KAPA‘A — The news is a part of each community, said a 2003 Kapa‘a High School graduate who is now a TV producer for a Mainland news channel. Tescily Maguire, a weekend news producer at Fox 5 in Las Vegas,
KAPA‘A — The news is a part of each community, said a 2003 Kapa‘a High School graduate who is now a TV producer for a Mainland news channel.
Tescily Maguire, a weekend news producer at Fox 5 in Las Vegas, said that as a resident of the community, you need to know what is going on, and the news is how you learn about what is taking place in the community.
Maguire was a guest presenter Friday at the Kapa‘a Middle School Achievement Via Individual Determination program, weaving her personal experience with encouragement for students to attend college.
The presentation of news to educate the community is also one of the more rewarding aspects of being a news producer, Maguire said.
“Las Vegas is a lot like Kaua‘i, where the community rallies around what needs to happen,” she said. “During the holidays, there was a little boy who lost his home and all his presents in a fire. Some of the local firemen got together, and not only gave him new presents, but also a place to stay after the piece was aired.”
But beyond the encouragement to attend college, Maguire was equipped to task the AVID students with what she does on a daily basis, attacking sheaves of press releases and condensing them down to 20-second pieces.
Using an example of a release from Caesar’s Entertainment which read three minutes, Maguire worked with the students to whittle the piece down to 20 seconds, or more simply, four sentences.
Accompanying the former Kapa‘a standout in volleyball and basketball, Maguire had a special video produced by her staff to encourage students to continue their education beyond high school, which included a reporter presenting a piece on a dog-food diet that he would not have been doing had he not gone through college and the process of being hired as a reporter.
“At first, I wanted to be a teacher,” Maguire said. “But after getting a job as a substitute teacher, I liked the job. I did not love it.”
That got her rethinking her college major, falling back on what she liked to do — writing, and the experiences while on the staff of “The Tradewinds,” the Kapa‘a school newspaper, and being hired by Hawai‘i Sports Network to do a piece on the Kapa‘a High School football team.
“You have to do what you like to do,” she told the students. “And take advantage of going to college.”
Her job as a news producer, where she oversees a team of six people during the weekends, and a crew of about 35 people during the week, came because of an internship during college, where she worked for free at a TV station and stayed in touch with her mentor.
“I was living on my mom,” Maguire said. “There were few applications for the internship, and I was assigned. Once the internship is done, stay in touch with your mentor. I did, and it took me two years of moving to Kentucky where I worked at a small TV station working out my mistakes.”
When the call came from her former mentor, Maguire was ready for the move, which came with a pay raise.
“When I started, I was making next to nothing, and there is no shame in working two jobs,” Maguire said. “But when I moved to Las Vegas, my pay almost doubled. With that came bigger bills like rent and a car.”
When queried by one of the students, Maguire said she does not feel famous.
“The news anchors are the beacon of the community,” she said, dropping names of well-known personalities that have passed through the doors of the Las Vegas station. “I’m just like everyone else and get geeky when well-known personalities come through the station.”
Maguire said not everything is about press releases, though.
“I was on the day Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot, Jan. 8,” Maguire said. “As it turned out, that same day, Las Vegas Strip performer Debora Flores Narvaez’s body was discovered.”
With two major events taking place, Maguire said everyone pitched in and the station was able to do a full wrap-up with local angles on Giffords as well as break the news of Narvaez.
“The anchors were writing,” the weekend producer said. “We called our sister station in Arizona and did the local angles with the Las Vegas politicians for full wrap-up. As it turned out, Miss America was in town, and during her interview, discovered that Giffords was her speech coach. It was the busiest day since I started working there, but we just stayed focused.”
