The smallest market that Nielsen ranks is Glendive, Montana, #210. It is among the more beautiful places you’ll probably never see. The Yellowstone River flows through the middle of town, according to the chamber of commerce, and you can see a triceratops skull found in 1991 and attend Buzzard Day, no date given. Glendive is one of those places people would rather visit than live in, though. That’s probably why it only has 4,000 TV-viewing homes. I’m sure there have been some wonderful journalists who’ve gotten their start there. But being that Buzzard Day is listed among the top attractions, I’m thinking it was a lonely start. So what do [...]
With the constant push for more and more content, I am seeing producers use wipes between stories to keep up the pace. This can be a highly effective technique to showcase stories. It also can be very uncomfortable to watch if misused. So when should you wipe between stories? There are three common rules: If stories have the same type of subject with a common link (i.e. – three crime stories that happened overnight, three parades on a holiday etc.) To showcase different elements of the same story (i.e. – “Here is what the fire looked like when it first started.”, then a wipe to more fire crews arriving on [...]
Small Market, USA — No matter how many hours you’ve spent watching Diane Sawyer over the years and dreamed of anchoring Good Morning America or World News, for some people getting that first TV reporting gig results in a revelation: I wasn’t cut-out for this. I recently got an e-mail from a young woman who was frank that journalism isn’t the part of the TV business she feels passionate about. Not only that, she worries she’s not doing a good job. “I went to school, yes, but there’s things they don’t teach there,” she said in her first e- mail to me. SurviveTVNewsJobs.com has agreed not to reveal the woman’s [...]
"Welcome to the Big Leagues kid." A reporter's perspective.
Honing Skills, Reporting, Survival Kit
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Apr 172013
You’d think that standing on 5th Avenue, just yards from the Empire State Building, with police, tourists and business people swarming everywhere, would drive home the reality that I was finally reporting on the nation’s biggest stage. But none of that had really sunk in until I started my 10th or 11th straight live shot of the afternoon and a big New York City garbage truck pulled up about three feet from my left hand. As I began recounting the story of a deranged man killing a former coworker outside the city’s most recognizable landmark for an NBC client in Australia, a guy jumped off the back of the [...]
I’ve been traveling and one market I was in, is really putting heavy emphasis on its late newscasts. Competition is tight, a new broadcasting powerhouse just bought a station and it’s ready to make a big play. Veteran journalists know what this means. More live, more often, even if it’s in the pitch dark. So I sat and watched the new competition come in and make it’s presence known. The takeaway, live shots in black holes. Live for the sake of being live. Showcasing that the reporters are everywhere with a simple word, in an upper corner of the TV screen, repeated over and over: LIVE. As a former nightside [...]
