It’s the end of my second week at News/Talk 1290 CJBK and everyone is wondering how it’s going. And it’s going pretty great.
The first day was beyond frantic. I couldn’t find things easily in the computer system and I was way out of practise with the software, so I was making my deadlines with seconds to spare. That meant sliding into the broadcast booth 15 seconds before newstime and needing to be reminded that I was also due to give headlines at :15 and :45 after each hour. But I defy anyone to have been able to tell that by listening. It was all calm and cool on air, and then Animal the Muppet when the mic was off. My usual 45 minute nap lasted 2 and a half hours that day.
Every day since then has been more comfortable and more fun, notwithstanding the fact that yesterday I noticed as I was driving in that I was a full hour earlier than usual. D’oh. Although I realize we’re in the honeymoon phase, I seem to have supportive colleagues and supervisors and this is the closest thing to 680 News I’ve experienced since I left that station almost 7 years ago. It feels useful and it requires every gram of my experience. At 680 News I had an editor and a coanchor and other people also wrote stories and edited audio… here, it’s just me. And it’s a hoot. I work for CJBK but I am part of the CTV London news team. It means I have access to the best news resources in the city. My one-woman team sounds like a cast of thousands.
Mike, my co-host on First Thing With Mike Stubbs and Lisa Brandt, is just terrific. He’s smart and fun and just an all around good dude. CTV did a feature on the changing of the guard at CJBK, as Mike and I have taken over from Steve Garrison whose tenure on mornings lasted more than 25 years. If you’re interested, here’s a link to the TV feature:
http://london.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=671814&binId=1.1137796&playlistPageNum=1