No News is Good News Except for Broadcasters
People always say no news is good news; however, for us journalists that is certainly not the case as we learned on Thursday. I began looking at the budget the night before and knew it was going to be a challenge to come up with package ideas. There were a few potential events that we could go to but nothing jumped off the page as package material so I moved to nightly news to see what other networks were covering. I knew that the UCLA Superbug story was going to be our biggest story of the day but I knew it was going to be a struggle since it's not a visual story. I went to bed hoping that I would wake up the next morning and more events would be on the budget or something major would happen overnight. However, as anyone who was in our morning meeting could tell you, it was a very light news day. Everything we pitched for packages seemed to be a stretch with way too many make or break elements.
We also learned firsthand that everyone who works for ATVN is vital to putting together our show. By the end of the day, we had nine people call in sick which really limited what we were able to do. We had absolutely no one in the morning so we couldn't go to some of the events that would have been good stories and then in the afternoon we were flooded with MJs that I struggled to find stuff for them to do. As video producer, I probably work the closest with MJs so the most important thing I learned that I need to work on is having the patience to work with every student. As you get older and more experienced, things that seem so easy to you are harder for students who are just starting at ATVN to grasp. For me, it can be frustrating to have to explain how to export something or how to freaking log in to iNews because it's become second nature to me now. It's also hard to stay calm when it takes them their entire MJ shift to edit one video when you see how many things need to be done but right before I was about to get mad at one of the students I realized something. I thought back to when I was first getting started and all the questions I would ask Nick Burton and Kristen Rodgers and laughed thinking how they must have felt back then. I meant to text them and jokingly apologize because now I've seen the other side of it. I also remembered how they would sit down with me and show me things that you didn't learn in training because it was more advanced and you would learn when you got older. I never truly valued them taking the time to help me grow. As producers, we have the ability to teach and mentor these freshmen or sophomores and have a greater chance at getting through to them because of our proximity in age. We are just as responsible as our faculty advisors and teachers to inspire a new generation of journalists and to teach them the necessary skills to be a journalist. Even though it will take you two seconds to fix the audio or that jump cut, the students need to learn how to do it - that's why they're at ATVN. Let them do it and help them get there. We'll all be better off for it.
Video producer is probably one of the most hectic positions in the producer rotation solely because everyone is coming to you asking you to read their copy, approve their video, etc. and you have to keep track of everything. I swear every time I tried to write my gas prices story someone came up to me to ask me to do something else. Then, you also have to be able to tell your lead producer what video you have, what you don't have and the progress of everyone's stories. Something I need to work on is knowing who is working on what. I knew I assigned people to stories but I couldn't remember which story. Even worse, I couldn't remember a lot of people's names so I was like someone's working on it I promise! I just don't know their name! Because it was a very light news day, I felt like there wasn't as much video as there usually is on a regular show. Maybe it's just because we didn't have many packages, I don't know but I felt like other weeks may be more hectic staying on top of everything.
This week was truly a testament to our team and though a lot of things didn't go right we got some pretty great experience. We handled storeis falling through, came up with backup plans and even put in breaking news (down to the final second!). As I gear up to take over as lead next week, I'm trying to remember everything I learned in the other two positions so that way I can do my best to help my other producers out. Let's hope for some compelling news stories so someone please go make something happen next Thursday.
