Team C 4:20 Newscast

I was very pleased with how Team C's newscast turned out today. Although I was nervous about producing, I felt confident throughout the class that everything would turn out. In the end, nothing exploded or caught on fire. We ended on time and had some very thoughtful and interesting stories along the way.

The hardest part was completing the rundown. Today was a rather slow news day, so choosing the top story was difficult. I was originally going to lead with Emily Knox's story on the donation collections for soldiers, but later switched it to the Interstate 81 update. I think it was the right decision because it was more timely and connected to the following copy story on tomorrow's Big East game.

I am very proud of all of my reporters. They were great with communication - I knew where they were and what they were doing throughout the day. All of the stories were well put together. The only thing that was stressful regarding the reporters was the time crunch at the end. Two of the stories weren't even in the rundown until three minutes before we had to be outside of the studio. But like I said, nothing exploded, nothing caught on fire.

Emily was especially great today. She got her story done right away and was able to help me out. She produced the last two weeks and answered all of my questions. She helped me write out a SOT, Jesse time and Simon and Ivory save their stories.

Jesse did a solid job as an anchor. Anchoring is nerve-wrecking and although he said he was a little nervous, he read well. I was glad he was able to time out the stories beforehand.

Regarding timing, I decided to throw out the kicker at the last minute because we were fifteen seconds over going into the commercial. The kicker was funny, but it's the kicker. Today, it served its purpose well (as in being able to be kicked out). We finished with three seconds to spare and Jesse did a great job of staying calm despite having to cut the story.

The reason why we ended up needing to kick the kicker was because the copy story I wrote on the Prius accident was too long. We were under ten seconds half an hour before going into the studio, so I actually ended up adding more information to the story right before we went in. What I learned is that sometimes shorter stories go a longer way - no pun intended. With such a fast newscast, it's important to write tight rather than add words because you are worried about being under. If you are under, well, that's why floaters are there.

As I walked out of class today, I was happy. Producing was exciting and I really felt like I was in a newsroom. We all worked together, sharing flash drives and story ideas to produce four great newscasts. Greg Shillinglaw shared a story with me and I was very thankful for his help. And throughout the day, Allie and I worked together as we embarked on the path of producing for the first time together. All in all, I'm excited to produce again.