Easier Said Than Done

Convergence is easier said than done. As a producer, getting the show on air is my first priority, and it’s often difficult for me to remember the other outlets.

I love the collaborative efforts in the morning meeting, as people from all different mediums pitch stories. Moving forward, I think it would be great to have people from Neon Tommy participate in pitching. After 9 a.m., I occasionally talk to the radio team, but I never have contact with Neon Tommy. I find it easy to communicate with radio in the morning when the newsroom is quiet, but I need to do a better job of working with them later in the afternoon.

During this week's show, radio asked me to get some sound for them from an MJ I was sending into the field. It wasn’t until after the MJ left that I remembered I needed to give him radio equipment, so he couldn’t get them any sound. I totally forgot to give the MJ radio equiptment because I never really work with the radio team unless I am lead producer. Creating regular checkins with media center leaders would help producers, and people from other outlets, think about the media center as a whole. 

In a dream world, I would love for the media center to work as one team. We should be using the same video, writing and sound for all of our outlets. It seems silly to send multiple reporters to the same event if we want the same exact sound bites. Additionally, I think we should use one website to post stories (I know this is currently in the works). If we truly converge, we can increase both the depth and breadth of our content.

While convergence seems like an amazing idea, it’s difficult to execute. We need to start from the top down to reach these goals. If all media center leaders were responsible for creating content for broadcast, radio and web, we would definitely work as a better team. During the rest of the semester I’m going to try to communicate better with the other outlets throughout the entire day, not just in the morning. Checking in every hour to see what they need is a perfect place for me to start.