One of the roles as a producer for Annenberg TV News is to decide what stories our team is going to cover throughout the day and how to order them in the nightly newscast. With this comes the responsibility of choosing which story is going to be our lead story and start out the show.
When deciding what story should be the lead, there are a few things I keep in mind. First, I take a look at each story we are covering and try to figure out which one is the biggest or most important for our audience to be informed about. Second, I try to really listen to the people around me, whether that be my fellow producers, multimedia journalists, or just students on campus. What are people talking about that day? What types of stories concern students the most? These are the key things that go through my head when picking the story for the top of our show.
Another thing that is extremely important when it comes to lead stories is flexibility. Things are constantly changing or updating throughout the day, and as a producer, you have to understand that the lead may change and that's okay. No matter what story is chosen, it is always important that it contains the newest and most relevant information for our audience.
This week was our first week back from spring break, which of course was a big news week involving the college admissions scandal. One thing that as a team we had to be on top of all day was that there was some sort of today angle, rather than just updating viewers on old news they probably have already seen. Our lead story this week was on the college admissions scandal and USC’s involvement, but more specifically about how the school bookstore removed the men’s water polo national championship trophy Monday afternoon. Originally, when I was putting the rundown together, I had planned to lead with a story on the record low acceptance rate for the incoming freshman class and how competitive it was to get into college nowadays. After the new developments in the scandal story, I knew that it needed to be the lead for our show. It met all of my criteria. People were talking about it on campus, it was a big, important story to our viewers, and it had the newest, most up to date information.