FM Adventures: The KPBS Log

It was a day of hugs and handshakes today as my summertime experience at KPBS came to an end. I turned in my reporter's kit like a cop turns over his badge and gun.

I suppose the busy madness of the day, uncharacteristic for a Friday, helped me put aside any tearful emotions. I edited, voiced, and produced a feature story about Coronado and scrambled to complete end-of-internship paperwork. If you're interested, the 4-minute feature will air on 89.5 FM in San Diego this Tuesday Wednesday at 6:33 and 8:33 a.m. You can also visit kpbs.org for a streaming version.

My experience at the station is unforgettable and pivotal in my journalism career. I will quote my internship completion report here:

"Beyond the incredible value of my reporting experience and technical training, I secured great friendships. I looked forward to work every single day and dreaded days off – not just because the job was fun, but because I worked with smiling, witty, gifted people. From Day 1, I have bragged to friends and Web site readers about the quality of the KPBS staff. Even the general manager smiles when no one’s looking. General managers shouldn’t smile!

Needless to say, the end of my internship seems premature. I feel like part of the fabric here."

I'll miss that place. Hopefully not for too long, though. I'm working on getting a part-time position in the newsroom. Wish me luck!

The complete series of FM Adventures is at kpbs.andrewphelps.com.

One of the first rules of radio newswriting is to write to the sound. That's why the selection of a sound byte is so important.

So after a press conference with the mayor about energy conservation this morning, I quickly knew what my byte would be and filed this story:

San Diego Mayor Dick Murphy today urged citizens to rev up their electricity use during the Dog Days of summer. He announced a simple plan to put increased pressure on the overburdened energy grid.

---

[Murphy2.wav     "during weekday afternoons."     :05]

The key is to minimize energy conservation during weekday afternoons.

---

Murphy urged all residents to use major appliances during peak afternoon hours, when the energy grid is hit hardest. He says air conditioners should be kept at 60 degrees or lower, in order to ensure residents are comfortable.

Murphy was joined by S-D-G-and-E Chairman Ed Giles (GUY-uhls). Giles says he's confident the mayor's new plan will boost the company's profits and put the city on a fast-track to disaster.

Murphy's sound byte was not edited for content; it's real. The rest of the story is not.

My life gets somewhat back to normal ("normal") today as I'm back at work at KPBS. I have had mononucleosis for more than a month, and it took me out of commission the past two weeks.

After a lot of resting and complete boredom, I'm more than ready to be active again. I have mastered video games, read magazines, and even, on occassion, allowed myself to get sucked into the evils of television (only to feel crappy about myself afterward). What's a man to do while sitting at home all the time?

News reporting is stimulating and ever-changing, so getting sick one day and stopping work was a jarring change. I was starving for some spot news after a short time. But I have to admit that getting up at 7:15 this morning was also a chore. I have become used to breakfast at noon. There's no doubt that time off was nice, and it my latter days I was able to see friends I would not have time for. A lot of people told me I should still be taking time off. Two co-workers told me I still look sick and tired. (Thanks?) But my term at KPBS officially ends in only four weeks! So I'll take my chances but take it easy.

This morning I returned to a newsroom of just two people and a very quiet day. Not what I expected, but perhaps a good transition. I'm hunting for a story, and it looks like I might report on local reactions to the conclusion of the endless California budget fracas.

Having mono has been a memorable life experience to be sure. Whenever I mention it to others who have had it, they all react with the same exclamation. "Oh, man, I remember mono!" Distinct things stick out in my mind, like the dizzy headaches whenever I stood up, the sweltering inland heat that complicated my fever and forced me to visit the most frigid place I know -- Starbucks. I would read the newspaper there until it was too cold to take.

Anyway, it's good to be back.

San Diego Mayor Dick Murphy unveiled his long-awaited plan to fix the city's ailing pension program today. He seeks to fund the debt-tarnished program with $200 million in bonds during fiscal 2005. He also reached a compromise solution to restructure the embattled retirement board: the majority of the 11 members would be independent and could not have financial stake in the program, and the remaining five are direct beneficiaries to represent varied interests. This is a balance between the demands of labor unions/city employees, who formerly ran the board, and the rest of the population, who demanded an all-independent board with no conflicts of interest.

All of these ideas were laid out on a memo for journalists, signed only "Dick" in his handwriting. I almost didn't get in to the mayor's press room at his 11th story office downtown; I didn't realize credentials are required for everybody, even those wielding shotgun microphones and giant video tripods.

And I thought I had a good count of the number of cameras I'm accustomed to seeing at news events -- but today the number of media must have doubled. A mayor's press conference is different than most on-the-street shindigs. Murphy ran a tight ship. He appeared slightly nervous as he spoke, even shaky -- but perhaps more overworked than apprehensive. He allowed a little time for questions, and then he was wisked away with some other higher-ups. I guess that was the Murph's way of saying good-bye.

Today I spoke with Peter Q. Davis, Cruz Bustamante and other larger-than-lifes that are just as fragile and vulnerable as the rest of us when you look them in the eyes. The story of the day was a standing-room-only meeting about alternate uses for the 10th Avenue marine terminal in downtown San Diego. Davis wants it converted to a stadium for the Chargers, but even he is conceding it's not going to happen anytime soon. The other six commissioners oppose the idea, along with Bustamante (who stresses it would be illegal), the local maritime industry, and most San Diegans. Even the city and the Chargers have already agreed to tear down Qualcomm Stadium and rebuild on the existing Mission Valley site. Why, Peter Q., why 10th Avenue?

Last Friday was the final day of the CCNMA Multi-Cultural Journalism Workshop, which I first blogged about two weeks ago.

Hector's and Nicole's project was a big success! They had to create a themed, 9-minute news magazine about current events in San Diego, with Mike's direction and my help. I invite you to listen to it now: Static-Free Radio.

Hector and Nicole have a lot of potential, and they can go very far in life if they put their talents in the right places. I hope to see them do that. Good luck!

My exhaustion started catching up to me today. I woke up this morning unable to speak, my throat paralyzed. (Unfortunately for my co-workers that disappeared.) Lately I have been lethargic, and today, eventually, delirious. I had my share of unfortunate luck, too. I realized I accidentally destroyed the entire recording of an important and very special interview. Scott hit it on the head when he said, "It's a pisser." I just have to move on from that mishap.

A lot of these bad-day feelings came later in the afternoon, after an earlier chat with Erik about my no-bad-day mentality. I refuse to give in and call this a bad day (some nice things happened), but it wasn't a splendid one, either.

A big part of my exhaustion is my daily commute. It's a 40-mile drive each way. (I filled out my monthly mileage log today, which does not include trips to and from home and work, and I couldn't believe the totals.) Memories of driving to FOX6 News at 4:00 in the morning have now returned. But the mileage itself doesn't bother me too much. We North-County San Diego residents have a distorted sense of distance-time compared to the southerners, for better or worse. You see, when you live in North County, you always have business in the south -- hair appointments, plays, doctor visits, baseball games -- and the familiar drive down the 5 or 15 is nothing. But it's amusing to me that residents of the south, who comprise most of the KPBS staff, recall "that one time they went to Escondido" and "what a trip it was". I go to Escondido all the time... and to La Jolla, Hillcrest, Kearny Mesa, and the East Village. Brad recalled that he "once went to Vista" for the Scottish Games. The truth is Southdwellers really don't have much business in North County.

Anyway.

The strains of battling such a high volume of vehicles morning after morning, especially at predictable locations, like the 78 interchange through Via Rancho or the bottlenecks through Poway, is mind-numbing. Do this twice per day, every day, and you'll realize it's time to move downtown. I hope I can finish this soon; I have waited for too long.

In closing, I'll employ a presidential-administration tactic, I won't call today a "bad day" but one with lessons aplenty.

On the way to work, if I'm feeling really tired, I typically order a tall vanilla latte at the nearby Starbucks. It does the trick of giving me much-need pep. This morning they only had the sugar-free version available, so I said okay. Well, after consuming it, I'm still dreadfully tired. So I'm thinkin' it's not the caffeine but the sugar that wakes me up!

Photographs from a silly day at KPBS.

(I promise, we work hard. Except for Beth.)

Erik and Mike get ready to host Full Focus. Good thing they coordinated!

Beth answers the telephone!

Beth puts on headphones!

Russell gives instructions, but Beth is confused!

I became a KPBS member today. In years past I have not been able to front the dough because of my disappointment with the rise in advertising in public radio. Industry people call it "underwriting" -- I call that a euphemism. When I hear 20 seconds of banter about the new Subaru station wagon, I consider it advertising, even if Brad Martin stops short of saying "Go buy it!" Public radio people won't call it advertising because they wouldn't dare risk being associated with the corporate slop that weighs down other broadcast agencies.

But lately I have come to realize that donations and other funding are the only things that can help public radio stations phase out the advertising. So instead of making a stand that probably won't make any difference, I made a donation that probably can make a small difference.

Working at the station has made this a much easier decision. KPBS is the one of the best things that has ever happened to me. The people that work at KPBS are shiny. This is a rare word that I almost never use to describe people. Every face is a smiling one, an intelligent one, a motivated one. I leave the building smiling.

Today I told Mike that I'm very impressed with the station's commitment to young people. The two-week CCNMA workshop is a lot of work, and I have watched Mike pour hours of his time into sitting with the students to give them the direction they need. KPBS also offers many opportunities for interns and paid student assistants, all of whom have shared conversations with me about how happy they are there.

The lovefest must end now, because I'm off to dinner for my grandmother's 76th birthday.

More driving and teaching and learning today in the ongoing journalism workshop. It seems that Hector is an amazing poet. He composes rhyming pieces in record time, and they're quite moving. I'm not just saying it just to be complimentary, either. I should also mention that English is Hector's second language; he also speaks Spanish and French.

After dropping off Hector and Nicole at Chicano Perk, an awesome coffeeshop in the Sherman Heights community of San Diego, I had about an hour and a half to kill. I found a wireless connection and did some work. And then I did some driving, getting lost in foreign parts of the city so I could learn more about the roads. You can never know too many shortcuts or back roads. While heading down Market Street, I stopped for a red light and looked twice at one sight. On the other side of the road, blocking traffic from behind, a red car and a police car were stopped next to one another. An odd place to stop, I thought. I studied the scene. The two policemen were talking to the scraggly man in the red car. Then my eyes widended when I saw the man's leg in a cast, hanging over the side of the car. But he was sitting straight up! I watched him (without hearing) explain his situation to the cops. The driver of the squad car listened intently and his partner looked so, very confused. To top it off, even the man in the backseat, donning what appeared to be a beekeeper's suit and handcuffs, looked baffled. I just squinted and looked ahead. The light turned green and in the rear view mirror I watched the cops follow the red car closely. A favorite quotation came to my mind, from my old friend Amanda: "I ain't seen shit like that since LA!"

Back to KPBS. Today I was sent out to find John Moores, the owner of the Padres, at a meeting in the city's council chambers. I had to get some tape about the Matt Bush story that's brewing. (Bush is the 18-year-old Mission Bay High graduate who won a $3.15 million signing bonus with the Padres this month. On Sunday, he was arrested at an Arizona bar for underaged drinking and biting a bouncer during a scuffle. Now he's suspended, and his contract is in jeopardy.) Russell told me I might run into a gaggle of reporters at the scene, but there were none. So I chased him down after he received a big award and probably didn't feel like talking to the Media. But he was surprisingly warm and receptive.

I guess I should say now that I had some of the misconceptions about Moores that many others do. For some reason, people perceive him as crude or uncouth. I think it has something to do with his appearance. But I saw none of that today. He was decent and personable. Likeable. And I only spent three and a half minutes with the guy.

He was surrounded by Kevin Towers and some other Padres higher-ups, and, for some reason, Father Joe Carroll. I had another, now-familiar "Um, oh" moment when I saw the father. For the past few weeks, I have met some people whose images and voices are so ingrained into my mind that they don't seem real. I promise that it's not celebrity culture that gets me (quite the contrary), as I have met a lot of famous people to whom I don't have any connection. But these are people I grew up watching in the local media and always formed my own, personal feelings about. To meet so many of them in such a short time, and to find out they are actually real, is a bit jarring, but only momentarily. When I looked up and suddenly made eye contact with Susan Taylor the other day, I thought, "Um, oh. There's Susan Taylor." And then kept moving.

I'm in Horton Plaza now, people-watching and getting some odds and ends done. I have about 30 minutes of downtime before returning to Point Loma Nazarene University for another journalism workshop with the students. This one is about covering breaking news.

Since I already told four people in the newsroom, I might as well tell the rest of the world that I had my first KPBS dream last night. Please, don't be frightened. In it, Mike was editing one of my stories. He took issue with the word "an" in the last sentence. He wanted to change it to "the". I argued in favor of the "an". He ended up deciding to just cut the whole sentence. And I was disappointed, because I thought the sentence rounded out the story nicely. I'm surprised I didn't defend my lovely sentence -- but then I woke up. Should I be frightened?

Today I met Hector and Nicole and 20 other promising young people for the first day of the 14-day CCNMA Multi-Cultural Journalism Workshop. Mike calls it a boot camp of sorts. I mentioned Hector and Nicole because they're the pair that chose the radio program versus print and television. (Television, not surprisingly, boasted the largest group.)

Union-Tribune copy editor Dave Feldman, whom I love to photograph.

Hector and Nicole are great! For two weeks I'm their big brother, chauffeur, best buddy, and mentor. For once I don't feel like I'm at the bottom of the KPBS food chain. (I can dream.) Both of them are gifted with insight that pleasantly surprised me. (This realization began with the question, "What do you think of Jehovah's Witnesses?" from Nicole, while flying down 4th Avenue to get to the NBC building on time. The question opened up an intellectual dialogue, complete with "Sweet Lords" and "Learn to drives!" interrupting the conversation.)

I tagged along with the group to tour the San Diego Union-Tribune building and sit in on First News at 4:00 on NBC 7/39. While outside during the break, Joe Lizura grabbed a bunch of us with 10 seconds to air for his weather report. The students were just giddy with delight afterward. I received my usual small stream of phone calls/e-mail about being on television. It's an amazing phenomenon. Whenever I'm on television, no matter for how long or how briefly, people contact me to tell me that yes, I was on television. Often these are people I have not heard from in years, or those who I never thought would be watching. Anyway.

Dave shows us around the U-T's massive newsroom.

The day ended with a panel discussion on ethics, moderated by Mike and Gina Lubrano, the U-T's ombudsman (ombudswoman?). I tried to keep my comments short and merely serve as the devil's advocate, but it was very tough to sit through some of the students' comments about ethics. I cringed when I heard about various advisors' frightening censorship decisions as I desperately tried to keep my mouth shut.

I look forward to working more with Nicole and Hector, but I have to admit I already want to get back to work. I was hungry for a spot today, but there was no time.

Update: Oh, yeah! I completely forgot to mention that Marty Levin is on vacation. So, that's right, I did not get to meet him. Damn! The Marty Mystique is ever-elusive. Someday... someday.

Covered the San Diego County Fair today. Covering the fair tomorrow. Extremely tired. Write later.

Today was no quiet day, but for some reason I don't have many words to share. My fingers took me around the world -- at least across the United States and into the United Kingdom. And I do mean on the phone. I wrote one story about California's first human case of West Nile Virus and another about an Amnesty International campaign to keep local Titan Corporation accountable for alleged prisoner abuses in Iraq. To say the least and to keep it vague, let's just say I met some very interesting people. You can stretch "interesting" any direction you want...

More stuff and other stuff to come.

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With all the negative publicity about McDonald's lately, it's made me hungry. And by 5:00, when I finally had time to step out of the newsroom for lunch, I was really hungry. So I went to McDonald's, of course.

I had only my Visa card in my wallet and no cash -- and I was not about to pay the astonishing 70-cent fee for using plastic. (Truthfully, the surcharge was enough to make me almost leave.) But I remembered I had loaded up my cupholder with quarters, and, after careful counting, the coins amounted to $5 even. Perfect, I thought. More than enough. Right?

To my delight, most of the meals cost $5.29. And I wanted a sandwich, French fries, and a drink. I returned to my car to find the extra change. Two dimes and lots of pennies, but it probably would not have covered the tax. So I walked back into McDonald's. I ordered a sandwich and obligatory fries, and the total was low. $3-something. So I thought, how could adding a drink bring up the price so much? I asked him how much it would cost to add a small drink. The total was $4.61. So I had enough. He returned with, surely, a drink that was not small by any definition.

No, it was massive. A behemoth of sugar-water and syrup. It was awe-inspiring, intimidating, and embarrassing. I asked him how it could possibly be a small, and he said it was not. It was supersized. But I didn't order it supersized, I said. He knew this. But the small is almost A DOLLAR MORE than the restaurant's largest size. I did not need so much soda, but it would be a waste to dump it, and I simply didn't have the money for the smaller size.

As I would find out, my burden would be relieved.

The bag with my food seemed inadequate in comparison to the cup bucket. It required two hands, confident posture, and a look-em-in-the-eye style.

I could find no safe place to put the drink in my tiny roadster, so it had to sit awkwardly on top of the slide-out cupholders. Half of the base of the thing hung over the edge. I decided to eat the food while stopped to avoid any difficulties.

I savored the morsels but did not lollygag. It was time to back out of the parking space, and one of those adrenaline-pumping moments came when three vehicles all had to back out at the same time. We all sat, brandishing our declarative reverse lights. As I usually do, I decided to just go and skip the back-out game. In my haste, though, I turned too sharply -- and the Coke of Cokes splashed down to the passenger side, saturating the floor mat and some papers and gadgets. Fortunately the most major damage happened to the mat, which was so Cokey I could hardly believe it. I could not pull over to take care of the situation, because I had suddenly merged onto busy Montezuma Road. I had to find a street and pull over fast. I did. I found a bus stop, with a lone lady standing at the curb, holding her purse in front of her, staring directly at me.

The first part of my game plan was to get rid of all the ice cubes, which would melt and create more mess. This was a daunting task. So much ice had spilled that cubes kept cropping up as I thought I finished. The hardest part was handling them -- the little bastards slipped out of my hands like soap in a shower, and by the time I had any grasp I would sort of whisk them out the open car door.

The oldish lady at the bus stop seemed unfazed and strangely interested.

After about 15 minutes of damage was surveyed and crudely sopped with some fast food napkins, I checked the Coke level in my cup. Well, wouldn't you know it? So much had spilled that my cup now had the same amount of liquid as the small cup would have contained. What a freakin' gas.

So by saving a buck I got half the liquid but double the trouble.

Part II: I realized I should get back to the newsroom fast so Mike didn't think I was goofing off. (Suddenly, memories of Dr. Pack and another infamous mess sprung to mind.) I would arrive, give my brief story, grab some paper towels, and finish cleaning up what I could.

I returned to the newsroom this morning. I received my first story assignment -- and Michael had the foresight to make fun of me for writing about it on my weblog. Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention this yesterday. It seems the whole darn building reads andrewphelps.com, and a couple people even introduced themselves to me because they already recognized me. It turns out I got a little plug in Tuesday morning's daybook, a daily, station-wide e-mail message with information about schedule changes and other details for the day.

Anyway, my story was not without its first-time troubles. In a recorded interview, my telephone headset was broken, so to muffle the background noise I had to resort to cupping my hand tightly over the phone's handset microphone. It looked and felt ridiculous. My first interviewee was, well, passionate about his field, and his answers lasted several minutes. For each new question, I would have to uncup my hand, which had become molded on to the handset, and shake it free of insane pins and needles. I should also mention I played the biggest game of Phone Tag ever with 6 people, but that is nothing new to me.

One more thing. Having never worked in a cubicle setting, I can't help but reference "Office Space" constantly. (Well, it's usually in my head.) It's no help that I have two "bosses" -- Russell and Michael -- who visit my desk in turns to check in and hand me more TPS reports.

Today, I did not start an internship -- I started an experience. I understood this the moment I walked through the doorway. At KPBS, you are not anonymous. Everyone smiles, and everyone has to meet you. You do not slip into the background; you are a new face to be identified. I must have met 30 people today.

The KPBS staff is smart, professional, passionate. Ego is a foreign word and the standards are high by default.

The first member of this staff whom I got to know is Erik Anderson. I traveled with him for a brief assignment at the University of San Diego at mid-day. Erik is serious but secretly hilarious, veggie-munching, gas-conscious, crackerjack and dead-on, with an easy mind. I confessed he's the reporter whose voice I have imitated the most -- dry and lethargic but compelling and competent. ("I'm Er-ik An-der-sonnnn.") I also told him he looks as he sounds, and he was not quite sure how to handle that. He was one of few people I met whose appearance didn't shatter my longtime mental image of him. We all do this, but we're usually way off. It's kind of like re-reading a great novel but in a new edition with illustrations -- and you feel uneasy and betrayed after ruining your mind's eye with an artist's interpretation.

Anyway, back to the newsroom. I got a bag with a state-of-the-art Nagra, a mic, a pair of monitors, and some other cables and goodies. New tools for a man of printed words. I figured out the AP wire software and sound editing software at (sort-of) my cubicle. It's a treat to have easy access to the best technology -- not to mention professional journalists. I feel I have a lot to gain and a lot to contribute.

This morning I also realized that I now work for a metro news station -- which means I have to know what's going on in San Diego to generate story ideas. Don't get me wrong; I'm pretty up-to-date on local news, but in my infatuation with national and international news sources, I have a lot of catching up to do. Yup, this means reading the San Diego Union-Tribune, your favorite newspaper and mine. Oh, I was kidding. I hate to dis the institution that is Copley, seeing as I received a $500 scholarship from Copley and KPBS received even more money than that -- but the U-T, well, sucks. No matter. Interesting stuff is happening in San Diego. And interesting stuff is happening in my world. Want to learn more? Come back tomorrow.

I'm Andrew Phelps, K-P-B-S News.

Despite fears that my zany weblog would get me fired before even starting, I am about to face the dreadful San Diego traffic scene to start at KPBS, where I'll be situated in 1.5 hours. I'll be sure to let you know how it goes.

She walked in with silent intensity. Her skirt was flouncy and bouncy and not an inch too long. As I strained intently to listen for a name, she declared it softly: Courtney, no less -- as if the universe never tires of its games. She sat right to my right as my heart raced to a stop. In a few, frentic moments, we shared the world in a noiseless conversation. And then she was gone; she never looked back.

Today I had a very successful interview with Michael Marcotte, the news director at KPBS News in San Diego. I'll be starting as a full-time intern for KPBS-FM on June 1. My future there looks promising.

For the first time, I am going to work in a place I already know and love. I listen to NPR (KPBS is the San Diego affiliate) religiously. My friends can tell you it's on my car radio constantly, and it streams all night in my bedroom. It's classical music in the evenings and the first news of the day at 4 a.m.

When I went to work at Fox and The Telescope, I had not been in tune to their products. I became loyal quickly, but I had to learn a lot fast. Now, at KPBS-FM, surrounded by professional reporters and word enthusiasts, I'm a nerd in his true home.