It was hard to ignore the headlines coming back from a spring break that was jam packed with so much news, especially when USC was at the forefront of it all. The college admissions scandal, the death of Thornton student Victor McElhaney, and the record low admission rate along with a tuition hike (not to mention the Ethiopian 737 crash and the New Zealand shooting) were possible lead stories. But it was clear to our lead producer, Taylor Elliott, that the admissions scandal was the top story to lead the show.
In my opinion, even though the news broke the week before, the scandal was still the most important and relevant to our audience. Coming back from a news-intensive week, our job was to report the latest information, updating the story as much as possible.
When choosing a lead story, not only are the timeliness and proximity important, but one question I ask myself is, "how is the audience affected by this story?" When a story affects college students or the entire USC community, you know that is going to be a top story. When a story has so many diverse perspectives and voices through sound or video, that story is often worthy of being a lead.
Another metric I use is how many elements our student journalists at Annenberg Media can pull together to report a well-developed story. Since this was a busy news day with new developments in the college admissions scandal, it was crucial to communicate with the different platforms in the Media Center in order to achieve accurate and thorough reporting.
I have learned as a producer teammate, it is so important to keep well informed on the top story because it has the potential to change during the course of the day. Both producers must check in with the lead producer to discuss any changes in the rundown, especially the top story. As the digital/graphics producer for this week, I made sure that the text in our graphics were the most updated information for each story.
It all boils down to having strong news judgment when selecting a lead story. I'm definitely still developing my news judgment skills with every new show this semester. We, as journalists, have to know what news matters to the most people to earn the utmost credibility.