Rough Turns

There aren't many opportunities for anchors to develop or share chemistry. Tosses to weather and sports are sometimes the only times your anchors can lossen up and let viewers connect with them a little. Try to assist in this process by making the story before weather or sports one that might be condusive to chit-chat. I was watching a newscast the other day where a crime story was actually what lead into weather. It brought the show to a grinding halt and made for a really rough turn for the anchors. Instead, pick a feature or a talker. Maybe something one or both of the anchors is interested in- whatever- just no buzzkills right before sports or weather tosses.

Throw Out Your Thesaurus

Or at least take it home. There's no reason to have one in the newsroom. You shouldn't be afraid to use the same word twice in a story. It's how people talk and it's what your scripts should sound like when they're read aloud.

Some examples...

When talking about the writer's strike, using "writer" in the lead but then in the next graph, deciding to go with "scribe."

And, my personal favorite and oft mentioned... writing "white stuff" when we all know it's snow.

Ditto "blaze" for fire.

With rare exceptions, if words aren't used in normal conversation, they shouldn't be in your scripts.

When Not to Have Reporter Involvement

If you are putting a piece together and you want to use the reporter asking a question along with the answer, you may want to skip it altogether if the photog adjusts the shot RIGHT AFTER the question is asked. And not a smooth push, but a quick zoom, whoops- too close, and widens out a touch. Seem obvious to edit this out? I thought so, till I saw this done in a top 20 market. Is it laziness or did someone think it was cool and raw? I have no idea. It looked terrible and sloppy.

Tips for Successful Election Night

Plenty of pizzas and caffeine are key to knocking it out of the park. And don't forget your field crews when you are doling out the free food.

If you have a ton of results that you need to show but are not major races, trying scrolling through graphic panels going in or out of a break. People can read- and it's a lot more jazzy than hearing your anchor read every single stat. For some key races where you do want your anchor to read the results, how about having moving video in the graphic somewhere? It could be video of the candidates or the issue or just people voting.

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."

Breaking news? Try a Double Box

Some call it a double box. Some call it a big/little. A rose is a rose. The next time you have spot news, try it! For example, breaking weather. Weather guy blabbing on? Double box him with a live weather shot. Or great weather video, if you've got it, but preferably a live pic.

If you have a GREAT live pic, DO NOT GET OFF OF IT! Leave it up and double box it with whatever second element you have, interview, reporter, anchor, whatever. If your station can't do double boxes easily, leave the live pic up and let anchors and everyone talk under it.

News Updates

News updates are a pain. They are a misnomer because they are actually the teases that run between newscasts in programming. I think I had two 30s and a couple tens back in the day?

My humble suggestion- don't assume viewers are different from hour to hour- as in- write different copy for each tease.

I know they're a pain to do. The promotions department should be doing them for you! Alas, they do not. Write new stuff for each tease so the same viewers don't have to sit through the exact same teases hour afer hour.