Producing News Sometimes Means Leaving The 'Formats' Behind
As we begin production on our last five shows, I think it's important and do-able to put creativity front and center. Now that we've gotten faster at producing newscasts with "traditional" elements like packages, ANCGs and maps, I think it's only natural that we start experimenting with other ways of telling stories.
Using the live element of our newscast, I think it would be a great experience for one of our reporters to tell a story in real-time using social media. By interacting in a live Q&A with viewers, say, the audience is likely to be more engaged. For example, if we had a live Q&A on a topic like the Affordable Care Act, we could have viewers tweet in questions to a healthcare expert we have in-studio. The viewers could then feel like they're in control of the show as they watch it.
Along the same lines, I think it would be great to incorporate the opinions of our viewers into the newscast. I've seen this done at other stations. The producer will post a "question of the day" on Facebook with a compelling still image. Questions can be something like, "In light of the man whose finger was bit by a homeless man, tell us: have you ever had a bad experience with L.A.'s homeless population?" A few of the answers are then read live on the newscast in a 45-second segment. People enjoy talking about themselves, and this would be an opportunity for them to do so, while adding a higher-quality version of a "person-on-the-street" interviews to the newscast.
If time permits this, I also think it would be beneficial to our viewers to have packages that incorporate one or two animated infographics into their stories. This implies having someone dedicated to creating these motion graphics as they take a bit of time to create. The investment would be worth it, I think. Every now and then we have stories that we just cover with wallpaper video because we don't have time to create elements that truly represent the story.
Finally, there's the appeal of "exclusiveness." With any type of video programming, you'll undoubtedly get people to watch something that only you have. With the leverage ATVN possesses in being hyper-connected to the USC community, I feel that we could use that to improve our programming. This would require very good coordination and communication from different producing teams, but perhaps we could all plan to produce a special week-long series the final week of shows. This doesn't have to be an investigative piece, but it does have to be a piece that takes more than one day and one journalist to produce.
