Q & A: Brittney Gilbert, WKRN blog producer

Steve Safran September 9th, 2006

Q & A: Brittney Gilbert, WKRN Blog Producer

BY STEVE SAFRAN
MANAGING EDITOR
LOST REMOTE


LR: You’re a “blog producer.” I don’t know many of them – and I’ve been doing this for a while. What’s it like having the gig?

Brittney Gilbert: I used to blog all the time for free, so it’s nice to get paid for something I already enjoy doing. I like always reading and learning new things. I like being part of a community of people who exchange new ideas, who argue and make up. It’s fun to spend all day looking for funny videos or finding an MP3 that’s really touching or provocative in some way. It’s fun to scour the internet on a local level for interesting things.

LR: How did you get the job?

BG: I was writing a blog called Sparkwood and 21, a personal blog I’ve had since 1999. It’s still at Typepad. That was just a personal site for me. I was a journalism major at Middle Tennessee State. They have a pretty good mass comm. department I graduated with a magazine journalism degree, and after that was at an alternative magazine and waited tables to pay the bills. I was building a clipbook and bartending. I was surprised to get a call from Mike Sechrist. He discovered my blog. He was actually interested inhaving another girl run the site, but she didn’t want to leave (her job). She recommended me, and I guess he liked the voice and personality behind my site. It was all about waiting tables and interacting with people.

Occasionally I would post random videos and photos I had taken – even though I had a journalism site, my specialty was in feature writing.

LR: What surprised you about life in a local TV newsroom?

BG: I was really surprised at how hard and fast these reporters get their job done. They’re up in the morning, out the door by ten, back at two. It’s lightning fast. I’m always impressed. People always say how the local news isn’t deep, but given the amount of time they have, it’s surprisingly in-depth.

As much as they have to do to get a news story on air by the end of the day — it always blows my mind. If for some reason they get a fact wrong, bloggers are always so quick to jump on them. But they’re doing the best they can and they really take a browbeating some times when it’s not called for. Too often, people who have never seen what they do aren’t going to understand how difficult the process is.

LR: Now that’s really interesting. We write a lot at Lost Remote about how some bloggers find conspiracies in the media, when most of us are just trying to bang out a story on deadline.

BG It’s not as though there’s some big left-wing or right-wing conspiracy. I’m not knocking bloggers. Just watching (reporters) cover these difficult topics takes a toll on them emotionally. They have a gallows humor, and it can seem really callous. But after a while it takes its toll.

LR: What sorts of frustrations do you find in the job?

BG There are some definite frustrations, in that it’s something that’s a new profession and it’s something without a roadmap. There are things that I come upon – different ethical questions about things that go on the site – like profanities. I’m not trying to be balanced, I’m giving my opinions on things. I’m trying to give my opinion and space to bloggers in the area, and I get a lot of flak, especially when I get accused of not being fair and balanced. But I’m not trying to be fair and balanced. I’m not trying to be unfair, but I’m not trying to give both sides either.

I wrote a post about the abuse of the Tennessee walking horses. There was a big celebration of horses in Shelbyville that was cancelled due to horses that had been abused. I wrote a post about horses that had been abused, based on interviews with former trainers. I got a lot of flak from people, who found the story on Google, accusing me of spreading lies. I’m trying to get out one side of the story that nobody talks about. I get a lot of blowback because I work for a news organization, and people expect that it’s going to be an equal time business that goes on the air, and that’s not the case.