My night at Global Winnipeg

Hey readers!

This week I've written a play by play of my experience at Global Winnipeg on election night.

I get up to the offices at Global Winnipeg and the first thing I am tasked with is to head out to Subway to pick up the food. We pick up five platters of subs and two bags of cookies, and on the way back to the newsroom Brent Williamson comments that everyone will love us when we show up with food.

Just before 7 p.m. we head out of the newsroom on our way to Judy Wasylycia-Leis’s campaign headquarters at the Fort Garry Hotel. There is a lot of fun banter between Tamara Forlanski, the reporter I’ve been assigned to, Randall Paull, and Bob Chapman. I can tell they like working together because the jokes come easy.

We arrive at Wasylycia-Leis’s campaign headquarters around 7:10 p.m. Everything is already set up so there’s not much to do. As it gets closer to 8 p.m., more people start to trickle into the ballroom from the bar area in the back. The hotel staff set out the five course dinner while all of the reporters take their place in front of their respective cameras, getting ready for their first live hit of the night.

I’m tasked with keeping up to date with the numbers on the phone I’ve been given. The two screens at the front of the room light up with CTV’s coverage of the campaign and it feels like the night is finally beginning.

It takes a little longer than expected for Forlanski’s first live hit. I watch as she gets the signal from her earpiece around 8:15 p.m. and starts to talk. Riley McDermid works the camera for this live hit, and the others throughout the night, while Chris Stanton works with Chapman at the control table.

Since Global Winnipeg is working together with CJOB, Keith McCullough does the second live hit of the night shortly after 8:30 p.m.

I continue to check the numbers both on the phone and by watching the screens at the front of the room. The last time I checked, Brian Bowman had taken a slight lead. This time I check, he’s jumped and sits 10% higher than Wasylycia-Leis. There is an audible groan throughout the room as the actual number of votes appears on the screen.

It’s not too long before Bowman is called for mayor Everyone in the room waits in anticipation for Wasylycia-Leis’s arrival. I’m called over to Paull’s camera station and he asks me to watch his camera cords as he unmounts the camera from the tripod getting ready for her arrival. While we’re waiting, I coax one of the cords out of a toddler’s mouth.

I get a front row view as Wasylycia-Leis enters the room surrounded by her family and campaign team. There are cameras all around me, and I fulfill my job of preventing someone from tripping on the camera’s cords. The woman is grateful.

Wasylycia-Leis’s speech is classy and heartfelt. A few members of the audience wipe tears from their eyes. Forlanski, Paull, and I then move into position for the scrum. Forlanski tells me to stay close as I may be sent with Paull to get reaction interviews from the crowd. During the scrum Wasylycia-Leis announces she will not be doing one-on-one press interviews, so after the scrum I follow Forlanski as she does the reaction interviews herself.

She only interviews four people as a lot of the crowd has already gone home. Forlanski interviews Wasylycia-Leis’s campaign manager, Peter Dalla-Vicenza, for the last live hit of the night. There’s an overall feeling of sadness in the room as we make our way over to the crew to begin to pack up our stuff and head back to the newsroom.

Even though I didn’t really do too much, I’m glad to have had the experience of working with a news team on election night. Getting to watch Forlanski work helped put into perspective for me what journalism is all about, which really is about going up to people and getting them to talk to you. I also learned that on a night like this, it’s very important to keep on top of what’s going on around you and what’s going on back in the newsroom. I’ve never done anything like this before so I really had no idea what to expect and therefore there was nothing I wish I would have known beforehand. Overall, it was a very positive experience.

The only negative aspect of the night for me was that the race for mayor didn’t turn out as closely as I hoped it would. I really wanted it to be a neck and neck fight to the finish.

Most of all, this experience put broadcast journalism higher up on my career radar than it was before. I’m still not entirely sure if this is the right career choice for me though. Forlanksi advised that if I choose to go the journalism route, I should love it because it makes all of the hard work a lot easier to do.

Thanks for reading!
-Emily