Team B: 4:10 Newscast

Being a producer was very different from being an anchor. I found both to be stressful, but the type of stress was very different. I thought our prep was pretty good, but that proved to not be the case. The only story that I originally thought we were going to do was Jessica's. She was one of the reporters, she went to Best Buy for a report on 3-D TVs. Her story was great, but it ran a bit over. That was an issue that I didn't think was going to be a problem, because I thought we were so light that we might actually need a floater, but we actually had to drop the kicker because we didn't have enough time.

Greg was the other reporter. When I went to bed Tuesday night, he was doing a story about Chase bank and something about how banks were changing, I wasn't really sure about the details, but it sounded interesting enough for him to do. Unfortunately, no bank would talk to him. To quote Greg, "Being a student reporter sucks."

Desperate for a story idea, Greg decided to go to the Syracuse Common Council Meeting, but he originally couldn't find a car to get there. Eventually, he found one, and got some great sound. His decision to get sound from two different councillors saved the entire newscast.

Natalie was the only one who's story was up in the air at 12:45. We had a lot of good ideas, but all of them feel though. It was incredibly frustrating. About twenty minutes before the newscasts, three failed ideas later, we decided to use the other councillor that Greg interviewed for Natalie's ACT. We were still under a ridiculous time crunch, because we had twenty minutes to find sound, write the story, and get the scripts out.

On top of that, the only computer that ENPS would allow to edit the rundown and scripts was mine, so we had to work on one story at a time, which made us go even slower.

I had a minor freak out during this period, but it was a planned freak out to light a fire under Natalie so she would hurry up.

When the newscast came, we had our script and sound, I thought we were golden. But of course we weren't. As the newscast continued, we were pretty good on time when Natalie got to an ACT I had written. Much to my horror, the script was not finished. While stressing about everyone else, I had neglected to finish one of my stories. Both Natalie and Ryan did a great job improvising and not making the story look like a complete disaster, but my heart dropped into my stomach, because I was incredibly disappointed with myself for being the chink in the newscast that we had all worked so hard on.

When it was all said and done, I breathed a few times, got some stir fry and thought about the newscast a few times. I actually had enjoyed myself. I think for the first time, I did a fantastic job leading my team. Since I am naturally disorganized, the details aspect of the newscast was not as tight as it needs to be. But I think the next time around, I will get that part, and hope to do a great newscast without any mishaps next time I produce.

before class, informing me of their story ideas. The help from them is what made my job as a producer so much easier.