Is it worth is?

Some days live shots seem like naturals, but for other days it can be a bit of a stretch. I knew going into Tuesday that I was going to have difficulty figuring out which location would be best for a live shot. We had trouble all morning figuring one out, and then we decided we would re-send our reporter to the location of her story in Little Tokyo. However, by 3:45, we learned that this was going to be a bit ambitious. There was no way she was going to be able to write her script, have an MJ edit her package, and make it back to Little Tokyo on time. So I then looked for my next option. The USC baseball game had begun at 3, so it was going to end around the time of the newscast. Perfect- a wrap up of the game at the stadium minutes after the 9th inning.

While this sounded ideal, it was a bit more complicated than that. The game wasn’t going to end until about 6, so the reporter out there would not be able to type out her script (she would already be at the stadium). Luckily, we were able to practice once before we went live, and thanks to the excellent skills of my fellow teammates, they were able to quickly edit some highlights and write up a backup script. When we went live to our reporter, there was some miscommunication about when she should start reading, so she was on camera for roughly 20 seconds before she started reading. Those 20 seconds felt like the longest of my life. Fortunately, once she finally started it went really smoothly. She read perfectly over the highlights and the shot looked great. Phew.

Live shots are a great addition to a show. They certainly add another professional element. However, it sometimes can feel like a stretch to incorporate this into your show.