Becoming a Producer

I received an email from someone already working at a station wondering how to become a producer. I say hurrah and hallelujah. We need more of you. Here is some of my advice to her:

Best way to learn is by doing. Whatever your current capacity, volunteer to write a story. Come in on your day off if you have to. An easy way to build up to it and build your confidence is pick a story to write on your own. Check the rundown, see a story that looks interesting, be it local or national. Grab the wire, find the press release, do some web research, make a call and ABOVE ALL look at whatever video is associated with that story. Write your own version. If the producer of the show has time to look at it for you... excellent (best way to approach-- hey would you give me 5 minutes to check out a script I wrote... even if it's after the show?) but often producers are pretty harried. If you don't want to approach a producer, you can still just compare your story to the one that finally made it into the show.

Do this a lot. Up your writing from one story to several. Time yourself. Brutally. Give yourself 10 minutes for vos. 20 for vosots. Whatever, just make sure you are keeping an eye on the clock.

You can do the same thing with rundowns. Go to the meeting. Check the wires, web etc for stories. Put a pretend rundown together on a sheet of paper (include what you'd tease). Approach a producer/EP/ND that can take a glance at it and give you feedback. Benefits are two-fold... you get good advice and they find out you are serious about wanting to be a producer.

Ideally, you can find a friend/producer as a mentor. Most producers will be open to this because all they get is young people who want to be reporters. Rarely is someone an aspiring producer so when we find one, we try to make time.

Keep doing both exercises till you start writing for real. Producers, as I say, have too much on their plate and will only be too happy to give you a story or two if they feel like they can trust you ( although I have heard producers say they'd rather write things themselves than have writers because sometimes writing's easier than rewriting).

When I trained writers into producers, I had them watch me one night and then the next night, they did everything and I watched them (just in case they got into a jam). Generally, these were writers who were very comfortable with their writing skills, just needed to make the jump to boothing.

Best way to do it is do it! Jump in, the water's fine!

((Resources....
Books: You may want to check out Power Producing from the folks at RTNDA (good seminars too)
http://www.rtnda.org/pages/media_items/take-a-sneak-peak-at-power-producer821.php

Also, Mervin Block's books on writing are decent.

Some websites might also be useful:
Poyner.org and newsu.org)))