Two Sides of One Coin

As the web/graphics producer this week, my role was to manage ATVN.org in the morning, then transition to generating on-air graphics for our 6 p.m. newscast.

All team members should think of the website as a priority equal to the newscast.

For me, this position was much easier than lead producer the week before. I had more confidence and less anxiety, thanks to my previous experience as a web producer and art director. I say this not to dismiss the web/graphics role, but to show that there are concrete ways to prepare for courses like J402 Advanced Reporting and J403 Television Production. I encourage everyone to work as many positions as possible, so by the time you get to these upper division courses and high-pressure roles, you can focus more on creating content and less on learning technical skills.

Now, onto the actual experience. In the morning, it was a challenge to get the ball rolling. I had three web MJ’s (multimedia journalists) on standby ready to work. I had to delegate stories to these writers, guide them through research and reporting AND participate in the morning meeting. Once the meeting ended, it was my job to connect our web MJ’s with the reporters working on gathering information for the most important stories of the day, so that we could create content for both the web and the newscast as efficiently as possible.

Some of our MJ’s are new to the website, so they needed a lot of guidance in writing and using AP style. Many of the articles required heavy copy editing, not just for spelling and punctuation mistakes, but also grammar and fact-checking. I think some of our web MJ’s assumed that it was my job to copy edit their stories, but in reality, it’s their name that is in the byline, not mine. Each individual should take responsibility and copy edit their own work before the web producer looks at it. Hopefully within a few weeks, with practice, every writer will not only be faster, but more articulate and accurate too.

After the stories were written, I spent a lot of time coaching the web MJ’s through the basic steps of publishing to ATVN.org (e.g. creating a story page, writing a headline, adding tags, adding photos and videos, etc.) 

As professor Marc Cooper teaches in his Online Journalism class, back in the day of newspapers and dinosaurs, all that a journalist was responsible for was writing the story and turning it in to an editor. Now, finishing the story is just the first step. Today's digital journalist must then add multimedia, optimize the story for the web with links and related content, then publish and promote the story via social media. Web MJ’s should follow through with each and every step leading up to publishing, instead of assuming the web producer will build the pages for them.

Editing and coaching the writers was the most time consuming part of the morning, but I hope that my clear instructions were effective enough so that next week the web MJ’s can breeze through the basics and focus instead on editorial and writing skills.

The most difficult part of working as a morning web producer was getting content up as soon as possible. Many of the big stories for the newscast were awaiting sound bites and information from events or interviews later in the day, so it was tough figuring out how to add value to the web article early in the day. I encouraged the web MJ’s to make calls themselves, which was extremely useful for getting fresh quotes and updated information instead of just rehashing wire copy and waiting on elements from the field.

All that being said, around 10 a.m., once we finally got things going, our hard work was nearly sidelined by the extremely old and slow newsroom computers.  We ran into a lot of technical issues which limited the amount of work that both I and the web MJ’s were able to accomplish. The entire system slowed to an early-90’s, dial-up Internet crawl. The website became nearly impossible to work on. The computers stalled in every step. It took me five minutes just to open the right folders to search the art library for an image. Images refused to upload and the pages could not save or refresh. Forget about ever getting a story up on Facebook or Twitter. Converting links on Bit.ly took what felt like days.

Ultimately, each of the web MJ’s and I were only able to publish 1-2 stories each within a four hour period, because it simply took way too long to do even the most basic tasks. It was frustrating to say the least. Current Annenberg students shouldn't have to work with outdated and limiting equipment just because our school is investing in a new building. If we’re expected to be innovative and push the forefront of digital news, how can we allow an entire Annenberg student body to use technology that take three times as long as normal to do every single task? Frankly, it’s unacceptable and significantly limits our content output and our learning experience.

Around 12:30 p.m., I switched gears and began putting in graphics orders for the newscast. Two graphics artists called in sick, so the art director was challenged to fill the graphics orders on time. Staffing issues aside, I felt the afternoon went very smoothly and we problem-solved quickly when new graphics were ordered late in the day or revisions needed to be made.

Throughout the afternoon, having the help of an additional web supervisor was a lifesaver. I made the time to step away from creating graphics a couple of times to communicate with the afternoon web supervisor and make sure that the site still looked fresh and included the new interviews and photos we had received from journalists in the field. It was another example of teamwork serving as the foundation of a successful marriage between the newscast and website.

This position is all about time management, patience and communication. I enjoyed the creative aspect of developing stories for the web and thinking of captions for our on-air graphics. Hopefully, our crippling tech issues can be resolved, because I am eager to see both the newscast and website grow with compelling and interesting content in the weeks to come.

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