Harbinger?

There's a new twitter site that's tracking who's being laid off in the media.
www.twitter.com/themediaisdying
How sad is it that there are enough layoffs to sustain a whole twitter feed?

Also, I meant to mention this the other day when I first heard it, but kudos to NPR for actually doing a story on its own layoffs...
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98095326

In contrast, I thought it a little odd that NBC, on a day when they practically led Nightly with news of mass layoffs, there was nary a mention of their own layoffs going on that day. 500 jobs/3% of workforce not worth reporting when you're detailing other companies financial woes? Weak.

In the interest of self-disclosure, I've read on some of the media websites about possible layoffs coming at Fox O&O's.

Frightening times.

Superstitions

I don't know when this started, but as a show producer, whenever I'd go into the booth, I'd cross my fingers on the my right hand. I know it's stupid. And certainly, I had bad shows when I crossed my fingers. But somehow I always felt like it would be even worse if I hadn't.

I thought I had cured myself of this habit. After all, I haven't been in the booth for a couple of years. But today, as we are editing a package and getting anxiously closer to our deadline, I noticed my old habit return without me even thinking about it.

Will we make it? Keep your fingers crossed.

Read Your Scripts Aloud Before Printing

Do as I say and not as I do. I've been going over previous posts and finding mistakes. If I would have read them out loud before posting... my ears would have caught mistakes my eyes didn't see. Same goes for scripts (resumes, "Dear John" letters). Read them out loud right before sending them to the printer.

Apparently I was a lot more religious about this with shows as opposed to the blog. Lazy!

2nd Best Producer in the U.S.

If I tell you I'm the second best producer in the United States, the first question that pops to your mind is, oh yeah? Who's first? You can't give a ranking without answering other obvious questions. And yet, we do it all the time.

=Dallas is the number two retirement city in the universe (Who's best?)
=Dallas has the 5th worst snowplow association in the state (Who's the worst?)

A recent example I have been hearing a lot lately is that Congressman William Jefferson is the second least effective lawmaker on the hill. Begs the question- who's worse than the guy who had F.B.I. agents find thousands of marked bills in his freezer? It was driving me crazy so I looked it up. Says congress.org, it's someone from my former home state of Arizona, Congressman Rick Renzi.

P.S. I have no idea who the best producer in the U.S is and I'm obviously no where near second, or third, or 456th...

Breaking Down Big Numbers

I hear big numbers float around in newscasts all the time. When a number it too big, it becomes meaningless for people. Break down big numbers. For example, Saudia Arabia produces about 10 million barrels of oil a day. That sounds like a lot, but how much is it? A quick search (hint, when you search google, add site:gov to pop up only government sites) shows each barrel puts out about 19 gallons of gas (along with a bunch of other oil products). The average car tank holds 15-18 gallons. Grab some scratch paper and do the math. You could add a line to say "Saudia Arabia produces 10 million barrels of oil a day. That's enough to fill 10 to 12 million cars." By the way, on the same website where I found the gas info, it said the U.S. used 142 billion (with a b) gallons of gas in 2007. Mind boggling.

The point is, make your scripts more clear and your newscasts more understandable by breaking down big numbers and giving a real life example with which everyone can relate. It takes a few extra minutes but it makes all the difference.

Apologies

I was having problems posting the other day and somehow managed to post the same entry fourteen times. Hopefully it's fixed...

Worst Tease of the Week

My vote for worst tease this week: Video of a middle school assembly... and script to the effect of..." We'll tell you about a program to keep middle school kids in school." It may be an important story. But it was a deadly boring tease. Unless you're a parent of one of the kids, or a fellow producer wondering why the heck someone would tease that story, you won't stick around. The story itself was pretty lame. The entire thing was shot in the aforementioned assembly room.