For the first half of my summer, I'm taking a news producing class with Holly Edgell, KOMU's executive producer.
It's definitely a lot different than reporting. In the past 2 weeks, I've learned so much...including to be calm and in control in the "control" booth (where producers, directors, production crew sit to cue anchors/live reporters and punch in graphics). :-)
Holly's website has weekly guest blogger, and this is what I wrote for last week's blog!
It’s like that SNL skit with President Obama never losing his cool: The producer’s job is to keep stressful situations under control.
After my second week of producing, I’ve learned that one of the most important parts of the job is to always have a game plan. During the shift, you’re focused on putting together your newscast, but you also have to keep in mind plan B, C, and D.
For example, we had two live shots on Friday (one reporter and one meteorologist), and both had live headlines. But right before the reporter’s headline, the live truck went out, and we basically lost their signal. Since she was our top story, my TA and I immediately had to move stories around until we got in touch with her.
Fortunately, my TA took charge by telling the director to put the story back in after the first weather. But during the weather was still going, he started yelling, “swing the mast!” And that’s when the director yelled back to him to stop shouting. While this was going on, our anchors in the studio had no idea what was going on. Since my TA ripped off his headset for a moment, the director was the one who had to jump in to let the anchors know what was coming up. Even though we ended up getting the signal back and finished the show on time, our lack of preparation caused the anchors to look confused and misinformed.
I’ve learned that the producers always have to keep in mind what to do if the live shot or a story didn’t make it on the news. And if we do make changes to the rundown, we have to make sure the director knows so he or she can inform the technical crew. We also have to let the anchors, the meteorologist, and the live reporter know the game plan as well.
Communicating with the entire news crew is a key, especially in the control booth. During the rundown meeting before the newscast, it’s the producer’s job to make sure the director knows exactly what’s going to happen in the newscast.
When we lost the signal from the reporter, we should have called the live truck operator to find out what was going on, but instead we panicked and lost control. Producers are basically what keep the entire newscast together. So if we freak out and stop communicating, the viewers will immediately know that something is wrong because the whole news team depends on the producer to fix the problem. Our job is to make sure the flow of the newscast is seamless.
At one point in my morning newscast last week, I was on the phone with Rod, trying to write a story, and run the prompter all at the same time. It was overwhelming to handling all of that, but it’s my responsibility to deal with the stress because the news goes on whether I like it or not.
Sure, our job is nothing compared to what the President deals with. Still, dealing with stressful situations in the control booth isn’t easy, but it’s something I hope to eventually master.
