngster who had resisted arrest onto a stretcher and then carrying him away. So her shooting complemented what I had shot before and combining these two scenes together resulted in a more complete and interesting piece of news to watch.
During the Falun Dafa Day celebration this year, two of our reporters needed to perform in the Divine Land Marching Band. So we only had one reporter filming scenes of the event. Prior to and between intermission of the parade, the reporters who played in the marching band came out to interview audience members and practitioners. After we came back to the station, the band member reporters created two pieces of news.
Concluding remarks
I understand that our doing the Fa-validation projects is also a process of our rectifying ourselves and expanding our capabilities. Only with pure minds and teamwork can we really do well the things we should do. It's like a bottle into which one can put pebbles. After the bottle is full, one can still put sand into it. After it is filled with sand, one can still pour water into it. Yet after it is filled with water, one can still put air into it. So the capacity is boundless.
Thank you, Master, for your arrangements, which allows me the opportunity to enlighten to the Fa and do better.