By Michael Fritz
PACIFIC TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
"When a big news story comes up I have an opportunity to perform and get people moved where they need to be so I can beat the competition, to me that's number one," said Jesse Garcia, 33, Assignment Editor and Internship Coordinator at NBC. "Getting info out accurately, getting there first, being on the spot first, and having it covered first is what drives me."
Garcia has over ten years of experience as a journalist, seven at an ABC affiliate and three at NBC. He started as a sports intern at ABC during college in 1999.
Garcia says that sports has always been a big part of his life. Sports helped him stay out of trouble growing up in Logan Heights. It also helped as a "drive to become something" he said.
Even today, despite his busy schedule at NBC, Garcia is still involved in sports activities in his pass time. He plays in an adult league on Sundays.
"As a die hard fan of sports, working in sports kind of took away from being a fan," said Garcia.
He said that since he is a Raiders fan, "having to sit through the Chargers games was painful" for him.
While interning at ABC he began asking what others did around the station. He gained an interest in the jobs at the assignment desk, where information is gathered for developing stories and assignments were given to reporters. Next semester he became an assignment desk intern. He took the first opportunity he found to apply for a position as assignment editor. He received the job but only if he could stay overnight on Dec. 31, 1999, the night that the world was rumored to fall into chaos due to the millennium bug. He accepted, sacrificing all the partying with his friends that he originally planned. But he said that it
was what started his career in media.
"They're [his friends] still doing what they do and I've been in the business for ten years so, it was worth it," said Garcia.
Being in the news business for ten years Garcia has witnessed many changes that the news industry has been going through. One of the biggest challenges he faced early in his career was fear of being laid off.
"I've seen a lot of turn around in the business, just at NBC we had about three waves of lay offs. People tend to bounce around between stations too. . ." said Garcia, ". . . it's a cut throat business really. The person who hired me is no longer there so it's like wow, my boss got laid off, so why am I still here?"
While he was at ABC he said the management started trying to turn everyone into a "one man band." He said that although a newsroom works fine that way, he does not necessarily think it works if everyone is doing it because the quality of the work goes down. Which is a reason why he decided to switch over to NBC. He said that they have people with multiple titles there, but still have a lot of "experts" too.
"Photographers are experts in photography, video shooting. Editors are experts in editing they get creative with it, writers are experts in writing, I think that's why they have everyone in each position and I think that's what the majority should be."
But he also said that the media has maintained stability by keeping up with the trends like social media and switching over to HD TV.
"We're kind of following the wave of the future with all of the new technology that's being thrown out there," said Garcia.
With all of the layoffs many news stations have had to share video. Garcia was recently put in charge of the Local News Service (LNS) which is a partnership between NBC and CBS where they share video between stations for the same story. Garcia said it saves them from having two guys at one press conference, you can just have one shooting it for both stations.
"For those press conferences and things like that where all stations are going to be at anyway it's more beneficial to have one person shooting it for both," said Garcia.
Garcia's goal was to reach a management position at NBC. But the position he wanted was taken out. He says that now he is unsure about where he wants to go from his current position but is leaning towards something in Public Relations.
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