Finding the "New" in Old News
Some of the most exciting stories that we get to help cover as producers are big breaking news events. While it can be fun to cover these stories, it’s also often very challenging. When a big breaking news event first happens, the trickiest part is getting accurate information from reliable sources. This sounds like it should be pretty simple, but often times this is one of the most challenging parts of putting together a good story. The first few days after there’s breaking news, you will have to sort through a lot of different material, and it might be tough to decide what you should choose to put in your newscast each day. The most important thing to remember is to always have the most recent update on a story when it’s ongoing. Being able to find what’s new in the news is really important as a producer, because it will keep your audience engaged and will hopefully keep them coming back to watch your newscast.
We’ve had several big ongoing stories that we’ve been covering throughout the semester at ATVN including the missing Malaysian Airlines plane, the crisis in Ukraine and the Oscar Pistorius trial. As the lead producer, you have to make sure that you’re always aware of the most recent updates and that you have the most current sound and video in your show. Making sure that the MJs and reporters know the most recent information is also important, because you don’t want the lead of your story to be old or buried beneath less important or less timely information. On several occasions, I’ve read over stories only to realize that the “today” aspect of the story was missing altogether. This has especially been a problem with the Oscar Pistorius trial, for example, because it has been such a long process. However, it’s crucial to have the most up-to-date information because no one wants to hear about news that is several days old! As the video producer, you always have to be on the lookout for engaging video. You should make sure that the sound bites being used are recent and try to have the b-roll be new as well, if possible. In addition, as the video teammate you are in charge of the web, so it’s important that you are always updating the web stories with any new information that is released. As the graphics/CNN teammate, you should always be checking CNN Newsource for interesting video. You also want to make sure that your graphic captions reflect the most recent news in an ongoing story. This is important so the viewer knows that there is new information and that they’re not just seeing the same old news again.
In addition to giving your viewers an update to an ongoing story, you also have to make sure that you provide them with enough background information so that they know what the story is about. In the case of the missing Malaysian Airlines flight, it might be easy to assume that everybody who sees your newscast will know exactly what the story is about because it has been so prevalent in the news. However, there are people who might not know a lot of details about the story, so it’s important that they have some additional background. It’s going to be hard for a viewer to understand an update if he or she doesn’t know the story in the first place! Personally, I always like to check to see if I’ve covered my five “W’s”: Who, what, when, where and why. If you’ve addressed all five of these things, chances are your viewer will have a good idea of what the story is about.
This week, we had updates to several of our ongoing stories including the Malaysian Airlines plane, the Pistorius trial and the Ukraine crisis. Overall, I think we did a good job of providing enough background information, while also making sure that our stories were current. In the last three weeks of the semester, I'm interested to see how our ongoing stories continue to develop and I hope we can incorporate new information and reporting techniques to keep the stories fresh.
