Quality of Quantity
Already being halfway through the semester is exciting but terrifying at the same time. Being a senior it means my last hurrah at ATVN. Time to bucket down and advance my skills as much as I can before I’m shoved out into the real world. Finding out my weaknesses and identifying my strengths is essential at this stage in the game so that I can work towards improving and becoming the best producer I can be.
We have now finally been able to do all the different positions at ATVN and truly see all the work that goes into putting together a newscast. I absolutely love the newsroom atmosphere and how there really is never a dull moment. We are always our worst critics and the key to succeed is to identify where we are lacking and always work towards improving that characteristic.
After going through every position, I can see that I need to be much more sure in my decision-making. I like to get the opinions of others before making a final decision but in a newsroom when the clock is ticking down and you have to decide what to cut as lead producer, you simply don’t have time to take a survey. I need to work on being more assertive and sure in my decisions and not being afraid to almost dictate certain tasks.
Video producer hold the most important part of the newscast in their hands, without video there is no broadcast news. This task is tough because most of the videos and footage from the field doesn’t come in until the end of the day. You have to make sure you are handling your time wisely throughout the day and must be a good delegator. Keeping track of what MJs are in and who’s handling what is essential in getting all the video online. I have found that making lists of who is doing what story is the most effective and crossing it off the board when, and only when it is fully done, with CGs and TRTs and runs times.
Finding the balance between spending time on graphics and on the web is the key to success as the graphics teammate. I am still working on trying to find this perfect balance, but am growing from my first day producing in this position. The first time I found myself truly struggling to find time to complete everything. Practice does make perfect however and I hope to continue to improve.
One of the goals I have for the rest of the semester is to stay focused throughout the day to avoid getting overwhelmed. Focusing on one story at a time and slowly going down the list and be able to see that progress is being made is a lot for effective then trying to work on everything at once.
Quality is better than quantity. We would rather have extremely well produced pieces online than trying to cover more than we can handle and having half edited articles online. Making a list and keeping track of who is writing or researching what is extremely helpful and fully utilizing iNews will help you to know exactly what is going on at all times.
What I want to do for the rest of the semester is to make lists and slowly work on crossing off items of the list as I go. That way one full story gets done, instead of halfway doing five stories. Also to list the stories in the order of importance is helpful because you can assign people to do the stories that we want on the news ASAP and leave the cute and fluffy stories for later in the day when it slows down. Although those stories are fun to do, we want the bigger stories online first.
While keeping myself in check, I also want to improve on delegation and clearly articulating to the MJs what I want and expect them do to. Showing up for a four hour shift and only giving me a statement from an agency is unacceptable. I need to work on making sure I know what each MJ is doing at all times so that I can properly assign and if someone is struggling with something, I can be there to explain something or help them. This is after all a learning experience and it benefits everyone to explain and teach how to do certain things.
