Best Video First

In a package, your best video goes first. Always. No exceptions. In fact, if it's that good, it's probably worth repeating a couple times in the package.

Sometimes you may think you need to give some background or set-up before you show the good video. This may tempt you NOT to use your best video first. Do set-up in the anchor or reporter intro. Sometimes you can show some of the video once at the top of the piece, give a little background that really explains what happened, and then show more of the video.

An example of NOT using best video first. I was on one station's website and there was a story labelled "Dash Cam Video released." I clicked and watched. I wanted to see the dashcam video. About a third of the way through, I thought, maybe they mistakenly put up a pkg that was written before the video was released. But no. About HALFWAY through the pkg, the promised dashcam video appeared. Most viewers are not so patient. Best video first always.

Even when you don't have amazing video to put at the top of your pkg, try to look at what you've got and think-- what's the most interesting part of this? How can I put that first? I spent a lot of years in consumer on stories with NOOOOOO video. There'd be a fridge, some paperwork, and Grandma complaining she got ripped off. But if there's something compelling enough to get you to cover the story, that element should go first.