Oh What a Night!

By Jill Wagner

Election Night 2008... and I was stationed at Nassau's GOP headquarters in Westbury.  By now, we all know the results:  the county's Republican incumbents (senators and assemblymen) won re-election, but it was not enough to keep the state senate in Republican control.  Thus, it was not a night for major celebration.

So, to lighten the mood, I thought I'd share some secrets from behind the scenes.....

Most of the time, when you see a reporter on tv, it's from the waist up.  So just in case you were wondering what my feet look like----here's a peek:

 

Yes, that's a massive amount of masking tape stretched across my shoes.  You might wondering WHY!!!

First, I can tell you this is mostly a joke (mostly!).  I'm not on the tall side.  I'm about 5'2 and I pretty much wear flat, comfortable shoes when I'm running around in the field.  My photographers usually like to have me stand on an apple crate like this one, so it's a better shot in background. 

In this case, I was standing on, not only an apple crate, but another platform that was about a foot and a half off the ground---take a look:  If I stepped backward too much, I could have fallen about three feet... ouch!                                                               

                                                                

In the end, they took the tape off my feet, but I did stand on the crate the entire night.  The only time it looked a little off was when I interviewed one of the politicians.  I wound up being a couple inches TALLER than them. 

All in all, it was a really fun and exciting night.  My live reports lasted about a minute and a half each, but there's a lot of work and preparation that goes into it.  The crew got to the location in the early afternoon---- candidates didn't start arriving until after ten p.m.  Hence---there's plenty of time to joke around... at my expense!

Comments

[John]

It's like...Jill Jenga!

Really, though, thanks for the look behind the scenes.