management – Page 7 – Survive Your Job In Television News

New manager, new rules

We are coming up on the “season of change” for managers. Changes are often made after May sweeps, so there’s time to get a new person in place before the fall. A new manager means new opportunity and possibly a new pitfall. Often people only worry about an ND change. An AND or EP change can make as much of a difference in your future. Do not underestimate their say in having you on a particular shift or having a job at all. You need to make a good first impression.

So what does an assistant news director consider when coming to a new newsroom? This person wants to make a mark. Understand that AND’s run the day-to-day operations. They are looking for people who will work with them to make changes. This is a delicate dance, because you don’t want to alienate the ND if the AND decides to buck the current system too much. You don’t want to end up in the middle of a political mess. Focus on working hard and avoiding answering questions about why the place runs the way it does. You do not know the AND’s agenda yet. You do not want the AND to walk into a meeting and say these changes will happen and you told him/her the changes are justified because the place is poorly run. Yes, this can and does actually happen. I’ve seen it more than once. Be agreeable. Read “The 3 B’s to win over your ND” and keep those points in mind when dealing with a new AND as well.

Now let’s talk about EP changes. Again, these people are trying to make a mark. You want to be agreeable and willing to work hard. Do yourself a favor and stay away from the group that tries to haze the new EP. This especially happens in mid to large markets. I watched it time and again. Hazing the new EP is not smart. I don’t care if you feel the person is clueless. Remember, this person still has a say in your reviews. This person can still move up in the company and blacklist you. (Yes, that really happens too.) Stay out of the politics. On the other hand, you also do not want to be the EP’s doormat. Say no to the EP sometimes so you don’t end up getting extra piles of work when the EP becomes swamped. Again, look over “ The 3 B’s” and follow a lot of that advice. You want to be a go getter and eager to do your job. But stay out of the politics.

Final thoughts on these new managers: Once they have time to settle down, sit down with them fairly regularly and pick their brains on the news biz as a whole. You can gain great insight on what they’ve seen and done. Both AND’s and EP’s do more training and critiquing of your work than the ND usually does. Asking for an occasional critique is a great way to continue to advance your skills. It also is a great way to form an alliance while keeping yourself out of the politics in your newsroom. View these new managers as a new opportunity to broaden your skills. Work hard for them and, you never know, they may take you along when they rise higher in the biz.

Attention, hornet’s nest! Signs the place you are considering working for is bad, bad news.

When we outlined how to tell when a station is a great place to work, we got a few messages asking, “How do you tell when a place is really bad?“ Fellow journalists, this is a tricky one! We may all be great at digging up dirt, but in many cases the leaders of the hornet’s nest, hell holes are better at covering it all up. There are a lot of bad shops. So many, in fact, you might say to yourself: “I’ll just go to the crappy place if it’s in the city where I want to live.” Whenever possible avoid the hell holes. It will increase your chances of actually keeping your job for more than 2 contracts. Trust us, moving gets old after a while.

Now the all important list of tell-tale signs that a station is a hell hole:

1. Chronic 3rd or 4th place in the ratings

2. Goes through news directors every 2-4 years

3. People in the business cringe when you tell them the general manager and/or news director’s name

4. Managers who tell you they plan to showcase you as the key figure or example to “set the new standard of excellence” at the station

5. Consultants come in regularly to re-define news philosophy

6. Management holds “emergency” meetings to discuss last night’s numbers on a regular basis

Explain this list you say? Sure.

First, you should always check out the ratings of the station you are considering. If it is a chronic 3rd or 4th place station you need to understand that turnover is easily twice as high as other stations in town. Chronic 3rd and 4th place stations almost always do one thing very well. Jump the gun. They constantly change philosophies and shift their balance of power. The news director who hires you will likely not last the term of your contract. Hired guns are often brought in to clean house. Then “The Fixer” shows up, and often works you to death then brings in fresh faces to make his/her mark on the station. The odds are very high you will get axed by one of these management teams. If you do survive you will then face the company man/woman who will do anything corporate says and is often an expert at shifting blame. This type of ND likes to prove he/she has a set by gunning for at least one old timer to prove he/she really isn’t a puppet. The higher up you are on the food chain, the more you are at risk. So, bottom line, even if you do survive you will become a paranoid nutcase and will probably shorten your life expectancy and/or develop bleeding ulcers!

This can happen a lot at second place stations as well. But, if the news director has been in place for 4 or more years, odds are higher that upper management thinks the person has a clue. That’s what you are looking for as long as you can handle that particular person’s style.

Which leads to our next point: If people in the business cringe when you tell them who the general manager and/or news director is, beware! Do some research and find out why though. You may have just met a person who got fired and has an axe to grind? Keep in mind that every news director and general manager has enemies. That’s why you need to ask for specific reasons why these people are hated. That will help you figure out if you met a few immature folks or if there is a legitimate cause for concern.

If you are told that you will be the new “gold standard” for quality at a station do not go there. We made this mistake several times. (Hey, it stroked our egos!) We learned the hard way that this sets you up for a very lonely and paranoid existence. Most of the time management will hold you up as the poster child for all that is good. Instantly you are as hated as the “Internal Affairs” detectives on every cop show you’ve ever watched! Part of working in news is dishing about how much you wish management would change things. If you are the example of what management wants, then to everyone else, you are management without the salary or backing. It just plain sucks and you don’t want to live it.

In the article “Interview the Station“, we recommend you ask management to clearly define its news philosophy. Here’s a more detailed explanation of why. Many stations don’t have a true, clear, news philosophy. That’s why many stations pay a lot of money to consultants. To be fair, some stations use consultants as another way to coach and define their philosophy. But in most cases the only time you hear anything about a news philosophy is when the consultant comes to town and gives all of the staffers a seminar. This is not ideal because you end up having to prove yourself to essentially another set of management. Consultants are often telling upper management whether your bosses suck. They often will judge you on one or two newscasts in a year, so you cannot have a bad day when they show up. They will let upper management know if they think you suck also and it could mean demotions or worse. So how do you determine if the station consulting team is a potential disaster? First find out how often they are at the station and whether they do one-on-one training with producers, reporters and anchors, each time. Once or twice a year usually means the consultant is an extra set of eyes for corporate. More than that means they are actually teaching the staff what to do because management isn’t getting the job done. That sets you up for a scenario of having to humor an additional set of “bosses.”

You also need to find out if the station you are considering is reactionary rather than pro-active. The number one clue: Constant meetings involving news managers, the general manager, and often promotions and sales managers to decode last night’s ratings. You find out if this is the case by asking. Executive producers will often tell you if you ask. Regular staffers will tell you this also. (Yet another good reason to get several names and make after hours calls to get the scoop!) Reactionary stations panic over their ratings and are often disorganized with little vision. They break into a panic during breaking news. They are often poor planners. They tend to look for people to shift blame onto, other than management itself. Basically, these stations exist in “cover your ass” mode 24/7. That means longer hours for you and more potential to trip on a political hot wire and get cut off at the knees. All stations have meetings to go over numbers. If a station has a particularly bad day, expect to see a meeting. The stations you need to worry about are the ones that meet every Monday, each week or every day during a ratings period without exception. They are not sold on their product and ability to pull off quality news and promotion. They will constantly switch things around on the fly to look for a hit. You are constantly at risk of being labeled the problem child. The odds of making it long term at that station are not good. Avoid the situation if you possibly can.

One last thought on hell holes. If you do mistakenly get into one and really don’t want to move remember, these places do tend to go through managers quickly. With a little luck you can hang tough and survive until a good manager shows up. Just be prepared to take a lot of antacids while you wait it out.

When the interview really counts: Why you must connect with the Assistant ND.

News Directors get all the attention traditionally when it comes to job interviews and station identity. They set the agenda for the station and have the most connections to help you in the future right? Not always. Over the years I have learned that getting along with the assistant news director can be even more important for several reasons.

First it’s a simple matter of exposure. You will barely see the news director. That person is just too busy any given day. That means when it comes to review time the person who will weigh in most heavily about you is the assistant news director. Also, this is the person you will go to first when you want time off, a different shift, have an ethical dilemma, personality conflict issue with a staffer, or are considering asking for a promotion. If you don’t see eye to eye with the assistant news director your stress level will easily double on the job.

Now, because you spend more time with the assistant news director, you must remember this person is the key influencer about you to the news director. The AND’s opinion carries a lot of weight. Yes, news directors can and sometimes do disagree with the AND’s view. But why risk a potential personality clash with a person that plays such a key role in determining your reputation?

Remember an AND’s reach goes way beyond the newsroom. Since assistant news directors spend a lot of time recruiting potential employees they are the true networkers for the station. They are constantly talking with people you want to impress in other markets nationwide.

Assistant news directors are also “in training” most of the time to become NDs. Very few are happy just to sit in the number two position. Most are waiting for their big chance to take control of a newsroom. If you get along with a real up and comer, this person could catapult both of your careers, as much or more than the ND him/herself.

So now that you know what’s at stake, here are some techniques to figure out if you and the assistant ND will get along.

Talk news philosophy
Ask for the AND’s role models
Do a background check

When you interview at a station you always need to figure out the news philosophy. It is key, and must happen. (See “Interview the Station” for ways to do this.) But when you ask questions about news philosophy, you need to really quiz the assistant news director. Here’s why: Just because the news director wants a station to go in a certain direction doesn’t mean the assistant news director agrees. This can be especially true in chronic 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th place stations. Often there are philosophical debates raging all the time about what the station’s news philosophy should be. The assistant news director is usually much more hands on in the day-to-day coverage decisions than the news director. Time and again I sat in newsrooms where the news director clearly stated one news philosophy, and the assistant news director executed a different news philosophy. I know that sounds crazy, but it happens A LOT. You need to make sure you can roll with both news philosophies if that’s the case. Sometimes you have to try and placate both the ND’s and AND’s expectations on a story. If the ND starts taking a more hands on approach you need to be able to change your work to reflect that news philosophy. Same is true if the AND expects a different news philosophy. If the two of them differ greatly, you need to decide whether you want to walk into a situation where you are constantly caught in the middle and being asked whose side you are on. You will end up in battles of will between the top two newsroom managers. You will feel like you cannot win, no matter what you do on any given day. If you get in this situation, it can be better to execute the AND’s news philosophy because he/she runs day-to-day operations in the newsroom. You cannot execute that if you don’t know what the AND wants.

Another way to make sure you and the assistant news director will jibe is to talk about your favorite news people during the interview. Ask who the AND’s mentors are and why. You will learn a lot about how this person ticks. Ask if the AND knows some of your favorite journalists and see what the reaction is to those names. You want a shared connection to start building a relationship if you decide to work with that particular AND.

If you have mutual acquaintances call those people to get more perspective. Just remember the AND will call also. Be on your p’s and q’s. You do not want the mutual acquaintance to say you thought the AND was a jerk, but you are trying to be sure. If you do not have mutual acquaintances then you really need to contact staffers at the AND’s former stations. We explain how to do this in The Station Called. The Job’s Yours. Now What?

Remember the AND will be the most influential in your day-to-day existence in a given newsroom. If you are like oil and water, it will mean you either lose a job or get an ulcer waiting for that AND to move on to greener pastures.

It’s GM’s agenda and you are stuck covering it “as news.”

We promise this situation will happen to you. It happened to us at several stations, in small to large markets. General Manager walks into an editorial meeting and says “So what are we doing to cover such and such, ( fill-in the blank, new road widening project, special session by legislature, tax incentive package for a new industry in town etc.) since our viewers the tax payers are getting screwed.” The news director gives a blank look followed by the lifted eyebrow smirk, then stares at you, “So how will you cover that story today?”

If this happens, say you are going to make some calls and get out of the room pronto. Better yet, grab your photog and get out of the building while you make those calls! Why? You do not want the GM to start going off on specific players and agendas for the story. You do not want specifics on how this story should be told, and exactly what the tease will say. That way, if it is the GM skimming headlines and misinterpreting reality, you won’t end up having to tell him/her. Without specifics chances are you can find some small nugget to package.

Next, call the newsroom mega brain. You know, the walking, talking, human factoid! This person can save you hours of stress and research. Do the necessary ego stroke and get the person to give you background information on this subject. You need time to work sources for a backup in case the story falls apart. The “human factoid” usually can at least provide the name and number for a player in town who will give you insight on whether the GM’s “news” really is “news.”

Do your thing, work it and try to find an interesting character or bit of video to showcase so you can get by. If there’s just nothing to the story give the basics, then try and include a little subtle perspective in your anchor intro or tag. Managers tend to play in that copy more anyway. This way, if the story is taken out of context and the GM gets a call, it will more likely become management’s problem instead of the reporter’s failing.

If you cannot find a nugget to package, and there’s simply nothing to the story, offer to write a vo or vo/sot and let your manager know early. That gives management time to derail the GM situation well before the newscast airs. It helps if you can offer an interesting alternative story the manager can have you churn out instead. Sometimes management will then take the GM “news” burden off of you and have an anchor front it somewhere cool on set. You are off the hook, and the GM still feels heard without the station blowing a weak story out of proportion.

If you are told to package a story and say certain things in a tease you don’t like, try and do a subtle rewrite. Also, know this happens to everyone from time to time. Chances are your credibility is not ruined. Those in the know in town realize you got stuck “being the good soldier.”