Leading the News
The first word of a book always pulls you into the rest. The first few minutes of a movie help you decide if you want to keep watching. And much like those, the leading story of a newscast can either keep the audience glued to their screens, or encourage them to change the channel. It is our job as producers to decide which story we want to lead the evening newscast with, and this changes week to week, whether the decision is easy or difficult.
The leading story should be either the most important story, or the one that hits closest to home. Often times we try and make the lead story something USC related, or try and relate it to USC if we can. We know that students like to learn about stories that affect them, so leading with something they can relate to, or something that affects them in some way is always a good start.
Now there's also breaking news. If a story breaks maybe three hours before the newscast, you can bet we'll do our best to make it the lead. Unless whatever the story is immediately breaks down, we'll most likely lead with it. Last week, we had the Harrison Ford plane crash as our leading story. This wasn't USC related, but it was close to our campus, involved a public figure that most students know, and was a serious incident. It was an easy decision to lead with this story.
Problems arise when we don't have a lot of big stories, and therefore have a hard time picking which one to lead with. I believe different producers have different opinions on which stories are most important. I think anything related to students is something we should start with. When the shooting at the University of South Carolina occured, I felt we shoud lead with that. I think students want to hear about stories that relate to them; and I believe we can all relate to campus shootings, more so than issues in Los Angeles politics or fires in towns that are no where near us.
Each producer has a different task in helping the lead story come alive. The lead producer assigns it to a reporter, and decides what elements we want for the story. The graphics producer helps with any maps, ANCGs, FSs or any other graphics needed to make the leading story better. The video producer either finds CNN video to compliment the story, or helps edit the video and makes sure everything sounds smooth and is ready for air.
Generally the lead story is the most important story of the night, so it's crutial that we tease to it during the day, and then post the story on facebook right after it airs. We want all our viewers to be able to rewatch our best work and share it with their friends!
Picking the story to lead the newscast is very important. But more than that, I think, it's crutial to make sure the lead story is put together perfectly, because it's the first thing people will see when they tune into our newscast. We've done a great job so far opening our show, so here's to great openers for the rest of the semester!
