Opportunity

So, I’ve embarked on this new journey and it’s off to a great start. It’s funny because if you were to ask me what I do, the only valid answer I could give would be “everything.” Lol.

Guess I’ll back up a bit. For the last 15 years, I’ve been a broadcast editor, working in television and doing the odd freelance job here and there in other areas of editing. I excelled at it very early on and won just about every award one in the broadcast editing field could win and it was fun at the time. I was young and thought achievements in the form of industry recognition would lead to a sense of professional fulfillment. Meh, kind of. Felt great at the time, but after a time the sense of fulfillment would go away. I think it had a lot to do with my personality. I’m terribly competitive and a serious over-achiever but I felt like I had hit a ceiling. As a broadcast editor you tend to do a lot of waiting in a dark room, an editing suite, for someone to bring you a project to work on (typically a producer). Funny thing is that I’m an extrovert. I mean,  if you’d done a personality profile on me years ago, editing probably wouldn’t have come up as a strong option and would’ve only come up because I’ve always been an artist and a storyteller. But here I am 15 years later and I was looking for more.

In the meantime, I started blogging and getting into social media and have done pretty well. Most importantly, I’ve met some amazing folks and learned a lot about the field. There’s always something to learn because technology is changing so fast and I love that! So, it was quite the serendipitous situation when I was asked a few weeks ago to be part of a new project at work. This new project would involve me editing still, but now I’d get to take my love for tech and social media and blend them with my ability to tell digital stories through editing. More importantly though, it has allowed me to pursue a personal vision to work toward telling stories on TV which are about people and in turn figure out ways to help people form deeper connections with the content. Come up with great ways for them to interact with the content. Right up my alley! So, that’s why I’ve been pretty quiet here and on Twitter as of late. There’s been a lot to learn as I’ve taken on more responsibility (same pay of course, lol) at work but I’m feeling excited about what I do again. One of the things I’ve always loved about working in television news is that we have the opportunity to tell stories that help people! One of the Emmys I won was for a story I worked on about a guy who was separated from his family because of a series of very unfortunate circumstances, but because we told his story on television, he was ultimately reunited with his family. Work like that is what makes doing what I do worthwhile and through the connectedness of social media I’m giddy at the thought of the people we can reach out to and connect with and the unique stories we can tell.

Once I get a little more settled I will be posting up with increased frequency but for now, thank you for continuing to check in with us and for those who are a part of the #DadsTalking community!

Until then though, you can also follow some of the tweeting I’m doing at @myfoxla in addition to my personal handle, @tshaka_zulu