There's Always Room For Improvement

I didn’t really realize how important copy editing was until I was in the control room my first week at ATVN listening in on a run-through. The more the anchors talked, and graphics came up, the more I would notice grammatical errors, wrong facts, or information that had not been updated. I remember panicking because I had very little time to fix everything before going live.

 Ever since this incident, I have tried to manage my time more wisely throughout the day so that at least one hour before the show I can look through the run down. Whenever possible, I try to read stories out loud to see if they make sense, if certain words need to be changed, or if there are any spelling mistakes. A lot of the time we have stories that develop throughout the day and people forget to update them, so going down the run down helps you notice these small details. Also, in order for people to tune in to your newscast each week, or after each block, you have to keep them intrigued. A good way to do this is by writing catchy teases, but in order to do so, you must edit them a couple of times. In my case, the more I edit, the more creative I get and the better my teases sound.

 Since we might not always have time to copy edit every single story before going live, it is important to look through the run down whenever we find ourselves with a little extra time. We might find something that needs to be fixed, and this will save us a lot of unnecessary stress before the show.