Let's Get Digital
Convergence is one of the tasks I most need to work on when producing. It is very easy to devote an entire day to producing the 6pm newscast and let the website and social media accounts suffer. Ultimately, at the end of the day, my job as a producer is to create a live, seamless broadcast, and I often find myself letting the web department handle our online content virtually on its own.
Nonetheless, I have grown more accustomed to devoting time to the internet. Twitter and Facebook have proven to be extremely useful when searching for a specific type of person or opinion that is not readily available. Even when I am not personally tweeting out, trying to find sources, the web department always responds rapidly to my request to find social media users with specific opinions.
For my newscast yesterday, I tweeted out a couple of posts to try to draw the attention of specific students at USC and UCLA. Though the posts did not lead to any interviews, I am glad I was able to use the medium to try and further our stories. I am also proud to say our multimedia journalists were good about sending back videos and tweeting photos of themselves at different events.
And, of course, it is important to always remember the ATVN website. After all, atvn.org often garners many more eyes than our live newscast. I am still working on keeping my mind partially on the website, but when the going gets rough, it can easily be placed on the back burner.
The website also ends up being an excellent outlet for overflow. When an interview or story is too large to completely fit on the air, which is often the case, our page is able to provide more extensive content than the live broadcast, which is a selling point for the site. Then, we can even tell our viewers on the air to check out the website for more information.