Imagine working all day every day for 2 weeks straight. Now imagine that the job entails scraping up leaves in the blazing heat, sleeping in a forest with spotty cell service, all while covered in soot and ash. This is Shelby’s life for 6 months of the year. Shelby Robbinet is a Cal Poly alumni who majored in Environmental Management and Protection and now works as a Forest Service Forestry Technician fighting fires.
Her original plan, though, was not to begin firefighting right away. A university in Sydney, Australia invited Shelby to play rugby for them. In the last 3 years at Cal Poly, Shelby had been playing rugby and was a valuable player during the undefeated season her senior year. Winter quarter, she weighed her options and chose to go ‘down under’. Sadly, Coronavirus had other plans for her.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, nations worldwide closed their borders, airlines canceled flights and travel was banned. Shelby had purchased a visa and couldn’t use it because the US had no outgoing, or incoming for that matter, flights available. The pandemic chose for her and so she began working as a crewmember for the Arroyo Grande Hotshot.
“I was having a tough time choosing like, Oh shoot. Do I want to play rugby in Australia, which sounds super cool. Or do I want to do the job that I’ve been trying to get for the past three years? …then with COVID, it kind of became clear that one wasn’t going to be possible.” – Shelby Robinnet
My partner on this project, Jezzia Smith, had played with Shelby on the Women’s Rugby team. This connection gave us a leg up because we already had her contact info and Jezzia had already established rapport. She agreed to Jezzia interviewing her over Zoom. An expectation for news reporting is to interview a subject in person. If possible, the interview should take place at the location of the event or wherever the story is happening. Social distancing is state-mandated hence no in-person interview within 6-feet of one another.
Standing further than 6-feet from Shelby would not make for a great final project. It would be difficult to get adequate audio. And it would be awkward to be that far apart holding the camera. Also, we are supposed to go out only when necessary and have limited interactions with others to slow down the spread of the disease. Jezzia and I are good samaritans and decided Zoom was the only option.
It is difficult to imagine the struggles of reporting in this environment pre-pandemic. No one foresaw that all social interactions would be halted. Everyone was forced to adapt. We adapted to online and digital communication with our interviewee Shelby. When we had a question, Jezzia texted Shelby. Then, we waited.
“I was concerned that we wouldn’t receive answers to our follow-up questions because Shelby was away at work. We could potentially be waiting for another 2 weeks until we receive a reply.” – Giselle Fernandez
Shelby was working on the El Dorado Fire when we spoke to her about choosing between rugby and firefighting. She only has 2 days off between her 2-week long shifts so waiting for a reply differed from our peers. Not only was she unavailable most of the day, but also when she was available for 1 hour each night, she did not have reliable cell service. Thankfully, Jezzia had almost everything planned out by the end of Week 2 having already conducted the interview.
“I am taking 7 classes right now and was worried that I wouldn’t be able to get all my work done in time so I came up with ideas before school started. I picked the topic and contacted Shelby the first day of class. Then, I got the interview done before everyone else.” – Jezzia Smith
One challenging part of this project was obtaining photos and footage of Shelby’s firefighting. Cell service is one issue. Another one was that Shelby isn’t taking pictures of flames in her spare time. When she is at a fire, she is working to put it out. Shelby didn’t have many photos of her work. Jezzia’s job was made more difficult because she needed b-roll footage for the video. The b-roll she received from Shelby was not as sharp as a Canon or Nikon. Some clips are a little blurry but in the end, the video turned out great.
News reporting during a pandemic is nothing like what news reporting was before Coronavirus hit. Overcoming obstacles helps us become better journalists. And now we have a solid story to share and a project we are proud to present.