Temp Newswriting Test at News4

At the moment, the main issue in my life is rather severe underemployment. When I wrapped Sweetheart Swindlers last year, I committed myself to finding a staff job with benefits, however long that took. That meant I could not take another six month contract job like Sweetheart Swindlers, because in all likelihood, I’d be in the middle of that commitment when the coveted staff job became available.

So instead, I’ve been scraping by on daily-hire freelance work for the last ten months, which is a pretty tough way to make a living. It recently got even tougher, when my bread-and-butter daily-hire client, Old Homes Restored on HGTV, went into a semi-hiatus between its second and third seasons, further attenuating my already-low income in the last few weeks.

Meanwhile, my search for staff employment here in DC has completely stalled. Over and over again in the last ten months, I’ve gotten very close to a job, only to have it snatched away at the last minute. It’s been pretty depressing.

Most recently, I interviewed for the Supervising Producer job on the aforementioned Old Homes Restored. The interview went very well, and at its conclusion, the Executive Producer of the show said something like, “So how does it feel to be the front-runner for the job?” I blushed and giggled and was as coy as I could be, saying, “Oh, I’m not counting any chickens.” But of course I was. Then two weeks later, the same guy called me up to tell me the job had gone to another well-qualified candidate whom they’d interviewed after me.

At that point, I decided I had to be willing either to leave long-form television (which I wasn’t), or be willing to leave Washington, DC, which, I reluctantly concluded, I was. So I started looking around for work in the other big TV towns, and called some friends out in L.A., including Jon Murray, of Bunim-Murray, which produces Real World, Road Rules, Making of the Band, and several other shows. Jon said they’ll consider me for producing or directing any of the shows in their upcoming season, as well as one of their many producing editor slots — but none of that will happen before mid- to end-of-summer. As much as I dislike the idea of leaving DC for LA, it’s highly lucrative work and seems to be my best alternative.

Meanwhile, I gotta make a living here, and with Old Homes Restored hardly calling — well, a boy’s gotta do what a boy’s gotta do. I have a typing test for law office temp work on Monday. And right now I’m leaving for a newswriting test at the NBC affilliate here in DC, WRC.