I've been spending all day searching for the words I wanted to say about a day that both ended badly for me and gave me a new start all at the same time.
It was on this day three years ago that my time and career with CNN came to an abrupt end. This was a dream that I could not wake up from.
In previous dreams, I voluntarily left CNN to move back to California or Arizona with no job prospects and very few friends to come back to. At least at the end of my sleep, I would wake up and either have the day off or go back to work at CNN later that day (or night).
I choose to write about this today because my layoff is still fresh in my mind and more layoffs have happened at both CNN (where I worked 11 years) and The Weather Channel (where I freelanced for most of 2012). I feel bad for my friends and former colleagues who were involuntarily separated.
I woke up on 11.11.11 and checked my Facebook and read stories from my favorite cell phone apps as I always do to start the day. One Facebook posting from a friend and former co-worker said it was his 'last day at CNN'. I just saw him the night before. Alarm bells and a sense of fear should have started to set in immediately, but it didn't. I simply moved on from that post and looked to see what else was going on in the world.
Later that morning, I was doing some birthday shopping for my family and I was getting pictures developed at a local Super Target. The weather was nice and crisp in Acworth and I was feeling pretty good.
Later on I drove to CNN to do some logging overtime to make some extra money and try to accomplish some lifelong goals along the way. I was really interested in the topic at hand that I had to log video and sound for: Traveling to Oregon and the sights and sounds from that state up in the Pacific Northwest.
I was interested in the Japanese flower garden in Portland, the movie museum where "The Goonies" was filmed, and a local brewery there. I was truly loving what I did even if that was deemed menial labor in the video world. No matter what I do in my career, I find myself being a note-taker, logger, and an amateur archivist at heart.
Now came the tough part (though I didn't know it at the time), I was marching down from one of the higher floors of the CNN Center to the lobby area where I was scheduled to work my 3-11pm shift as an editor for CNN.com/video. One of my co-workers told me 'thank goodness you're here.' I was wondering what the hell happened. I then learned about the layoffs of some of our editors I used to work with and know pretty well. I was cautiously optimistic that I would not be one of them. Oh how I was so wrong.
The man who hired me as an editor pulled me from CNN.com on up to the 5th floor. As soon as that happened and I made the long march up those stairs, I knew that the end was near for me at CNN.
I was told that the advances in technology to where Producers and Writers could edit their own basic clips made me and my position both obsolete. 24 other editors got virtually that same speech and a packet to take home. I felt disappointed that I couldn't get the chance to edit more high end videos after the basic editing was supposed to go away from the edit pool that I used to work in.
It's a difficult, competitive, ever-evolving business and I felt disappointed that I couldn't be part of the transition into higher-end editing. There were editors that were more talented and skilled than I was that got laid off that day. If I didn't deliver a good product on the TV side of things, I am sorry. My goal was to do a great job on each piece of video each and every day. I know that the editors and photographers that were with CNN made it their mission to get it right the first time, every time.
With the layoffs, CNN lost hundreds, if not thousands, of years of experience and knowledge on how to do things the CNN way.
The biggest lesson I learned along my journey from unemployment to where I am now is that no job lasts forever. I was told by someone that I respected at CNN that news organizations need video editors to get video and other forms of media on the air for you at home to see. With the shift in technology, News organizations don't need nearly as many editors anymore to get the day-to-day video on TV.
I'm optimistic about the future, even just days after my layoff at CNN three years ago. I had to be in order to fight on and succeed here at WGCL-TV today.
By working here at the local CBS station, I'm having to get more and more out of my comfort zone, take on new projects, work on my writing skills, refine my editing techniques, work with producers and people out in the newsroom, and most importantly, build relationships.
I'm going to ride this wave of local news as long as I can, and I will do it for the good of my family.
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