Goals: Make Art and Air
The creative extras make our coverage dynamic and compelling. No matter what role I’m in, I strive to add something more to the newscast, web posts and social media content.
Overall, I think the best way to add extras to a newscast is to truly know the story, which starts by reading the wires. Once I completely comprehend the information, I can start to brainstorm different ways to take our coverage the extra mile.
As social media and web producer, I try to make every social media post worthwhile. Multimedia tweets offer more to our followers, as 140 characters can only convey so much. I love editing short videos that can be posted to Twitter and that I think will do well on that platform. For example, when the stress-relieving puppies were on campus during midterms, I knew a short video of the puppies playing would be interesting to our audience. A video of puppies playing is easy to show in a very short video, and the user does not need to have the sound on to grasp the gist of the post, which makes this type of video perfect for Twitter. Including a video gives users more substance than a tweet with a photo.
I also think it’s valuable to have the reporters introduce their packages – the person who shot and edited a story probably knows the most about it and can give valuable information to the audience in a live shot standup. While there can’t be too many live shots in a newscast, having at least one adds value and makes the show more interesting for viewers. As lead producer for our final show this semester, I want to have at least one live shot in my show.
While scripted television is informative, I think live guests bring an element of surprise that make a broadcast memorable. My most memorable moment from last semester is when the producers brought in a sex expert – his comments were off-color, yet he gave the viewers information no anchor was prepared to say.
In the end, a memorable show has different elements that keep the viewer interested. I look forward to making our final show an amazing one. It’s time to truly make art and air!
