Deciding To Go LIVE

Yesterday’s newscast was the first time we brought a live guest on set. I was extremely excited for this because for weeks I have wanted to take advantage of our couch and we finally did! Our live guest was Aaron Koblin, who presented a “Media Wall Mash-Up” last night at 7:30 p.m. at the Annenberg lobby. Since his presentation was not going to be until after our show, my team and I decided that it would be a good idea to bring him in live to talk to us about his project and presentation. This gave viewers a little preview of what would happen later that night. Therefore I felt like there was a good purpose to this live segment and I want to continue doing similar things for our next shows.

Something else that my team and I could do is to have a reporter use our set to expand on his or her package. They can do so by bringing someone in to do a live Q&A. A lot of the time we limit our reporters on how long their packages can be, and so this will allow them to expand and touch up on details and unanswered questions. Viewers will be able to get a clearer understanding of the story, and it will make the newscast more entertaining.

It’s important to note that live shots are only worth having if they will add new elements to the newscast, such as following up on information, or mention new details. Therefore, next time we have a breaking story in L.A., I would like to send out a reporter to report live from the scene. It's something that we haven't done before, but are working on it, so stay tuned for our upcoming shows!