Check List

A majority of our story ideas come from the budget. Beginning Monday evening, all of us producers encourage one another to scroll through CNS to find interesting stories or events. Additionally, we browse through CNN and the Los Angeles Times for updates on various news. 

Researching possible news stories the night prior to the morning meeting is very important, however, I also learned the convenience of waking up significantly earlier on the day of producing to see if things changed throughout the night. This has helped me develop stronger and more realistic and relevant package ideas.

Each producer is responsible for various tasks, however, in the end, we are all working toward producing a successful newscast. This means that teamwork and collaboration are vital each week. When each producer contributes his/her story ideas to the morning meeting, we are all able to collaborate and discuss the possibility of producing that story. Various opinions and perspectives on story ideas allow for a more successful newscast.

As lead producer this past week, I learned the importance of checking the wires and other media sources throughout the day. While we discussed various story ideas for that day in the morning meeting, I did not consider how common it was for those stories to change. Team Tuesday's main issue this week was filling our newscast; there simply wasn't much news happening. As a result of this, constantly checking CNS to see if new stories were published proved to be essential. Had I checked the wires earlier in the afternoon, I may not have had as much fear that we weren't going to fill out the allotted thirty-minute newscast.

Despite this week being very hectic and eye-opening, I am humbled to work with the other producers on my team. Each producer came together to help one another and at the end of the day, I was proud to watch another successful newscast.