Political Hotbed – Page 5 – Survive Your Job In Television News

Transitioning to management.

One of the hardest things to do when you transition to management is to learn when you jump in and when you back away. This takes some trial and error, and a few key reminders.

What managers are truly judged on:

Your team’s successes

Your ability to improve others skills

Your time management

Problem solving on your own

The biggest misconception new managers often have, is that the ratings race is now squarely on their shoulders. This is not true. If you raise the ratings by either doing everything yourself or leading with a reign of terror you will still get the axe.

Your job is to help your entire team succeed. A wise GM once told me, “You are considered a great manager, when you leave and the staff still executes as well or better than when you were there.” Think hard about that statement. If you believe that to really be true, then your first priority as a manager switches from turning the best newscast everyday, to helping others around you improve themselves each day.

Which leads to our next point: Your new role as a manager is not to dive in and redo or fix all the mistakes. Your role is to help others around you improve, so that no one has to routinely dive in and fix others mistakes. The minute you take a management job, you become a mentor. It is that simple. You must know how to help others around you grow and challenge themselves. You are a cheerleader, a reality checker and in many ways a careful observer. So diving in and writing an entire A-block or rewriting every reporter script each day is actually a failure on your part. You are letting your staff down by doing so. You are preventing your staff from succeeding long term.

You also set the example on how to time manage. If you work tireless hours, then take it out on the staff around you, for “being such a mess,” you lose credibility. If you roll in late everyday, leave early several times a week and take long lunches you also lose credibility. Understand that the staff around you keeps a close watch on how hard you work and how long. They take note. They base a tremendous amount of their respect for you on your scheduling. You need to show them how to work hard, while still maintaining some semblance of a life. This shows you are a compassionate, respectful manager who will also honor their hard work and time put in each day.

Finally, if your solution to problems that arise is to go running to the assistant news director or news director for direction, you are dead in the water. Your staff will consider you a joke, and so will your ND. You have to problem solve, largely, by yourself. Of course, if there are potential legal ramifications you do need to consult. But if a reporter is ignoring your orders or a producer is not listening and doing whatever they want, you must fix the issue yourself. Running to the other “parent” to have them hand out the discipline will destroy any chance you have of building credibility. This is an extremely hard lesson. If you try several techniques to no avail, then you need to come to your news director with that list, one-on-one, and provide more suggestions to handle the situation. Never go to the ND and ask him or her to flat out fix it. That’s what you are paid to do now.

So there you have it, go lead by empowering others to challenge themselves. Set up a work routine that you want others to follow. And when an issue arises, come up with a solution and execute. Some decisions will be wrong. Admit it, then fix it. Your staff will learn from this example. It will earn you a lot more credibility than running for guidance and refusing to take a stand yourself.

One of the youngest on staff: How to hang with the veterans and gain their respect.

When I started out in the biz, I was one of the youngest producers ever hired at the station where I worked. I was so young, my anchors were close to my parents age. So were many of the reporters and photojournalists, not to mention much of the production crew.

During the interviews leading up to this job a news director from another station told me, “You are impressive, but how will you manage anchors who make three times what you do, and are old enough to be your parents? How will you make them respect you?” Truth is, that question was much easier to answer in an interview, than to live out each day in a newsroom.

That is not to say that if you are young and driven you should not go for big opportunities. But you do need to have a small arsenal of techniques to handle the hazing headed your way. Keep the following in mind:

Respect is earned
Set expectations
Focus on team
Avoid running to the bosses

The first thing you need to understand as a newbie, is that you are not respected just because you were hired for a particular job. Respect is earned. News people are incredibly harsh critiquers. Our brains are wired to find weaknesses and anomalies. You will be picked apart, especially if you are young. Many stations are hiring people before they are ready for a particular job, because it can be hard to find someone at all. This is especially true of producers and writers. So you are going to have to come in, be professional and work your butt off. You have to earn respect by consistently doing good work, visibly pushing yourself to be better each day, and respecting those around you.

Which leads to my next point. Set expectations. Set them for yourself, and those around you. If you are a reporter, talk through your thoughts on how to handle a story with your photographer (if you are lucky enough to have one). Explain to your producer when you will call in and when you need script approval to ensure you can get your pkg in by deadline. Producers: You need to tell your anchors what you need them to do in terms of writing and/or copy editing the newscast. You need to sit down with the production crew when you get the job, and see what you need to provide when, and explain your goals for the newscast.

You also need to remember that you are part of a team and focus on that. This can be a really good thing for a newbie producer. You do not have to go it alone. You do not have to have all the answers. You just need to always clearly explain that you want to be part of the solution for any issue that comes up. For example, check in with your anchors regularly and ask if they are getting what they need. Listen to their feedback and take it to heart. That shows professionalism and maturity that will earn you respect quickly. If you are a reporter or photojournalist, ask your counterpart what they need from you to thrive at their jobs. Again, you will gain so much respect. The best part, you will have stronger allies when you do make mistakes, and, you will make them. You want a support system around you to help pick yourself up, dust off and heal the bruises. This is a hard biz, you need all the support you can get.

This also is a very small business. So, do not go running to the bosses and report issues unless it is dire. By dire, I mean you are about to put the station in serious jeopardy because of a fact error. If you tell “Mr. 20 years at the same station” to tag out with “13 News for You” instead of “News 13,” and he tells you to screw off, that doesn’t count. Write down what you told him and when. Then, it’s up to him to step in line. Often, newbie journalists panic when a veteran tells them no. The fear is they are questioning your authority and will get you in trouble. That is sometimes true. But, if you do what you are supposed to and deliver a message from management asking for that new out cue or for something to be included in a live shot or pkg script and the veteran blows you off, the veteran will eventually pay the price. Let that person hang him or herself, by him or herself. Write down when you told the person, then let that person sink or swim on their own. You cannot control that person if he/she is defiant. Focus on what you can control, and be ready if you are asked about the situation with clear documentation in hand. Then show what you did and ask what more can you do in the future to handle the situation better. That is not running to the boss, that is managing.

So hang in there newbie newsies. The hazing can be tough at times. But it does get easier. In fact, the person you thought was enemy number one, can and often does become your greatest advocate. You just have to earn your stripes.

Making it stick: how to coach newbie journalists.

A big part of my job is coaching, both seasoned and new, journalists. Lately I have been getting DM’s and email from managers asking, “How do you get through? I have no luck, especially getting them to understand the importance of a fact error.”

Here are some techniques I used while working in newsrooms. First, techniques for producers and writers. I would print out scripts that I knew had errors. Then I would sit down with the writer and tell them to do a couple of things. First, take these scripts and circle the 5 w’s. Then I would ask them to highlight the facts in the script, and the matching facts from the source they used. This can be a real eye opener, because it forces whoever wrote the script not only to see the error, but to see that answering the 5 w’s, will help avoid errors. Often if there is a fact error, 1 or more of the 5 w’s either is not in the script at all OR the w’s do not lead to any kind of logical conclusion. So, the light bulb goes off. There’s a problem. Then when the writer looks at the facts from the source, the error often shows up plain as day.

I did this for several reasons. It forces the writer to take ownership of the mistake. It also helps the writer think through how the error happened. After going over several scripts, you can see a pattern where the writer consistently goes wrong. In some cases, the person is unclear about a legal term. In others, the person is not clear about the background of an ongoing story. Both of those things are easy to train and correct, as long as the person recognizes the problem with making the error.

What gets interesting is when the person sees the errors, and is not concerned about it. I would get, “Well the anchor should have caught that.” Or “you copy edited the script, right? Isn’t that your job, to know the facts.” Those producers, writers, reporters etc. then step into phase two of training. The reality check!

Here’s the biggest differentiator between a newbie journalists and a veteran. Veterans understand that these stories we put on the TV screen actually impact lives. We know this for many reasons, not the least being that somewhere along the way, we made a mistake that hurt someone. In my case, my news director made me a call a family and apologize when I aired the name of a minor who was charged with a crime. My old station used the names of juvies. The new station did not. I did not check the policy at the new station. I will never forget how horrified I was when I had to call that family and explain to the parents, that I did not ask my manager if it was OK to air a minor’s name. That reality check changed the way I wrote news. Period. Veteran journalists have stories like this, about omissions or assumptions that really hurt. The wounds are still there, years later. We never look at the box our work plays in the same way again. It doesn’t beam into space for us.

If you can set up a scenario so the writer that made the error has to face up to the mistake, beyond saying sorry to the ND, do it. That reality check may change that newbie’s outlook on news forever.

Now on to reporters. The technique can be similar. I used to have them circle the w’s and highlight the facts. Since I did not always have access to their sources, I would sometimes ask for a name, then have the reporter call and re-verify the facts on the phone in front of me. If the reporter made an assumption, you could see the sweat on the brow. It is a great technique to quickly assess how sure a reporter is about a fact. The ones that double checked, always did it, with no complaints and no concerns.

The other technique I used is printing scripts about a story from each day part. I would include the script with the error. Then I would hand all of the scripts over and ask the writer to show me which script was wrong and explain why. It gets really interesting if you throw in a few wrong scripts from another day part and a writer’s correct script as well. Then you see how comfortable the writer is with their fact checking. If the writer figures all of his/her scripts have errors, you know that person is not comfortable fact checking. That is trainable.

If the writer thinks their scripts are never wrong, you may find the person is more interested in how something sounds, than accuracy. Go to the “reality check” step if at all possible.

The writer who catches the errors, both from themselves and others probably is just a little overwhelmed by volume. Start watching that person’s time management skills. This training technique works for reporters, producers and AP’s.

Hope this helps you make it stick, when it comes to training the importance of accuracy. If you have more training techniques I would love to hear them. Email me or post them on our FB page.

A Shift In Accuracy: Who needs to have your back.

Recently I was struck by conversations I was having with a series of news directors who are looking for morning EPs. Each mentioned, the line “the morning show sets the tone for the day.” No, this isn’t a new concept. Morning producers all over the country are yelling “DUH” to their computer screens right now. But there is a key part to this, that simply doesn’t happen in most newsrooms. Each news shift needs to have a system of checks and balances with all the other shifts. When they do, you return the favor by watching theirs. In Meet My Conscience we talked about having a specific set of eyes to help watch your back. Well, simply put, this needs to happen in all newsrooms at shift change. It also needs to be more than the assignment desks’ role. Producers know to sit down with the producer who just wrapped up a newscast and ask if there is anything to worry about. But the conversation needs to go further.

What if every shift, had a check-in with the morning staff? The reason: Often the late night newscasts do very targeted coverage to appeal to very specific audiences. This is much more extreme than other day parts, especially certain nights of the week with huge lead-ins. In essence, the key audience changes dramatically. So morning producers come in, and see that most of the stories do not transcend well. BUT there could be (and often is) a wealth of wonderful potential follow-ups from the early evening news. Problem is, the morning producer doesn’t know that a court hearing is scheduled tomorrow, or that the video in the package is all you have, because the rest is blue. What if dayside crews updated overnight counterparts, in addition to nightside?

Chances are you would prevent a lot more inaccuracies if this dialogue is developed. Think of the children’s game telephone. Morning tells dayside about a story, who then tells nightside, who then updates morning (if nightside covered it at all). Odds are, by the next morning, you’re missing a lot of potential angles that legitimately advance an interesting story. If dayside, let nightside and morning know, then the options that nightside passed on do not get buried in an early grave as easily.

So how do you develop it? Email. After all, daysiders are already working when most nightsiders are asleep. Or if a nightsider is up for the earlies, call and get the scoop before the producer leaves. Employees themselves can take control and set up a system of communication between the assignment desk and producers. Then you will have a good chance of getting all the facts straight. It’s a shift in accuracy, that could have a lot of people’s backs.