You Only Get Better

I can’t believe half the semester has already flown by and I only have a couple weeks left in the producing chair. Now that team Tuesday has made a full rotation between the producing positions, I do have a better understanding of what it takes to produce a live newscast. Every week I take what I learn and make a goal for myself that I try to accomplish the following week. 

WEEK 1: COMMUNICATE. Work on communication between MJs, reporters, producers, and anchors. Make sure everyone knows what he or she is supposed to do and what is expected.  

WEEK 2: Get better at multitasking. Keep track of all the progress in your stories throughout the day and always be looking out for breaking news.  

WEEK 3: Think of creative ways to tweet and post information to our Facebook page that will drive people to our website and watch the show. 

WEEK 4: Come up with interesting ways to tell each story and produce the show.

WEEK 5: MJs will hide from you so stay on top of their progress on a story. There is so much work to be done. Don’t let them sneak away.

Now we are approaching our 6th week of producing. One goal I have for the rest of the semester is to get better at multitasking. During my day-of-air shift this week I assigned MJs to either write or edit and I followed up every 20-30 minutes. While keeping on top of their work, I spent time browsing CNN Newsource for videos, copy editing scripts in iNews, and checking in with producers to see if they needed any help. Even though I tried bouncing around between different tasks, there was still so much work to be done by 5pm. For the rest of the semester I plan to be more efficient with my time and take advantage of every minute I have to get the show ready for air.