In response to the “Ask me threads you’d like to see” thread, I humbly submit this one. I worked in the TV news business for ten years, in small markets and large ones. I have done everything there is to do in a newsroom but anchor. That includes reporting, photography, producing, the assignment desk and management. There are a lot of misconceptions out there that I would love to address and I would be happy to lift the lid off of your local newsroom for you.
Do anchors many times wear shorts with their shirts/ties/jackets?
Earthpuppy…Sometimes. Most of the time, they do it on the weekends when the brass is not around. The Sports people do this more than most, in my experience. And it’s usually the men. The women tend to dress up as a requirement of the job. The men can get away with shorts.
Do you report on your own, or do you always go out with a sound guy and camera guy?
Are there many women who operate the sound or camera?
Guanolad…Reporters who go out on their own are called “one man bands”…even if the person is female. That tends to be the norm in smaller markets (below the top 75 or so). At the local level, a reporter may be accompanied by a photographer who would also be responsible for the sound. Female photographers are somewhat rare. I would say perhaps ten percent. As far as the technical crew, the mix is more fifty-fifty. A lot of producers are women.
I’d like to ask you for some advice, if I could.
I volunteer for a youth group, not boy scouts, and we’ve been trying for a long time to get our local news to cover any event that we do, but we’ve been unable to get them to come out here.
Is there a way we can talk them into it ?
Here are some of my questions:
Do you find it difficult to go about your daily life as an ordinary citizen? That is, do people tend to treat you like a celebrity (in which perhaps on a local level you may be regarded as much).
I ask this because whenever I see a TV news person I recognize I just treat him/her like any other person. In most cases I don’t even talk to the person. I feel they are probably asked a hundred times a day about the stories they report on, or in the case of the weather, people will ask them “how’s the weather?” or something equally unoriginal and unclever. They probably get blamed if the forecast turned out to be wrong (as if they had any control over it). These people surely get tired of it, so I feel they deserve a break. One of the local weather reporters came into the store I had worked in at the time, and as tempted as I was to ask him if the forecast he gave earlier that day was still on, I refrained from doing this.
Here’s my next question: On your days/nights off do you still watch your own station’s news at home? How do you feel about seeing yourself on television?
When you are out and about on your own time, if you see something that looks to be newsworthy do you call the people back at the station, or do you figure it’s not your concern if you’re not “on duty”?
Have you ever made any embarrassing blunders while on camera? Every now and then I’ll see a segment on a bloopers show where TV anchors get the giggles while reporting a serious news story or there will be technical glitches that cause hilarious results.
Dragongirl…It depends on where you live and how many kids are involved. Can you tell me where the TV stations you watch are located? If you are in too large a city, you may be out of luck unless there is a very compelling reason for them to come. In general, you can get coverage by having events around 10:00 am. If the assignment desk thinks it’s cute enough, they will assign someone to drop by on their way to another story. If you try to schedule events past 2:00pm, you are probably out of luck. The crews are getting ready for the early evening newscasts and the late crews are busy setting up stories for later that evening. It might also help for you to do the events on the weekends when the news calander isn’t so full…but at the same times (10:00am-2:00pm). Finally, your event has to stand out from the crowd of others competing for the attention of the Assignment Desk. Is there an interesting visual element? The principal of the school is allowing his head to be shaved! The director is dressing like a chicken!
Send a fax or mail a short synopsis of the event and sell it. Make them say to themselves “Hmmm. That’ll be cute and it won’t take too much time.” If you must follow up by phone, do it once, be brief and call in early afternoon the day before. These sorts of things are filed by date of event and sorted through at the beginning of the day. Many are rejected and the rest are sorted logistically by who is available to do the event. Remember, the person you are talking to on the phone is listening to you, police scanners, his boss, the reporters and photographers all while trying to send his crews to the proper places. If you annoy him, your invitation may go in the trash.
I’m not an anchor, so I can’t answer your question directly, but they do get celebrity treatment to some degree. Some of it is ego-gratifying, but god help them if they are in a bad mood and are rude to someone. Then word spreads that they “have the big head”, etc. So they have to take more crap than most of us do. Also…no strip clubs or porn purchases. Most anchor contracts have morals clauses. Stations spend a lot of money promoting them…and they have to get a good return on their investment.
I watched my station religiously, especially when I was in management. For a TV professional, minor mistakes are easy to spot in a live broadcast. Major mistakes are obvious to all. A “clean show” (no mistakes) is very rare. The mistakes are discussed the next day by management. If one person makes too many or one link in the chain is viewed to be weak, then action can be taken.
Yes, I did call in. I considered people who didn’t to be lazy or self-centered.
No, thank god. But I watched a show from home once where the top two stories were the e-coli beef scare and Mother Teresas death. The video for these top stories was an industrial meat grinder churning out beef and Mother Teresa ministering to the unfortunate. This was in the 50 percent Roman Catholic state of New Mexico. The video was rolled in the wrong order. While you are seeing beef churning out of the meat grinder, you are hearing the anchor say “One of the worlds most beloved figures has gone on to her final reward.”
Imagine the chaos.
Hopefully this isn’t too annoying of a question, but I’ll go ahead.
We have five local stations here that broadcast the news. Three of them do “short” morning shows (5am? to 7am) and two do “long” shows (5am to 10am). I don’t know if this is coincidence or not, but the three with the short shows (that then go to national news) have very high quality shows, with seemingly intelligent anchors, chosen for their skills rather than their looks.
The other two, however, are absolutely horrendous. If I am finished getting ready for work after 7am, I am SOL news-wise. The reporters for these other two stations are the most ditzy newspeople, with the most inane senses of humour, obviously picked for their good looks. Fox’s anchors on the morning show are particularly strong examples of this (surprised that it’s Fox?).
So in the end, my question is this: are most of the anchors really that dumb? We have a few older ones who seem to be fairly on top of things, but most of the younger crowd just totally grate on me intellectually. But then, I guess these were the people who got Communications/Broadcast Journalism degrees in college…
FYI, I’m in Phoenix, AZ. The good stations are 5 (CBS), 12 (NBC), and 15 (ABC). The irritating ones are 10 (Fox) and 3 (unaffiliated?).
I have two questions:
What do you like most about television journalism?
What do you like least about television journalism?
Examples of minor and major mistakes?
Also, our family used to be quite good friends with a local anchor in Columbus. She did the early, early news around 5:30am. She hated it because she had to go to bed and wake up so early. She kept with it because she had to “take her knocks” and work her way up. However, after a while it became evident that the competition was fierce. Too fierce. And on top of it, she was repeatedly lied to about her career path (ie: when she would move to a different broadcast/timeslot). My question: is the anchor world really that brutal?
Thanks for taking time to answer my questions. This would make sense and I can understand the morals clauses. We had one reporter who had a reputation for being a jerk to people who went up to him and asked him about his opinions on the stories he reported. I didn’t watch his station anyway, so I have no idea what happened to him. Another one became known for the fact that he had DUIs and, by extension, a drinking problem. He wasn’t on for too much longer after this information became public.
One of our weather anchors is a Jehovah’s Witness, not that there is anything wrong with this, of course, but since the public knows this, it alters their perception of him. I have noted, for example, that whenever there is a holiday he never mentions the day, but instead he will just say, “if you’re doing any traveling this weekend, here is what you can expect for driving conditions.” Needless to say he never speculates our chances for having a white Christmas each year.
As for buying porn, that’s what mail-order and the Internet is for 
So what are some of these mistakes? I can’t say as I’ve ever noticed a mistake other than when a reporter flubs a word and has to correct himself/herself. Was it reporting wrong information? Bad directing/editing? Forgetting to bleep out a swear word?
When doing a taped report, how many “takes” does it usually take? I’ve seen the blooper shows where the reporter screws up (sometimes several times, to the point of wanting to give up and call it a day) and his swearing is bleeped out.
If a story misses a deadline, do you air it as is, or do you wait to air it once it is complete?
Have you ever wanted to turn down a report because the subject matter conflicted with your personal feelings about it (hypothetical example, covering an abortion rally/protest?) If so, were you able to “pass the buck” onto another reporter?
Finally, what is the most dangerous or unusual story you have ever reported?
Please, Evil One, another request for examples of “major” and “minor” mistakes. For instance, they were having problems with the graphics on the weather report (the person operating them wasn’t keeping up with the weather guy) the other night – would you call that major or minor?
Not sure if you could answer this, as its not TV news specific, but how does one get a job working in the control room? I’ve always thought that would be a cool job.
Can you get me a job? ;D
/'03 Broadcast Journalism graduate
Maybe you can answer this: why do TV stations broadcast pictures of traffic jams in the afternoon peak, when all the people who need to know this are in their cars with only radios?
Holy crap that’s funny.
My question: When young, ambitious journalism-trained people come to work for TV news, how disappointed are they by the emphasis on ratings, “bleed-and-lead” organization, major-issue-summarized-in-twenty-seconds, and everything else that makes TV news the separate animal it is?
Phoenix is near the top of the food chain as far as TV markets go. The talent there should all be excellent…and it sounds like the three major network affiliates are. Heres the deal. The three “good” stations are all fighting for a piece of the viewer pie in the morning. Therefore, they are going to want likeable, pleasant talent (anchors). Many viewers who watch the morning show tend to stick around for some part of the daytime programming. More viewers mean more money, of course. The “good” stations are leading into GMA, Today or CBS This Morning. They can afford to put together a good two-hour show that flows well to keep you in your seat as long as possible. By the way, research shows you will watch a morning show for about 15 minutes. That’s why the weather repeats so much. The show is designed to be watched eight different times, not all at once. The two other stations don’t have national news lead-outs (the next show). So why do they have a five hour morning show? Stations get to keep every dollar for every commercial they run within a newscast. During primetime, they only have about four minutes an hour to call thier own. A five hour show means more cash. Of course the fact that it’s crap will hold ratings and therefore revenues down.
Anchors are chosen for they way they look and sound and how viewers react to them. Personality off camera and relative intelligence are secondary. I’ve worked with idiots and with people I respect. The older ones are on top of things because they were actually required to write and know what they were talking about twenty to thirty years ago. That and the fact that they are still on top of their game in a very competitive environment speaks well for them. As for the younger ones? Today, appearance and demographic appeal are prized over intelligence.
The ability to bring a story that makes people feel good to the general public. “All the news is bad” is a cliche and a perception. Efforts are made daily to find positive stories. I also enjoyed helping people out who were getting screwed by someone. A phone call from the newsroom has loosened many a bureaucratic logjam.
Having to dumb down complicated stories so they can fit the time constraints. People say all the time in surveys that they want more content. “Don’t show me blood, tell me what’s important even if it’s boring.” When stations actually do that, rating go down. Viewers will say one thing and vote another way with the remote. They follow the bad stuff every time.