A Look Into the Life of Steve Cooper
By Cassandra Bent
Most people are fast asleep, as he wakes up at 2:15am ready to begin his day of reporting for the morning and the noon news. However, that is not where this busy man’s day ends. Channel 7 News general assignment reporter and fill-in anchor Steve Cooper goes home to his wife and twin sons and runs in his spare time.
Cooper calls his job as “a dream come true” in his online video biography. In an in-person interview on Wednesday, December 9th, he referred to news saying, “I was always fascinated by it.” As a small child, young Cooper would call into radio shows, and was first exposed to stations when he went to claim his prizes.
Years later, he has worked his way up the ranks. Having run in the Boston Marathon, Cooper said, “Running is my outlet for stress.” And stress is something he must have, considering that sometimes he will be creating a news package and at 11:30am he will be assigned to a whole new story that needs to be completed by 12:00pm.
“The challenging part is making it fresh and exciting,” said Steve Cooper. He expressed his efforts to make news packages interesting to the viewer and “as memorable as possible,” with the inclusion of good interviews.
Having just finished working, on the cold, windy, wintery day that was the first snow storm for many towns this winter, Steve Cooper was chipper, without even a hint of wind-blown hair. He was still wearing his black outdoor-wear pants and had his red and black Channel 7 parka on the back of his chair.
When asked about his favorite type of stories to cover, Cooper brought up that he enjoys covering stories about the New England weather. “I definitely enjoy the snow storms… it’s exciting,” he said.
Working as a reporter is something Steve Cooper is very passionate about. “I love it because everyday day is different,” he said.
His advice to budding journalists is advice that can be useful for many other occupations as well as other aspects of life: “Follow your dreams; stick with what you want to do.” He also stresses that in his line of work it is important to be flexible. He described his attitude towards having to switch stories at the last minute as: “Well hey, whatever. Switch to something else and go with it.”
And this, is the hectic life of a news reporter.
[...] I was able to see the Channel 7 News station, which was very exciting. I was also able to learn his cardinal rule of being “flexible,” and take in advice from an already successful reporter. It was a very encouraging [...]