producer – Page 9 – Survive Your Job In Television News

Producer driven, doesn’t mean absolute power.

The trend in the TV industry keeps moving more toward the concept that “content is king.” In fact in the “2011 State of the News Media Annual Report,” trends show that in many markets managers consider newscasts appeal to be the brand more than the anchors. This means more newsrooms are turning into so called producer driven shops. Producers are becoming more of a commodity. With that comes more power. I even know of newsrooms in recent years where on air personalities took double digit pay cuts, while producers only had pay freezes. You can hear grumblings, “Yep it’s good to be the producer.” I also have seen some of those producers develop diva tendencies.

As a former producer it is nice to see producers get some long deserved respect for all the hard work. The job is a grind with a high burnout rate. Producers should be rewarded and compensated for taking on such an intense job. That said, you still need to form smart alliances with your coworkers. Especially reporters. In “Hey she got more time,” we explain to reporters how to think more like a producer. Now it’s time for producers to think more like reporters. Here’s why: When news managers decide “content is king” this ups the ante on producers to provide fresh elements in newscasts. In other words, with more attention placed on what you put into a newscast comes a price. You, the show producer, need to break news. You need to have fresh angles while on the line churning shows. You need to story tell even when the content is not presented in a reporter package form. (see “Produce it up.”)

Producers, the point is without your reporters solidly behind you, your newscast and you will fail. The crews provide the great nat sound for your local vo/sots. Reporters and assignment editors provide insight on how to source build if you are clueless. And don’t think that you won’t be expected to break news because you sit in the newsroom all day grinding a rundown. I worked in many producer driven shops and, in one of them, I was required to break 3 stories a week as a producer. Yes, that was on top of putting together my newscast and being unable to leave the newsroom to have lunches and shake hands with potential sources. How did I pull it off? I learned from some great reporters and assignment editors.

When content becomes a larger focus than showcasing anchor personalities, producers lose leeway for making mistakes. Mistiming a show and blowing a meter point can become a fire-able offense. I worked for one management team that did not allow us to go 15 seconds past a meter point. 15 seconds leeway is not easy to pull off, even when you are a seasoned producer. This means you cannot afford to have reporters miss slot. You cannot afford to have reporters turn in packages under or over time without your knowledge. The weather person cannot go long. Seeing my point here, yet? Producer driven shops actually make producers more dependent on other positions in the newsroom performing at a high level, for producers to also keep their jobs.

This leads to a big revelation for us control freak producers. Life doesn’t flow like a rundown. Commit that one to memory. Life doesn’t flow like a rundown. Time and again I witnessed producers that just could not roll well with change, especially late in their shift. Reporters were berated. Anchors were screamed at. The assignment desk was attacked mercilessly. You are paid to execute plans. You are told to make sure certain types of content runs at certain points. You hold your breath and hope to make the meter point to the second. On any given day the reality is, you will get about half of what you need to make your newscast sing.

You are paid to make it work even when you are handed a pile of crap. Lashing out at reporters and assignment editors that are not giving you the content you hoped for is a quick way to guarantee they will not go the extra mile to give you content the next day. If you want a newscast with killer content, and you don’t want to find all of it yourself each day, you need to cut your reporters SOME slack and hear them out when you are told certain angles just aren’t there. Sure there are some reporters you can count on more than others. Remember to not burn your stars that try to never leave you hanging. Those reporters are smart enough to know they are a big asset to you and can start pitching their ideas for other newscasts. This is especially true in mid to large sized markets.

So how do you think like a reporter? First have a frame of reference that stories don’t just appear in an hour. Be cognizant of drive time for field crews for example. If you want to tease a story that takes 2 hours for the crew to drive to, late in the day, then get creative about the tease and leave the crew largely alone. Don’t start calling to make sure the angle you want on a story is really happening, two hours after the crew walked out the door. That is, unless it is a late breaker and you have no choice because you are about to go to air. Be prepared to be flexible and move reporter pkgs around in the rundown if you must. Design a backup lead in case yours falls through. Field crews must be flexible all day long. Producers need to do the same, as much as possible. No, this doesn’t mean you have to lower your standards for content for your newscast. But it may mean you have to turn more of it yourself on a given day, if the crews are struggling. Do not berate the assignment desk or field crews over story ideas people come in with and belittle them by calling them “stupid” etc. If you do, expect major backlash! The thinking is “If you’re so great think of the ideas yourself.” I have been in plenty of editorial meetings and watched many reporters say, “I have story ideas but you won’t like them so tell me what I am turning today.” Suddenly you are in a very uncomfortable position.

Lastly, think about what it’s like to be left out to dry as a reporter. Do not leave field crews hanging, waiting to go live, without any clue when this will actually happen. Give crews time cues. If you must float them say “floating you.” There is little worse than standing in front of a camera, ready to go, and just hanging there wondering when you are actually going to be on. It is excruciating! I knew producers that would routinely get breaking news, then leave field crews sitting in ready position, for 20 minutes or more, without a word spoken to them. Then suddenly they would hear, “You’re up!” and the anchor is pitching.” IFB is going in and out. The field crew is thoroughly confused and caught off guard on camera! When quizzed about these tight spots the producers would say, “You should just be ready for when I say ‘Go!’” This is so unprofessional. It takes no time to say, “floating” or “stand down, need a few minutes.” Making your field crew hang in the balance feels like the heart pumping wait you endure when a package feeds at the last second before it is supposed to air. You hold your breath. You take a chance and you pray you don’t screw up and pitch to a story that isn’t cued up yet. Your adrenaline is gushing and it just plain stinks! You know how that feels don’t you? No reporter wants to be taken live looking like he/she is clueless to their surroundings. Just before air, even the most seasoned reporter has his/her adrenaline pumping, ready to go. Be respectful of what it takes to stand motionless and stare straight into the camera to cleanly go live. Give updates. Make sure the crew knows you are ready to go. Always remember, you don’t have absolute power. The best leaders respect and build up the people around them.

Cultivating sources: A how to guide.

In San Antonio, Texas, I stood at a microphone and prayed I wasn’t about to be laughed-at for the question I was about to ask.

It was 1998 and I’d gotten a free ride to that year’s Radio-Television News Directors Association convention because I would be receiving a college scholarship from this esteemed group.

On the panel in front of me, little did I know at the time, was my future mentor, former CNN political correspondent Brooks Jackson.

Suddenly, the room got quiet. The panel looked at me at the microphone out in the audience. It was time to ask my question.

How do you cultivate sources? I wanted to know, though I doubt I used the word “cultivate” back then.

Nobody laughed. Brooks actually took the question seriously. And he gave me some of the best advice of my career: If you’re naturally interested in what your potential source does for a living (like running a political campaign) the relationship will develop naturally.

Later, as a college intern in CNN’s Washington bureau, I’d be assigned to work with Brooks as his field producer/tape logger/personal assistant/lunch fetcher. I learned a lot from him and saw him put his source cultivating skills into action.

He had one of those phone headsets that made him look like a Time-Life operator. And he’d be on the phone for hours — just chatting — and taking some notes on his computer. These were relaxed, no pressure, on background chats. After so many years in the business, he had a lot of phone numbers he could call. And people were happy to talk to him because he has a reputation for being one of the fairest journalists you’ll ever meet — and a guy with a great sense of humor, I might add, which makes him fun to talk with. But he’d also cold call people. And he’d get them to talk, too.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how TV anchors and reporters can cultivate sources because I think it’s the key to our personal survival in this business and it’s the key to our newsroom’s survival in this great big media universe. If you aren’t creating original content, then you’re irrelevant. And to create original content in a newsroom, you have to be plugged-in to the newsmakers, community leaders, businesspeople and activists of various causes in your market.

We often don’t like to talk with other journalists about how we go about getting sources or how many we have in our back pocket at any one time. I think we have an inferiority complex about it. We don’t know if we’re doing it right and we’re sure that the “star reporter” at the station across the street (or maybe even within our own newsroom) has dozens more sources than we do. Well, I don’t know how many sources your competition has. But I can help you cultivate more sources of your own.

Here are some tips:

1) Invite a potential source to breakfast. If you’re a dayside reporter, you don’t have time to “do lunch” and chances are the people you want to be your sources schedule lunches with a lot more important people than you. It’s when business is done. But they’re more likely to make time for you at breakfast. Yes, it’s a pain meeting them at 7:30 a.m. so you can be sure to be at your morning meeting at 9 a.m. But you don’t have to do this every day, just every once in a while. And here is the most important point: Do NOT ask for this breakfast at a time when the person you’re trying to get on your side is in the midst of a scandal or other huge news story. You want to develop this relationship when things are calm and you both feel free to talk.

2) Keep the Breakfast “On Background.” Let’s say you’re going to have breakfast with the new mayor because you want to develop some trust with her and her staff. Make sure when you call to invite her to breakfast that she knows anything said is fair game to be reported on but you won’t quote her directly. This is called “on background.” (It is embarrassing how many journalists graduate from college and don’t know these terms. Take a look at the glossary of terms, from the Atlantic.com. You will find the list in the middle of the linked article.) She’ll feel much more at ease talking with you this way. Make sure she understands what “on background” means. If she wants it off the record, that’s ok, too. You’re trying to show her here that you’re not going to burn her. Ask her what’s coming up on her agenda that’s really important to her. At the end of the breakfast, give her your card and try to get her mobile phone number if you don’t already have it. Promise not to abuse it. And don’t.

3) Aim Lower. The mayor is great to have as a source. But let’s be realistic. Everything she tells you will be weighted in one way or another to advance whatever agenda she has, be it for a city project or against a political rival. Keep in mind, she is also at the top of a very large bureaucracy and probably has no idea about all of the things the city is doing. So aim lower. Yeah, you need to get to know the city manager, members of the city council, the city attorney and some of the department heads. But you also need to get to know their receptionists at city hall and — most importantly — some of the anonymous bureaucrats who actually carry out the mission of the city council. They will probably never appear on camera for you. But they will give you valuable nuggets of information that you can use to question the leaders of your town who do appear on camera.

4) Cold Call. You work at a television station. Even in 2011, 86 years after its invention, people still think television’s pretty cool. So when you call a defense attorney who’s handling the big death penalty case that’s headed to trial next month, guess what he’s going to tell his wife that night at dinner? “Honey, guess who called me today? Patrick Murphy from News 4!” Note that I said you’re calling him a month before the trial — not the day before jury selection begins. Cold calling can get a chilly reception from average folks who suddenly find themselves in the news, though. They’re intimidated. They never thought Patrick Murphy from News 4 would be interested in what they have to say. So go easy on them. Don’t be pushy. And for goodness sakes, if something horrible has happened in their life, be genuinely compassionate. The Washington Post recently published an excellent article about how the networks’ morning show producers deal with this issue all the time.

5) Be interested in your source’s work. I learned it from my mentor Brooks Jackson and it’s true. When I show genuine interest in what a campaign consultant, psychologist, doctor, city leader — or anyone else — has invested their life’s work in, I can see their face soften, their eyes light-up, and hear their speech become more excited. You’re showing them that you value them as people and the expertise they’ve acquired. They will honestly enjoy talking to you. They’ll remember the conversation and your name. And when you call them on a breaking story, they’ll be much less likely to let it go to voice mail.

For more ways to cultivate sources when you don’t get much time on the job, check out “How to generate story ideas when you are swamped.” Got other tips for cultivating sources? We hope you’ll share them with us.

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Matthew Nordin is a morning anchor/investigative reporter at WMBF News, Raycom Media’s NBC affiliate in Myrtle Beach, SC. You can follow him on Twitter @MatthewNordin.

How to get the most out of consultants when they come to your station.

At most stations where I worked, people dreaded when the consultant came to town. The seminars, extra meetings, temporary changes in news philosophy and execution just seemed to be a waste. But I really liked when the consultants came to town. It was a chance at perspective. The consultant knew my station’s philosophy but could also tell me about what other stations were doing. Since early in my career, many newsrooms where I worked had no EP or a weak one, so a consultant visit was my chance to pick someone’s brain a bit.

Here’s what I did to use a consultant visit to my benefit, and here’s what you can do as a reporter as well.

Since my I was a producer, I would dub a newscast I liked and have it ready to hand over. I would also ask management for a preview of what the would be in the seminar the consultant had planned. Usually it was writing of some sort. So, I would print samples of my work that related to the subject. Then after the seminar I would mingle a bit and ask if I could have the consultant look over my work. Now, I did not hand over a huge pile of papers, just a small handful or one section of a newscast. Often the consultant would look over my work and give me critiques. I would also ask about trends in larger markets so I could try to “practice” more sophisticated elements in my own newscasts. Occasionally the consultant was really snooty and would blow me off. But most of the time the person was very approachable and willing to share information.

This is good in terms of pushing yourself to the next level when you aren’t getting training elsewhere. There is another benefit to also consider. Never forget who hired the consultant. It’s either the GM or corporate. It never hurts to have a consultant tell those bosses that they met a very conscientious producer (or anchor/reporter etc.) that seemed driven to push him/herself. Let’s face it, the only time I saw a GM for any length of time was a quarterly meeting, previewing a big political special for the station or being told the numbers in the newscasts sucked and we better kick it into high gear or else! So it’s nice to have someone like a consultant tell the GM you are eager to do your best.

As I got to know my station consultants better over the years, some also started giving me career advice. The kind of advice you rarely get, unless you have am agent who’s really on the ball. I got calls sometimes when a job came open at a station the consultant called on. It was a consultant who sat me down and told me I was ready for management and to aim for a medium-large to large market when I did apply. A consultant reviewed my writing samples to make sure I was well rounded before I made a large market jump as a producer. When I went to a large market, the consultant there (he was with another agency than my previous station FYI) worked with me on the side to get ready to become an EP. Why? It makes the consultant look good to be able to place you in a good fit and help you move up.

Reporters, don’t overlook this option for yourselves as well, especially when talent coaches come in and work with you one and one to improve your look and performance. Most of the time you are given a business card and told to call with any further questions: Do it! Yes, your current station will probably hear that you called. Don’t bad mouth the place. Do ask if you can send more current work samples to find out if you are on the right track. Again, these consultants meet a lot of big time bosses. They can and sometimes do put a word in about the talent they get to know.

It should go without saying that you don’t want to badger these potential mentors and ask too many questions or get too many reviews of your work. Once in a while it is okay, and might even help your career. So listen to the seminars, ask questions, show you are committed to the station where you work and improving your own worth. That consultant could help your career in ways you’d never expect.

Join With Your Anchor: The true make or break of your newscast.

Truth be told, one of the single most important relationships in a newsroom is that between anchor and producer. If you don’t click, chances are your newscast won’t click and someone or all of you will be shown the door. You don’t have to like each other. But you do have to work well together.

These two jobs are so intertwined, it can be very hard to form an alliance. This is because the people doing the two jobs don’t always understand the intricacies of the other side. In many cases, anchors are seen as self-important divas who lord it over everyone else. Anchors can seem detached and uninterested in all it takes to put a newscast together by taking long lunch or dinner breaks and seeming to have endless personal conversations on the phone. I knew a couple of news anchors that watched baseball and football games while people all around them were slamming to make air. Producers resent this type of behavior immensely. But let’s look at it more closely. What we producers don’t often see is the constant pressure anchors feel to perform, against the odds. Also some of the phone calls can be radio interviews, networking calls to connect with community leaders and calls to help management vet out a potential new employee. Nowadays anchors are being asked to blog and tweet and write articles for hyperlocal magazines and internet sites. The push is always on to increase their exposure. Then, after all that, they have to be refreshed and full of energy to “perform” on air. In fairness, many anchors are dealing with producers that are undertrained (see Throw me a lifeline) and defensive about it.

Now, a look at behind the scenes as a producer. We spell a lot of the pressures out in “Hey she got more time,” but in summary, there are constant unrelenting deadlines and if anything goes wrong in the newscast, including anchors stumbling or seemingly having a low energy day, producers get called to the carpet by management. Frustrations can then come with this relentless pressure and it can cause producers to lash out. The number one thing a producer has to learn, no matter what, is to not yell at the anchors. Remember, anchors are not only the face of the station, they are the only way anyone “sees” a producer’s hard work. When you ask viewers about newscasts they do not say: “I love channel “X” because they have really interesting tag elements and natural sound that makes me want to keep watching. Oh, and I also love their teases, they really hook me in.” They say: “Oh so and so is on that channel. I like (or don’t like) him/her.” The viewer’s opinion of that anchor is also the producer’s responsibility. You help the anchors connect with the viewers.

Producers must deliver strong content and the anchor must be able to sell it convincingly and authoritatively. This requires getting to know each other and trying to downplay each other’s weaknesses. Read that again, and notice the word “downplay.” There are a lot of producers who relish seeing their “lazy” anchor sweat on set if, say, the anchor is weak at adlibbing breaking news, or stinks at chat. The person who loses the most from putting an anchor in an extremely uncomfortable position is the producer. Yes, the anchor gets embarrassed on television and if this happens repeatedly can stiffen up on air and have trouble with job performance. I still contend putting anchors in bad positions is worse for the producer because you showcase to the whole staff that you are petty and untrustworthy. You are not professional. When you get assigned to another newscast, those anchors will be on the defensive and unwilling to give up some of those dinner breaks or make phone calls to help you. Remember this is a small business and news managers are not the only ones vetting potential new hires. Anchors are paid to be in the know too. Again, so we are crystal clear, some of those phone calls you see may not be to the family at home or a friend the anchor gossips with. In fact, many times the anchor is networking. That means if you want to get out of the business and stay in town, your anchor is potentially your greatest asset to help with references. Let’s say you want to move out of town to another station, your anchor may be your best asset to help you get to the market where you want to go.

We producers do not always give our anchors enough credit for what they do leading up to the newscast. Even if the anchor really is lazy and spends most of the shift leading up to air on the phone “fooling around,” we are paid to protect the anchor on the air and not put him/her in uncomfortable positions. You are paid to make your anchor look good, even if that person, in your opinion, doesn’t deserve it.

Producers, often you are the one who have to start the smart alliance. You need to sit your anchors down and establish expectations for both sides, in a respectful way. Believe it or not, because so many shops are producer driven, anchors wait for you to take the lead in the relationship. They recognize that many times your job is the one that’s harder to fill. They realize they are the face of the station, but in today’s economy no one is safe in the newsroom, and anchor pay is often cut to make up for budget shortfalls. The anchor may not want to start pushing because of fear of a backlash from the producer. Anchors get that you help them keep their jobs. As the show manager, the producer can break the ice and help you both be more comfortable with your mutual objectives. We have delved into some how to’s for this in “Anchor’s away. How to handle a difficult anchor,“and “Your Producing Voice.” We won’t stop there. This smart alliance needs a lot of nurturing so you can both excel. But for now, keep this in mind: You don’t walk in the other’s shoes. You can respect that at times those shoes are a tight squeeze, and the other person sometimes needs help with the pressure of that tight fit.