WATCHING MY WORK

TV Syd serves the southern region of Denmark – called South Jutland. I spent a day at their office observing how they work and that’s how the pig story happened. I was assigned to go with the team of Dorte Vinther (both in picture) and cameraman, Arne Andreasen. Dorte had yawned during the morning meeting and was thereafter referred to as “the sleepy reporter.”

The thing I noticed first about their office was the silence. Nobody was screaming down phone lines, nobody was barking on their cell phones, indeed, cell phones were not even ringing and all was truly quiet on the southern front. For the story we had to drive from Kolding (pron. Kolling) to Grindsted. TV crews there don’t have separate drivers – Arne drove, filmed and edited the pictures.

Once there, we had to wear space suits like these before going into the factory where Arne and Dorthe got down to business while I got down to staring.




Arne shot for about 30 minutes and then Dorte began her interviews. The story about the imminent closure of this plant had been done before so she did a soft story on what people were feeling on the day it actually happened.

The union leader, Kent Kaltoft was interviewed outside the plant. He said, "Of the 700 workers, 500 already have a job. But I'm not going to stop till the last person finds a job."


Here in India we keep our equipment in the office. But at TV Syd, all the equipment remains in the ENG (electronic news gathering) van. It’s equipped with chargers and monitors and everything else required in handling a breaking news story. Just jump into this thing and hit the spot. Here, Arne puts everything back in place.

Back in the office Dorte begins to write her story in the newsroom. The picture of Tintin looks down upon the place. Why is it there? Because according to the news head Ernst Moller, “hes the best reporter in the world!” That is true.

Once the script is done, the edit begins.


These are pictures of the production control room. Everything that happens in the studio is controlled from here. The plant's closure became the top story that evening.

And that’s the way it goes.