Floods and Fathers Day
Doug Drew
602 Communications
Highlights:
Ordinary stories need creative live shots more than the gigantic story
Find “real Dads” for morning news coverage.
Live shots
During the recent flooding and tornadoes, viewers were treated to some amazing live coverage. During the flooding, reporters, photographers and field producers went to incredible efforts to show how much damage, destruction and disruption was caused by the water.
During the tornadoes, we saw reporters walking right into the debris left behind. Reporters walked up to and peered into upside down cars to show how pieces of homes somehow became imbedded inside the vehicles. It seems like every time we turned on the news, reporters were picking up something that originated 70 miles away or walking into what was once someone’s living room and was now nothing more than a few pieces of wood.
But as soon as the coverage dissipated, I noticed how local crews returned to covering average stories in their usual manner. Reporters were back to standing in front of burned out house fires, or doing stand-ups in front of the convenience store where a robbery had occurred.
Why is it that during exceptional events field crews go to extraordinary lengths to walk, talk, demonstrate and get close to the action. Yet, in ordinary news coverage, they go back to predictable and standard (dare I say lazy?) live coverage? The significant stories like the flooding and tornadoes would be incredible even without the extra effort on the live shots.
If you are a photographer or reporter for a local station, remember that it’s the ordinary stories that particularly need your creative efforts. Whether it is a house fire, car accident or issue involving schools, make use of your live location by showing viewers something interesting.
Fathers Day
On a completely different topic, I’ve written numerous articles about how important planning is for a morning newscast. Every morning newscast needs to have a plan going into the next day, and there should be a week ahead planning meeting once a week.
With Fathers Day right around the corner, you should have a Father’s Day theme set for Friday, June 17th. Why not set up phone calls with the fathers of the morning show talent? The best way to do this is to have the other folks on the show interview them. It’s much more fun this way. You want co-anchors asking “David’s” father what kind of a kid he was growing up. Did he get into trouble often? Was he picky about food? What were his girlfriends like? And then let “David” ask co-anchor “Lisa’s” father what kind of girl she was. Was she always late for things just as she is now? What kind of grades did she get in school, etc.?
Also, get your viewers involved. Have them send in pictures of their dad’s and ask viewers what crazy things their dad would do, or what were the funniest moments about their dad’s growing up.
Get viewers to draw pictures of their dads, and award prizes for the best drawings.
Invite some famous dad’s on the show. Ask the police chief to come to the studio and talk to him about what his life was like growing up. The mayor? The star of the baseball/football team. It’s fun to have newsmakers, who are well known in the community, on the show, but in a completely different manner in which they would normally appear. Have the city’s fire chief come in and be the chef for the day, showing what meal he usually cooks for his family when he is not in the firehouse.
Conclusion
So for live shots, work to make them as creative as you would in a big breaking story, and for Fathers Day, have a plan for the Friday before that involves “real dads.”
Doug Drew is a morning news specialist with 602 Communications. You can reach Doug at:
email: ddrew@602communications.com
facebook: facebook.com/dougdrew
twitter: twitter.com/dougdrew
