Posts Tagged ‘reporter’
WCAX Rendezvous PKG 8/17/13
By Cat Viglienzoni — August 24, 2013
Took a break from reporting for about a month while I filled in anchoring and got a new role at the station!
I filled in on the weekend, though, and went to cover a meetup of activists concerned about large-scale energy projects (like wind farms, etc.).
The challenge I ran into with this piece was trying to make it different than the other energy-protest related stories we had done (we have done many).
I didn’t want to wear my sunglasses in the standup, but naturally there was just enough of a breeze to wreck havoc with my hair if I didn’t. Ah well.
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WCAX Rail Trail PKG 7/19/13
By Cat Viglienzoni — August 23, 2013
Continuing with the backlog of reporter pieces I haven’t posted yet…
This one was from a very long day that I worked back in July. There was the groundbreaking for a recreational trail that had been in the works for years. The groundbreaking was in the evening and I couldn’t stay for that because we had to get the material back for the evening broadcasts, but we got the important part of the story anyway.
It aired on WCAX on July 19, 2013 for their 6 p.m. broadcast.
It was a really pretty area — if I hadn’t been so tired from working a double shift I probably would have appreciated it a lot more too.
You might be able to guess from some of the video, but it was SO hot that day. That’s why I gave in and wore a dress. And shot my standup early before my hair completely frizzed up. But it was in the 90s or around there.
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WCAX Caterpillar Day PKG 7/12/13
By Cat Viglienzoni — August 22, 2013
I’ve been really bad about posting this summer’s work! Another computer crash left me without my laptop again for most of August here, and July was crazy!
This piece was a preview of caterpillar day, so we went to talk to the nature center in Montpelier about what people could expect to see that weekend. And I got to hold a caterpillar!
It was a fun piece to do — I’m just glad you couldn’t see the big horsefly sting that had welled up on the side of my forehead! I got it within minutes of stepping out of the news van. I had to try to hide it with hair.
And I had a rather amusing clip where I was a dork and dropped the caterpillar during a standup attempt:
I won’t talk about the teeny tiny caterpillar that escaped and accidentally got squished.
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WCAX Peanut Allergy Treatment PKG, 4/26/13
By Cat Viglienzoni — May 13, 2013
This was the reporter piece I shot on the same day I anchored (see previous post), and I loved the story.
It’s about a family whose young boy has a peanut allergy so severe that exposure to peanuts used to require hospitalization. Then, thanks to a program to desensitize him to peanuts by slowly increasing his exposure to peanut flour, he can now eat three peanut M&Ms and not see any reaction.
Check out his story, which aired first on April 25 at 6 p.m. and the next morning at 5 a.m. (shown below) and 6 a.m.:
The important thing to note is that he is not cured — what this does it it makes it possible for him to eat things that probably don’t contain any large amount of peanuts, or come into contact with traces of peanuts, and not have a reaction. So it’s peace of mind for him and his family, but not a permanent solution. And if he stops eating the peanut M&Ms, he will lose that desensitization. It also may not be as useful for someone who has multiple nut allergies, since it only targets peanuts.
For more information, visit the story on our website.
It was a fun story to shoot — especially since he was very excited to be on TV!
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WCAX Monarch Butterfly Concerns PKG 3/21/13
By Cat Viglienzoni — March 25, 2013
It has been a while since I’ve been able to go out and do a science piece, but when I saw a survey come out with some alarming statistics about the monarch butterfly population in Mexico, I thought that would be a good way to localize that to Vermont (where the monarch is the state butterfly).
So I went and talked to a conservation biologist who works with insects in the state — and he had both good news and bad news. The good news is that given the right conditions, the butterflies can reproduce rapidly. The bad news is that there has been a downward trend for a decade that may not get better soon.
It aired on WCAX at 6 p.m. on March 21, 2013 and again the next morning on my show.
The citizen science aspect of it was particularly interesting to me, since it was not the first time I’d encountered it doing a science piece. It seems to be a growing trend within the science community, to get people involved. And new technology has in many ways, I think, made that possible. It accomplishes two goals: educating the public and getting data (when, like he said, there just aren’t enough researchers or funding to do it).
I’m curious to see where this trend goes in the future — I think it will be interesting.
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WCAX Blind Sled Dog PKG 3/4/13
By Cat Viglienzoni — March 11, 2013
This is quite possibly my favorite piece I have done so far, and certainly the one that has gotten the most attention.
The story is about a sled dog, Gonzo, who went blind suddenly a few years ago, and nothing could fix it. His owners at the Muddy Paw Sled Dog Kennel were debating his future when the veterinarian suggested they try to run him with the team, since Gonzo wanted to go out. Over time, Gonzo’s brother, Poncho, realized his brother needed help and became his guide on the course.
Photographer Andy Goodrich and I went over to New Hampshire the week before it aired to shoot the piece (a 2.5-hour drive each way, but it was worth it), and I worked late finishing the script that day.
It debuted on the morning show on March 4 and ran in some form in every broadcast that day (cutdowns at noon and 5 p.m., full pieces in the morning, 6 p.m., and 11 p.m.).
The next morning, CNN called the station and I answered — they asked me to send the piece to them for their affiliates to use, and then they also linked to the story on the northeast section of their home page. So it got quite a bit of attention — as those dogs deserved.
It was just a good piece to do — an uplifting story, which is good to balance out some of the other news we tend to report that isn’t necessarily pleasant stuff.
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WCAX Winter Bugs PKG 2/19/13
By Cat Viglienzoni — March 10, 2013
At some point, I will get out of February with this backlog of pieces. This one was me dabbling back into the science-y realm that I love to talk to an entomologist about what the winter this year (which was VERY different than the winter last year) means for the state’s bug population. It’s a question we’d been getting from gardeners, since there are many in Vermont.
The real response is that it’s too early to know for sure, but they are “cautiously optimistic” that many of the pests that were rampant last year with the warm winter we had would not be as bad this year.
The piece was supposed to debut on my show, but the evening news needed to fill time during the week and they used it instead, so it aired on February 19 at 6 p.m., and again on my show the next morning.
It was an interesting piece for me to do, since it was a good follow-up to the bugs piece I did last summer. If you look, you can see bits of the footage from that in this piece…
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WCAX Farm Bill Concerns PKG 2/16/13
By Cat Viglienzoni — March 9, 2013
Continuing my backlog of work that I didn’t post for months… I filled in on the reporter side again on a Saturday back in February, covering an annual meeting of the St. Albans Dairy Cooperative and talking to dairy farmers about their frustrations with the Farm Bill saga playing out on Capitol Hill still.
It was a pretty well-attended meeting, certainly from the political front (the Governor and most of our congressional delegation showed up, and Sanders had been planning to) — I felt most of it was what we had already heard from them though, but it was important to check back in on the issue, since there are a number of dairy farms in the state.
It aired at 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. February 16, and again on February 18 for Monday’s morning show.
Considering that and my VO/SOT for the day were both on agriculture meetings (the other was the NOFA winter conference), both attended by the same politicians, it felt like a broken record!
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WCAX Day of Service PKG 1/19/13
By Cat Viglienzoni — February 11, 2013
Continuing with my backlog of work that I haven’t uploaded yet from when my computer was on the fritz, this was a Saturday reporter shift that I filled in on the weekend before President Obama’s inauguration on Martin Luther Jr. Day.
It was a pretty slow day, so I did the feature piece on the National Day of Service, finding a volunteer group in Burlington. It aired at 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. on January 19 on WCAX.
I thought it was a good feature — I remember not having an awesome standup day that day either, but I made it work in the end. I hadn’t really done standup closes too much before.
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Cat Scan 