Taking the Lead
Choosing the lead story is always the hardest part of me. You would think it would be easy, since it just requires picking the biggest or most influential story at the time. But for some strange reason, I struggle with it every single Tuesday. Once we start the morning meeting and start fleshing ideas out on the board, I start to become more relaxed in picking the right one. Some of the things I consider are how timely is the story? Would our audience want to hear about this story right away? How can I group the stories so it creates some structure in the rundown? What story would catch the audience's attention right away and make them want to stick around to watch more? Unfortunately, it usually has to do with something locally on the USC campus or something crime related in the Los Angeles area. I hate starting out with "death and destruction," but sometimes that's the best start.
Once the meeting is over, I always consult Olivia, my EP, to see what she is thinking. We usually agree on a couple of stories that could be the lead story, but which one goes first, is always debateable. Sometimes I listen to her, sometimes I don't. I have a vision of how the newscast would go in my head and have gut feelings, so I always try to follow those.
As a viewer, I have the expectation that the lead story will be something that draws me in immediately and makes me want to stay and watch. I like it when it has something to do with the area I live in. While national news is always important and could always affect me, if there's a major fire and numerous streets are blocked off near me, I want to know about that first. I want to know stories that may affect me that day or in the coming days. I expect it to be extremely visual and interesting to watch. The story should tell me something I don't already know and give me the latest updates. I want to see the human aspects of it: real people talking and the local community being affected by it.
I think being a student or "20-something" makes the decision making process even more interesting. Our typical audience is students and local residents in south Los Angeles. Those are two extremely different demographics that we have to appeal to. Due to my age and the phase of being in college, I draw to stories that deal with students and young adults. For example, there was an event yesterday in Long Beach that dealt with college financing, loans and how to take care of them. While it may not be the newsiest item of the day, it immediately sparked my interest because it related to students. Large campus elections, big games, or other campus activities always catch my attention. However, we're in that period where we're transitioning into becoming adults and it's a weird time in our lives. Therefore, a lot of us are starting to care more about politics, gas prices, real estate and so much more. We're not completely adults yet, but we're not teenagers anymore.
At the end of the day, going with my gut feeling and consulting my colleagues ends up working out to be a fantastic lead story and successful newscast.
