Be Specific.

Throughout the semester, I’ve learned a lot, but probably one of the most valuable and important aspects to producing that I have learned is to be overly specific. 

Not only is it important to be specific and communicate with your team, but it’s also equally, if not more important to have a specific vision for the show.

In the beginning of the semester, I would start to develop the rundown with an idea of what I wanted, but I needed to work on the specifics. But now, I’ve forced myself to focus on the specifics so I am able to clearly communicate my vision more effectively. 

For example, towards the beginning of the semester I remember telling the graphics teammate that I wanted a picture and a list of some key points from a Justice Department report. However, since I wasn’t very specific about the exact details of the report that I wanted to highlight, the final product didn’t look too great.  

Now, I make it a point to always know what it is exactly that I want and this way I can communicate that with my team effectively. 

Yesterday, as a video producer, I worked hard to make sure that I was specific about every detail from the beginning to the end of the day. In the morning, I would tell our Multimedia Journalists (MJs) exactly who they should talk to and what video we wanted them to shoot. In the afternoon, I focused on the writing and let each MJ know the exact points we wanted to address in each story. Then once the stories were ready for editing, I let our MJs know not only what type of video we wanted to use for the story, but also what specific order we wanted those videos to go in. 

In the end, I think the MJs appreciated the specific direction and I thought the final product was much better. Of course, not everything in news goes as planned, but I’ve definitely learned that the more specific and clear you can be the better the show will be in the end!