Producing – Page 13 – Survive Your Job In Television News

Producing Alliances: Assign and direct.

Line producers are often in a very uncomfortable spot in newsrooms. You are in charge of a newscast, yet you are not a manager with any teeth. Competition between producers generally is pretty intense so you cannot really confide in another producer at your station. Your job is confusing for other people in the newsroom to really grasp. You don’t want to spill your guts to your EP, so it can appear in your review a few months later.

So who do you align yourself with? I always had the best luck with directors and assignment editors.

In the article “Right Hand Meet Your Left” I describe why having a good relationship with your director is important. Now I want to talk more about the benefits of this smart alliance.

Directors tend to be extremely detail oriented. That means they can pick up on things you might do that you aren’t even aware of. When starting out as a producer, I had problems with my weekend newscasts timing out correctly. During the morning and weekday noon shows, I had no timing problems. I tried different techniques for several weeks with no luck. I was ready to pull my hair out! Then I decided to ask the director for advice. But, he was much more experienced and I was concerned he would think less of me. When I finally asked if he noticed anything about my timing he said: “Yes. I’ve been waiting for you to ask. I didn’t want to seem pushy.” Turns out, the final commercial break varied wildly from the rundown format. I had never known to check the traffic log for my breaks. That was never taught to me. He showed me where to get the log and what to look for. I never mistimed a show again.

Directors also tend to be dismissed by managers and other newsroom employees during a shift. Because of this, they hear everything and if you have developed a strong relationship based on trust, your director may give you a heads up when something big is about to happen that involves you. Several times I found out management was considering moving me to another newscast, from my director. I had several days to prepare before news management got around to telling me. I never betrayed the director’s trust and was able to arm myself if I didn’t like the shift change to try and fight for “my show.”

In some shops directors are considered managers. They are consulted before changes take place especially when it comes to formatting newscasts. You want a heads up when possible and you want to be able to weigh in. Several times directors came to me with proposed format or policy changes and asked my opinion before weighing in themselves. We wanted to be on the same page to protect our shift.

The other smart alliance is with assignment editors. (We will dedicate an entire article to assignment editors soon. They are unsung heroes in many newsrooms.) I went out of my way to develop a relationship with my assignment editors because often they are the next closest thing to producers in terms of constant grind. Again, assignment editors are a type of manager, yet don’t really have teeth, just like producers. And, just like producers, they sit down to work and don’t get downtime until they are in the car on the way home. Assignment editors are also consulted on things that impact your shift, but involve the crews more. They are a great resource for understanding what the crews in the field are going through during an actual shift. Usually the crews are too swamped to fill you in themselves. Crews know management will check in with the assignment desk and therefore usually tell the desk any elements first. If you are not respectful to your assignment editor, you will not get as many updates about the crews and will not get to weigh in on how you want those updates. This can have a dramatic impact on your day-to-day job duties. Also, if you are curt toward your assignment editor, you will end up having to constantly check the assignment file and scroll through hoping to figure out what the newest information is on local vo’s etc. If you are respectful, you might get a top line or quick phone call so you know when to write local elements and when to wait for crucial information.

So how do you set up a solid relationship with the assignment desk? If you have even a moment help make some calls when the desk is overwhelmed. I used to ask my associate producer to check with the assignment editor to see if he/she needed a quick break once or twice a shift. My AP could listen to the scanners and answer the phone and my assignment editor could at least walk the building or grab a snack and relax a little. If breaking news hit, I had the AP get on the desk with the assignment editor and help make calls or, if the assignment editor preferred, be in charge of sending me top lines about the information like a crews’ ETA to the breaking news scene.

Bottom line, producers cannot do their job properly without information, and without a way to cleanly place that information on a television screen. Treat the people who allow you to perform these key tasks with respect and you will get the help you need to put on the best newscast possible each day.

Your Producing Voice: How you get into anchor’s heads.

I have a secret for producers. It’s something your anchors aren’t going to tell you. However, they may say it behind your back. Your voice in our IFB tells us everything we need to know about how good you are at what you do — or whether you have a long way to go.

A friend of mine reminded me of this the other day. In 2004, she produced the wall-to-wall coverage of Hurricane Charley that I anchored at WSPA-TV. As a new hurricane, Irene, was barreling toward the Carolina coast, she was reminiscing on my Facebook wall about the chaos going on behind-the-scenes at the station when Charley hit the Myrtle Beach area.

But her experience was far different from mine. All I remember from that day in 2004 was her soft, reassuring voice in my head calmly telling me which satellite shot to go to next. She’d line-up one. Sometimes it would work out and I could talk with the reporters out on the beach as the wind and rain beat them harder and harder. In those conditions, the satellite shot would go down a lot, though. It probably stressed her out to the max. But you couldn’t tell by her voice. With smooth, even tones, she’d let me know we’d lost that one and suggest where to go next. If she didn’t have a suggestion, I’d just ad-lib until we got back on-track.

Sometimes when she’d open her mic, I could hear someone near her in the booth screaming. It was clear that day who was really in control in the “control room,” the producer really knew what she was doing.

I’ve worked with some brilliant producers. The best are “power producers” in the newsroom who build innovative, incisive blocks of news that showcase their anchors’ full range of personality. Throughout the day, they prod their reporters. And they can be gruff when they’re not getting what they want.

But then, right before their show, they ascend the steps above the director to the producer’s perch in the control room and it’s like they take on the personality of a guardian angel: wise, patient, and soft-spoken. Like Bela Karolyi, the best use breaks in the action to coach their anchors into an Olympic performance.

“Nice ad-lib there on story X,” you might hear them say during a commercial break. “You had the whole control room laughing.”

Or it can be as simple as: “Great pacing on that A-block. We’re right on time.”

That doesn’t mean stroking your anchors’ egos. I don’t want you to tell me I’m doing a good job if the show’s a train wreck or my energy is off. You should still communicate with me though.

“Live shots down all over the place,” you might say. “Gotta love live TV! Just keep doing what you’re doing. We’ll get through it — and we needed material for the holiday party blooper tape anyway.”

It really is like that scene from Broadcast News when the producer, played by Holly Hunter, got the very inexperienced anchor, played by William Hurt, through a special report about Libya. Hopefully you won’t need to be the ventriloquist Hunter’s character nearly becomes in that scene. But this quote from the movie’s anchor is so true:

“You’re an amazing woman,” he tells his producer. “What a feeling having you inside my head!”

So the next time you feel like hitting that button in the booth and really letting your anchor have it in his IFB, remember that. You’re in his head. And what you say will dramatically impact his performance for the rest of that show — and maybe for the rest of the time you work together.

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Matthew Nordin is a morning anchor and investigative reporter at Raycom Media’s WMBF News, the NBC affiliate in Myrtle Beach, SC. He was an anchor/reporter at WSPA-TV in Greenville/Spartanburg, SC from 2001-2005. Soon, he’ll write about communicating with your anchor during live interviews. You can follow him on Twitter @MatthewNordin

Bottoms up! Making sure your newscast is ready, no matter what.

It’s is one of the hardest things to pull off as a producer: Making it to air, clean and polished, despite managers constantly changing your rundown and getting slammed with breaking news.

One time I had a news director reworking my rundown so much, I ended up having just two hours to turn an hour long newscast. I made it with help from associate producers and my anchors, but vowed never to be in that horrible position again. Many of us know producers who write during the newscast, printing scripts a block before they air. This is preventable. Here’s how.

You produce bottom’s up. No you don’t take a flask to work for your top drawer (as tempting as that can be). You literally produce from the bottom of your rundown to the top. It works for all newscasts. Here’s how to do it, using an hour long newscast as an example. Usually the final two blocks of your rundown are segmented and similar day to day. Format, assign the anchor reads & graphics and write these blocks first. Have these stories edited first as well. Next, work on the c-block and :45 block. Put these to bed. Then, do the :30 block and the b-block, except the block leads. Again, finesse what you write, and have the stories edited quickly. Now, in the last two hours, you can concentrate on the a-block as well as the b-block and :30 leads. This way when all hell breaks loose you can slam out any breakers that pop. You will have segments finished that look polished and are complete. So if a breaker doesn’t make it in time you have lots of finished content.

Now let’s talk about backups. Have plenty on hand, stashed throughout your rundown. These backup stories should vary in length to fit different timing needs. This will help make sure you can hit meters nearly to the second. You assign these backup stories to your associate producer (AP) early in the day, and whenever interesting stories develop. Some producers even make AP’s rework package scripts into vo/sot backups in case the reporter moves to breaking news and the newscast gets heavy on time. Again, you want these assigned as early in your shift as possible. That way you can spend the back half of your shift rolling with management decisions and breaking news.

Wait to assign which stories you tease in which spots in the rundown, until one hour before printing. You do this because if the bosses make you blow up your rundown, changing the teases can eat a lot of your precious time. Write those teases in separate scripts at the bottom of the rundown, so editors can put them together. Then move the individual tease scripts up into the rundown and assign anchor reads an hour before printing.

A final trick, put dummy scripts in your rundown that have basic formatting (i.e.- “take vo” cues etc.). If your shop allows it, you can even have these built into the rundown format so you don’t have to create them every day. Also, throw in anchor reads for the block leads the night before.

Here’s a summary:

How to produce it quick!

Bottom’s up!
AP writes backup scripts of differing lengths.
Write entire blocks early.
Assign teases to their spots 1 hour before printing.
Format dummy scripts.
Assign some anchor reads the night before.

Right hand meet your left hand. Now catch! The relationship between producers and directors.

Before you read this article, humor me and ball up a sheet of paper. Throw it into the air and try and catch it with only one hand. Then switch hands. Then use both hands. Bottom line, you will catch the waded up paper ball more easily, and often, with both hands. You can catch a ball with one hand, but with both hands your odds increase dramatically. This is how I like to describe the relationship between a producer and a director.

I was lucky enough to land my first job as a full producer in a top 30 market. I was a rookie “kid” paired with veteran anchors and directors. These directors taught me a tremendous amount about “producing” in that first job. They caught my rookie mistakes and without chastising me, worked around them live on TV. After the newscast they took the time to sit with me and teach me how to prevent the same problem from happening again. Soon after, I worked in a top 20 market. Same scenario: The directors talked me through any mistakes. I quickly learned the person I needed to align myself with was my director.

After that, when I interviewed for producing jobs, I always asked to meet the director before deciding on a gig. If that person and I didn’t click, the job wouldn’t work. I felt that strongly about the connection of right and left hand. By requesting to meet the director right away, I also usually gained a loyal ally. I showed respect even before getting the job. This went a long way toward establishing a solid relationship. Don’t get me wrong, I sometimes had knock down drag outs with directors over mistakes on the air. But because they knew I had a basic respect for the job they did, we could work through the differences.

Producers and directors have something important in common; they are both responsible for a lot of things they have very limited control over. If a reporter steps out of a shot just as you take it live, you both get in trouble for taking the pic even if you cued the reporter. If master control gives you the wrong time for a commercial break and you miss a meter, you are both in trouble. This is often where producers and directors play the blame game. Don’t fall victim to this. Both producers and directors tend to be control freak type personalities. Sit down and decide who is responsible for what. For example, once I established IFB, my director would check the live shot, if the reporter did not respond, the director had final say on taking the live shot or going straight to the package. It was faster that way, since the director had a finger on the button, or control of the TD sitting right beside him/her. Bottom line, let the director manage the technical elements while you focus on content and timing. Again, consider the right hand/left hand analogy. You would not cross one hand over the other to catch your paper ball. Set up who’s making the call on what, then, support each other.

If you are still not convinced that this is a crucial relationship to establish, let’s talk breaking news. There are times when breakers happen so fast on live television that you simply cannot tell everyone who needs to know what you are doing in time. An example: police standoffs. I was once boothing continuing coverage of a standoff when the SWAT team showed up. The GM and ND came in to have a philosophical debate over what to show. They kept interrupting me as I tried to give directions to the production crew and more importantly the anchors. My director knew how I thought because we talked so much about breaking news and had set up clear roles. Several times he was able to “take over” while I listened to the bosses. He literally knew what I was going to say, before I could say it. If we had not developed a strong relationship, with mutual respect, things would have fallen apart on live TV. We were consistent with each other, and knew each other’s job needs. The right hand was able to catch the ball, while the left hand was tied up. It is a crucial relationship whether playing catch or putting on a live broadcast!