Category: Survival Kit

The Art Of Ad-Lib.

The job description: “You will have the ability to easily and credibly ad-lib during breaking news, unexpected events in your newscast or when your teleprompter crashes.  You will also ask relevant questions of reporters during live shots that add content and help our viewers better understand stories.”

 

As an anchor, that’s a shop where I want to work.  It means management has high expectations of its anchors and believes they should not just be seen, but also heard by viewers.  That takes a lot of work.

 

The art of ad-lib requires good preparation. The best ad-libs are seldom truly spontaneous.  You have to be deeply involved in the content of your newscast.

 

I used to work for a news director who, correctly, prohibited scripted questions because nothing sounds more canned.  So, I would talk with our reporters ahead of time about their story content to see what nugget of information we could discuss on the air unscripted.  That accomplished several things.  It helped me understand their stories better.  If I had to listen to a producer changing the rundown during the live shot, I still had a pretty good idea what the reporter was saying.  Also, a solid expected question gives the reporter a chance to shine with the answer.  She looks good and so do you.

 

The “unexpected” during a newscast comes in many forms, but you can still prepare for a lot of it simply by understanding what could be coming your way.  A few nights ago, a large fight with 400 people involved happened in a tiny town in our viewing area.  Before she went on the air, one of our anchors thought to look up the population of the town so she could calculate the percentage living there involved in the fight.  She was prepared to extend the live shot with our reporter if needed.  Brilliant, because that’s exactly what happened.

 

Your preparation is your responsibility.  Unless you’re working for a network morning show, no one gives you a briefing book.

 

One of the things that helps is to ask the question, how much of this newscast could I really ad lib if I had to?  Not many of us can memorize a newscast, but understanding the content will carry you through a lot when the prompter crashes on the first story…like mine did last night.

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Cameron Harper is an evening anchor/reporter at WPTY, Memphis.  He has won numerous awards and his motto on Twitter is “the teleprompter is only a suggestion.”  Check him out at www.cameronharper.com and you can follow him on Twitter @NewsCam.

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What can we learn from crusty old journalists.

There is a very witty blog called Stuffjournalistslike.com that is truly a blast to read.  I had tears streaming down my face with laughter.  One article on Grumpy old journalists, actually made me nostalgic for some of the crusty old reporters from my past.  It reminded me that there are fewer of these old die hards and that the lessons we gained from them cannot be lost.

Mandates of a crusty old journalist

  • No room for errors (especially fact errors)
  • No exaggerations
  • Don’t take a person’s word for it
  • Deadlines are mandatory
  • Don’t screw your team over

Fellow journalists, we have failed those crusty old guys in terms of journalistic integrity.  A lot of embarrassing errors and exaggerations make air.  (The Jeremy Lin, ESPN “Chink In the Armor” reference is just the latest.)   Crusty old journalists do not use cheesy phrases.  (Honestly, even if the people didn’t know that “Chink” can be taken as a highly offensive ethnic slur, it is a cheesy phrase to use highlighting a 1 game losing streak.) Old timers also always made sure their pieces were not just fact checked once, but triple checked.  They did not assume they could not screw something up just because they are veterans in their field.  To them, you had your facts checked simply because, there was no room for error.  These old timers would say “If you can’t get your facts straight, you don’t deserve to be a journalist!”  That’s why you fact check and refuse to exaggerate.

So, naturally, crusty old journalists were special kinds of skeptics.  If a PIO said “This is the way it is!” and walked off in a huff that reporter knew to call “Bullshit!  Prove it.”  To take a line from Missouri’s state mantra, “Show me.” Crusty old journalists didn’t care if they occasionally pissed off a PIO.  They remembered a key fact:  PIO’s need to respect journalists also.  That journalist would go to a source in order to fact check the PIO.  And if the PIO was lying, you can bet that old timer would expose the truth.

But the last two mandates of a crusty old journalist are the most important if you want to survive and thrive in a modern day newsroom.  Don’t miss deadlines and don’t screw your team over.  (These go hand in hand.)  I get that the new mantra is more “me” oriented.  But here’s the deal, putting “deadlines” and “team” first actually puts your best interests first.  If you are screwing over the producer, anchor, photographer or manager regularly you will face payback.  And, oh by the way, it will hurt.  Don’t make yourself vulnerable.  Be an untouchable, crusty old journalist.

 

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Alliteration: Like, Loathe or Lose?

A producer recently tweeted asking if we could put some mandates on the use of alliteration, and share how we feel about the use of alliteration at all.  Simply put:  Alliteration is overused in news copy.  Yes, it is catchy and can re-engage the ear.   But it also trivializes stories if not done just right.

So here are mandates for the use of alliteration:

  • Avoid it in cold opens and headlines
  • Do not use it in crawls
  • Write descriptions of video first
  • Use it sparingly in kickers and teases

We often hear alliteration used in teases.  There are two types of “teases” where you should not use alliteration:  Headlines at the top of a show and cold open type copy.  (For those of you new to the biz, when I say cold open, I am talking about the fancy copy used before the anchors say hello at the top of a newscast.  It often has video and/or sound or very powerful phrases to try and suck the viewer into the lead story.)  The reason why is simple.  These are serious stories.  They define the type of news you are providing to the viewer in the newscast and you cannot afford to risk trivializing that content.

The risk of trivializing the content, is the reason you should not use alliteration in lower thirds or crawls either.  Frankly, alliteration can also look a little goofy when reading it.  It is not as effective as hearing the words.

When you are tempted to use alliteration in a story or tease, first look at the video and write down a few phrases that describe the pictures you will show.  Often this will spark an idea for an interesting element to tease that doesn’t need alliteration. (For more on how to look at and better write to video read  Can you picture it and Reel em in without exaggerating.)

If you just can’t resist, use alliteration in teases and kickers sparingly.  By sparingly I mean one or two teases per newscast maximum, and two kickers per week.  I am giving numbers to encourage you to really work around this crutch.  That way when you do use alliteration, your viewer will love how it sounds, not loathe hearing it again, so you don’t have to lose the technique altogether.

 

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Story tell or make a meter point? How to do both.

Timing a newscast is tough.  There’s no other way to say it.  Even experienced producers find themselves banging their heads against the wall during some newscasts.  Especially when you want to encourage your reporters to turn compelling packages that tell stories instead of just spitting out facts.  A tweet I recently saw by a producer made me concerned though. It said that good storytelling beats out making meter points.  Here’s the deal:  If you don’t hit meter points, you can and likely will blow your ratings.  Then you, the producer, will lose your job.  But it should not come to that because you can do both.  Storytelling should not cook the clocks.  It should set the clocks so you can maximize the team effort and boost the ratings.  Here’s how.

Timing, one block at a time

  • Hide some pad
  • Write accordion copy
  • Segment it out

When I timed newscasts, I treated each block as a mini-show.  That means, as all producers are aware, that you must have elements to help you stretch and elements you can dump to save time.  I did this first with hidden pad time.  I would round up the time for the cold open or the teases to buy a little wiggle room.  I would add a few seconds to any chat time designed within a block.  I even rounded up my commercial break times so I would have a few seconds to take if I needed.

Then I wrote a vo/sot/tag or two that could stand without the bite if I needed.  Just script it with that tag as a third page so you can quickly kill the bite.  I also would add an extra fact at the end of a vo, that the anchors could use to transition with (see Anchors don’t have chemistry ) that I could easily dump.  I called it accordion copy.  I could have the anchors read it all and make time, or I could chop a section and the story still made sense and I made up time.

Segment out your work when appropriate. This includes the story telling from reporters.  For an explanation of how to do this read “Produce it up ”  Here’s a quick summary.  Have the reporter give you an interesting element for your intro, and some additional information for the anchor tag.  If you can, make that anchor tag a vo or graphic with a line at the beginning that could stand alone.  This way, if the package comes in long, you have a quick way to make the time up.  The anchors read the first line of the tag and the graphic or vo is gone.  I tried to segment out one story per block, where I created interesting elements over several script pages.  This made the newscast look different, gave me a creative edge, and helped me have an easy way to make up time without giving up important content.  If I was in a timing pinch the viewer still got the facts, just not some of the flash.

All of the above mentioned scenarios are ways to story tell.  Remember, reporters don’t get all the dibs on storytelling.  Reporters should be encouraged to tell interesting stories instead of reporting facts.  Producers also need to emphasize the big picture, especially for those reporters that tend to chronically go long and turn in stories late.  You know, the ones who then say they “can’t help it, they are storytelling.”  Field crews should let you know if they are going long early enough for you to make a plan.  It’s basic respect for the overall product.  If you get stuck with a chronic “late and longer,” the tricks I just shared should still help you story tell without cooking all of the clocks.

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