Kate Weidaw-West Visits Ms. Rocha's 6th Grade Pre-AP Class

Kate Weidaw-West, KXAN reporter, Visits Ojeda Middle School

Students planned ahead for her visit. They worked in groups. Each group came up with a name (name of their newspaper) and a set of questions to ask Mrs. Kate Weidaw-West. Students would hold up a sign that read "QUESTION" so that our guest would know which group had a question. The students were nervous and shy, but overall did awesome. The groups then gathered the information from their interview and wrote an article for their newspaper. Here is the one I selected out of the 5:

The Green Machines
11-14-08

"A Reporter’s True Face"

By: Team Three

In an interview with a KXAN T.V news reporter, Kate Weidaw-West, we asked her some questions and made some comments every now and then. She said to one of the questions, that she loves being a reporter and that she has been a reporter for about ten years now. “At first” she said, “I was a little nervous, but now I think I’ve gotten over that and I don’t get nervous anymore when I’m in front of the camera.” To get her doctorate (PHD) for being a journalist she has to attend college and take a class related to journalism or communications. She did an internship and recommends it a lot so you can get a job when you graduate from college.

Mrs. Weidaw-West said that her schedule is very tightly packed together because she is a very busy person. To turn in a story she has to hurry up because a news reporter like her has only two hours to do it and turn it in. When she is reporting live or has to tape her story from a place she has to gather the camera crew and gather all the information that she can possibly get. “When you report a news story on T.V you only have one minute and thirty seconds,” she said, “so you have to be very fast and accurate.” She gets home at about 11:30 A.M because she is in the morning turn, she has to wake up at 2 A.M so she can be ready at 5 A.M, when the news are on T.V. She said that she likes the time that she arrives at home because she has all the afternoon free.

Mrs. Weidaw-West said that her hobbies after she comes back from the news station are to go to college because she is a PHD student. She also said that this would take about four years to finish. Her favorite things to do include playing tennis, and relaxing by walking her dog. One of the most memorable things about school is her college professor that was a reporter in Chicago and he taught them how to shoot an edit picture. She also stated that, “In the news you have to do your own make up.”

Team Three
Adelina González, Karina Casas, Mario Gomes, and Bryan Sandoval