Working the Web into Your Show

We are all under pressure to drive traffic to the web. Please use common sense. For example, doing story updates that just use pictures of the web. That makes as much sense as holding up a newspaper and letting your anchors talk for thirty seconds. I have seen shows with THREE of these in a row! Boring! Why not use video and then use the web page pics for the last five seconds?

Ditto reading viewer email during newscasts. Boring! At least get a graphic made so viewers will have something to read while anchors are reading. Better yet, don't read at all but do a full graphic with music full into the break. Anchors say... "Here's what some of you had to say about blah, blah, blah... We'll be right back after the break."

The web is great for its space. Have a list of top ten cities for health? Use three and pop rest on web. Top 100 companies? Try using the top five and put the rest on web. Great chase? Post the whole video from start to finish on the web. How about a tie-in? We just finished a story on new citizens. We were thinking about putting questions from the citizenship test on the web so viewers could quiz themselves.

Think of the web stuff you forward your friends. It is probably not the latest peace negotiations in the Mideast. It is fun stuff, weird stuff, news you can use. Don't be afraid to share this with your viewers. Maybe it's a thirty second feature in your last block called "Web Finds." Anchor says, "Here's the cool website we found on the web..." Or, "Here's the latest bogus email going around."