Producing Thursday’s See it Live show requires constant communication, which can be difficult when we producers have a class all morning. Luckily, I love a good challenge. After our morning pitch meeting, Nikki Walker, my co-producer and I have our Television News Production class for three hours. We miss out on the majority of the morning portion of our production day and return in the afternoon, which means that we have limited communication with our executive producer (EP), morning-shift multimedia journalists (MJs), reporters and anchors.
During the first few weeks of production, this obstacle made me realize that I needed to learn how to adjust and account for this gap in communication. For instance, communication does not start the night before or day of our show; it happens throughout the week with Zoe Ginsberg, our EP, and Nikki to brainstorm the theme of our show.
I also now use the twenty minutes between morning pitch meetings and class to talk individually with MJs about their stories. These conversations allow me to make sure that we are on the same page about the story angle, crucial questions to research, potential interviewees to contact and any important background information to know when approaching the story. This Thursday, I spoke with Nicola Wenz, a reporter, because she was covering a story on my class about mass shootings. By speaking one-on-one with Nicola, I was able to communicate more about what our class did, and how I could help connect her with my professors and classmates for interviews. In doing so, we crafted a story with a deeper understanding of the subject matter.
In class, I keep my Slack and text notifications on in case MJs need help reaching out to potential interviewees or for updates from reporters traveling out of the newsroom for stories. Nikki and I also continue to communicate with Zoe via Slack about any changes in the newsroom.
Once Nikki and I return in the afternoon, we all meet to discuss our story ideas, determine story assignments, establish which reporters are traveling to the scene for footage, and talk about the progress made so far on each story. Our anchors (Chris Cheshire and Genevieve Glass), live correspondent (Hunter Patterson), reporters and writing coaches all participate in this meeting led by Zoe. Afterward, I briefly catch up again with each of our afternoon-shift MJs and reporters about their progress on stories, and any difficulties or new angles that they have found in their research. When I am lead producer, this helps me understand how to start building the rundown and identify which stories are likely to change or be scrapped.
As I start deciding the order and format of stories in the rundown, I work together with Zoe, who offers a valuable second opinion. We talk to each other about what stories that we think should be placed earlier in the show and how they should be presented, and explain the reasoning behind our individual news judgment calls. These decisions for story order and format also involve speaking with individual MJs and reporters editing the video footage for these stories. By doing so, we gain a better understanding of the content that we have so far. For instance, good interview audio can call for a soundbite (SOT). For this Thursday’s show about the Saugus school shooting, Zoe and I agreed on placing Hunter’s live shot at the city vigil and Morgan’s package about the hospital press conference earlier in the show. We both wanted to provide the most recent news updates and present strong audiovisual stories reported on-scene.
Regular check-ins with Zoe and Nikki become increasingly important as the day progresses and the time for the show to air approaches. I usually get updates from Zoe on the progress of our reporters who have traveled off campus and make sure that our TVU operator has arrived to travel out with Hunter for our live shot. With Nikki’s help, I keep on the lookout for the best video for teases and any potential for a cold open. This week, a powerful testimony from a student who survived the school shooting and described running away with her sister was the cold open for our show.
Around 5 p.m., when I am lead producer, I try to start run-throughs for the best communication with our anchors, television directors (Dylan Schloss and Liz Islas), art directors (Vivian Wu and Brandon Rowe) and teammate producer (Nikki). The more run-throughs, the better! The smoothest show that I have led so far has been the California in Flames newscast because we ran through the show at least four times. Run-throughs allow me to clarify when transitions happen and character generators (CGs) should appear. I also notify the art directors and Nikki about any missing CGs, run times (RTs), total run times (TRTs), outcues, graphics or videos. Run-throughs also help calm everyone down, which is really important for anchors to appear put-together on screen and read the script without tripping over words. Right before the show, I like to remind my anchors to take a deep breath, relax and know that they will do a great job.
Additionally, more run-throughs offer the opportunity to talk with our live correspondent and TVU, and fine-tune our live shots. For our California in Flames show, we asked Chace Beech (that week’s live correspondent) to describe the burned-down house behind her, how she had been escorted into the evacuated area by police and what the air smelled like. The TVU was able to capture a better angle of the surroundings, which improved lighting, and to pan the camera for the live shot. Taking the time to include Chace’s description and the visuals of the scene made our live shot that much more powerful for viewers.
Communication with my peers gives me the opportunity to recognize and appreciate their individual contributions to the show. Updates and feedback, in return, help me to be a better producer. If I were given a Jeopardy clue that says that, without this element, a newsroom falls apart but, with this element, a newsroom comes together, I can now knowledgeably answer, “Alex, what is communication?”