Team D Newscast (4:30)

Today was my first time as a producer for a newscast and at first I wasn't as nervous or stressed as I thought I would be about it. However, when Tuesday night came around and none of my reporters had their stories approved, I started to feel the pressure. By Wednesday morning, only David had his story approved by the news director, but Jake and Simon still didn't have definite ideas. Despite this early setback, I am very happy with the way our newscast came out.

Jake came up with a last minute story during the production meeting. I told him what the best angle to take would be and he came back with the perfect story we needed to fill in our newscast, which centered mostly around the Sweet 16 and Elite 8 of the NCAA tournament being played in the Dome this weekend. The story was about how businesses were being affected because of the teams and fans coming to Syracuse for the games. Jake did a great job live in studio reporting his wrap, too.

David did his wrap on what was happening at the Dome during the day and how ticket sales were for the tournament. He was in contact with me all morning and always gave me a heads up on any changes in the angle he was taking with his story.

Simon did a great job as anchor. He put in great effort with phoners, even though he was not having luck getting in contact with some of the places I told him to call. He eventually got a good interview about the Empire State Games and how they are starting again this summer after being cancelled last year. His pace was good and he rarely got flustered, except maybe one or two times when he fumbled over his words.

The beginning of the newscast was timed very well, only one or two seconds off. I'm not sure at what point exactly, but during one of the wraps time went over a little bit and we went into the break 20 seconds late, but I was not worried. I told Simon to read the kicker, a medium version of the weather and a quick closing. I also told him that if there was less then 15 seconds left when he got to the weather to read a quicker version. That was probably a mistake because the short version of the weather was about 3 seconds long, but Simon did a great job with the longer closing and was prepared to do so.

Even though I didn't have great contact with my team before today, I think we worked very well together while putting together and putting on the newscast today, when it mattered most. Jake and David have both produced newscasts before and helped me whenever I needed it and gave me advice about things they learned from producing. Simon also helped out a lot writing stories for the newscast and helping to edit the stories I wrote.