I received an email from a producer majorly stressing about catching mistakes, errors and misspellings. Here's my best advice...
It helps to build in layers of prevention. For example, if you're worried about bad fonts... have someone, anyone... else look over your fonts a half hour before the newscast. Any set of eyes other than yours will catch mistakes.
Ditto with scripts-- do you have an EP? They should be looking over all of the scripts of your show. If not, maybe look to an anchor or writer as a second set of eyes.
We're all human. You will make mistakes... so as many systems or extra people you can have looking at things, the better. Also, don't underestimate the power of the final readthrough--- after you've approved all scripts, do one final read through, reading everything out loud. Your ears will catch things your eyes won't. Make sure you are reading and consuming a lot of local news. By reading and listening and watching a lot of stuff, you'll catch nit-noid mistakes (wait-- was that 3 cars in that accident? I thought I read 4 somewhere...) My favorite (horrifying) mistake that made air was back when I was a writer-- I wrote that Easter celebrated the birth of Christ. I wrote it in a rush and two other people read it and didn't catch. I still cringe when I think of it today. We got calls. A lot of them.
To do a lot of these preventative checks.. you have to get your stuff done early. This is good practice anyway and allows everyone else time to do their jobs better. So shoot for generally having most everything done about an hour before the newscast. Then you can do your final checks, write teases and wait for the inevitable spot news to blow up your show. By being generally done by an hour-ish ahead of time... you can be free to respond to whatever crisis that pops up.
Do something non work related to make you better able to meet stress. Walk, run, swim-- whatever floats your boat... do something physical to help combat the inevitable irks that come your way. Also, do like I say and not like I did (as a show producer) and skip the 3 Mountain Dew/cheeseburger days. They do not help you stay calm cool and collected. Finally-- get a life outside of work! Join a club, hit a movie with friends. That gives you a better perspective when you do deal with work craziness.
And lighten up! Remember, it ain't brain surgery. No one dies if you screw up. Still, aim to give your best to your viewers and your co-workers each and every day.
Maggie L
One of the rare times I'm in the office
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2 comments:
I think this is good in theory. But as an EP and producer today, these tips are sadly utopian and not feasible. Producers are creating their own graphics, editing their own video, doing multiple shows, also responsible for keeping up with the web and even more. In this day of dwindling staff, poor pay, increased responsibility, young and green reporters and anchors, I am sometimes shocked news makes it on the air.This blog misses the mark about the sad reality of local news. I will call you up to fill in on a one hour weekend newscast sometime!
Ouch, Anonymous! I appreciate that you're overworked-- underpaid and probably underappreciated. But it's no good to abdicate our responsbility and throw up our hands and just do nothing. We all do the best we can day to day and have to prioritize our responsibilities. The tips I advocate are just that--use them if they're helpful, ditch them if you think they're hot air. You're welcome to post any advice you've found that's helped you and might help others. But the attitude of-- TV news is going down the drain and we're all just trying to keep our head above water-- strikes me as defeatist.
PS. Although I've done the things you've mentioned in your comments, they were just coming into play when I got out of show producing. I think me doing a newscast right now would be pretty scary. But I'd give it my best!
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