Come Together... Right Now
Convergence is one of those buzz words that everyone in this industry loves.
It's modern! It's innovative!
It's not that easy.
Perhaps the hardest part of convergence is an issue with pride. Everyone wants to be the first to break the big story. Each organization wants its Twitter to gain more followers, its Facebook post to receive more "likes" and its website to get the most traffic.
That's what makes things difficult in the early stages of convergence. Do we publish to Annenberg TV News or Neon Tommy? Where does Annenberg Radio News fit in the mix? If ATVN airs at 6:00pm, should it allow Neon Tommy to post its exclusive interview before the broadcast as a text piece?
Those are just a few of the difficult decisions that have to be made by producers and staff of each organization in the Annenberg Media Center. It's easiest to sort out as many issues as possible in the morning pitch meeting: Who is going to each story? Are we sending reporters from each outlet or are we sharing content?
There are benefits of having so many outlets under one roof. Assuming every reporter is trained all-around (which we've learned can be quite the aggressive assumption...), any reporter from any outlet can shoot, record audio or write a text piece. This allows for an interesting sharing system of reporters.
That said, as any young child could tell you, sharing is harder than it looks. And in the end, one outlet is always overloaded with a superfluous amount of reporters and the other is left with next to no one (*cough* ATVN *cough*). It can be a tad frustrating.
It's not a perfect system, but it's progress. The new Annenberg Media site is a positive step forward. It's a common site that everyone can post to--the less we worry about whose site will garner the most traffic, the more we can worry about working together to establish the best and most comprehensive coverage.
