The rush of a breaking news situation is something that's hard to describe.
Our new sports reporter last night asked me what it's like, and I didn't really have an answer.
"You just go," I told him. "You go into autopilot mode and you figure things out as you go along. This is what you're trained for."
An active SWAT scene was unfolding in our coverage area on Labor Day. I was filling in as the evening anchor/producer and had one reporter working nightside, as per usual. She was doing a simple labor day story on workers for the evening shows when the newsroom phone rang around 7:00.
The newsroom was cleared out besides the two of us and our digital producer who was getting ready to leave for the day.
I'm not sure if it's been luck or instinct, but I feel like I've developed a knack for feeling when a story is going to develop into something worth covering. It's happened with fires, accidents, and feel-good stories.
I had a feeling about this phone call.
A man new to the area called the newsroom and said he saw a large police presence in his neighborhood and wanted to know if we knew anything. I told the reporter to get her keys as he was on the phone as we tried to figure out where she would go.
She got near the scene and didn't see police. I told her to drive to the next street up, and behold, there was a line of police cars and a SWAT truck.
I sent someone from the control room to the scene with the live equipment in anticipation of going live for the 10:00 show. Our chief meteorologist went with him and brought back her memory card from the scene so we could get video to use with her live shot.
As she gathered information and communicated it back to me, I updated our online story. Within a couple hours, it had 10,000 views. We average between 30-40 thousand per day. On non-holidays. Monday ended as our second-highest page count online in the last month.
The entire process was invigorating. The fast-paced and fluidity of the situation is why I got into news.
While we were scrambling for a web story and what would develop into just over the first minute of the 10 and 11 newscasts, I still had to produce and prepare for the remaining portions of the shows.
It was my first time really dealing with a rapid situation like this since I started at WDTV. I've had breaking news situations develop while I was producing shows before, but nothing at that magnitude or that close to the start of the shows.
Amist all the chaos, I realized something important in our industry. We were first, we were fast, and we were right. We reported what we could confirm and what we knew; we left out the speculation and the rumors, even if they turned out to be true. It's journalism 101. Gather, authenticate, organize, report. There's no time to think about the process. The process thinks for you, once you know how to manage it and fight through the noise.
We beat every local media outlet to the story, including our competing television station. I later learned that their news director was not happy at all that we had the story so quickly and had the information that we did when we did.
A college professor told of the horrors of days when you walk into the newsroom the day after getting beat on a major story. We were also told of the joy and adrenaline rush that comes with winning that battle. That time, we had the upper hand. We have a lot in the last few months, and our numbers are starting to reflect that fact.
Facebook commenters command their own post, but they'll get this sidebar after last night. Some of them said on our posts that the story shouldn't be updated as it unfolded. We also went one hour between updates as police negotiated with the armed suspect, to which other commenters complained of our lack of updates. Meanwhile, we were the only media outlet covering the situation.
Police switched frequencies on their radios so local scanners couldn't hear their communication, as is standard for these situations. Without that initial phone call tip, we would have been later to the scene. Eventually, the dispatchers alerted police units that several media outlets were calling for information. We weren't because we were there.
The industry isn't what it used to be - people don't wait for news to end before they report it anymore, and that can sometimes be dangerous. It's the job of journalists - as was ours Monday night - to only report the facts that we know ethically and efficiently.
Sure, being first is great.
Being first and being right is even better.
Especially when you anger the competition.
Our new sports reporter last night asked me what it's like, and I didn't really have an answer.
"You just go," I told him. "You go into autopilot mode and you figure things out as you go along. This is what you're trained for."
An active SWAT scene was unfolding in our coverage area on Labor Day. I was filling in as the evening anchor/producer and had one reporter working nightside, as per usual. She was doing a simple labor day story on workers for the evening shows when the newsroom phone rang around 7:00.
The newsroom was cleared out besides the two of us and our digital producer who was getting ready to leave for the day.
I'm not sure if it's been luck or instinct, but I feel like I've developed a knack for feeling when a story is going to develop into something worth covering. It's happened with fires, accidents, and feel-good stories.
I had a feeling about this phone call.
A man new to the area called the newsroom and said he saw a large police presence in his neighborhood and wanted to know if we knew anything. I told the reporter to get her keys as he was on the phone as we tried to figure out where she would go.
She got near the scene and didn't see police. I told her to drive to the next street up, and behold, there was a line of police cars and a SWAT truck.
I sent someone from the control room to the scene with the live equipment in anticipation of going live for the 10:00 show. Our chief meteorologist went with him and brought back her memory card from the scene so we could get video to use with her live shot.
As she gathered information and communicated it back to me, I updated our online story. Within a couple hours, it had 10,000 views. We average between 30-40 thousand per day. On non-holidays. Monday ended as our second-highest page count online in the last month.
The entire process was invigorating. The fast-paced and fluidity of the situation is why I got into news.
While we were scrambling for a web story and what would develop into just over the first minute of the 10 and 11 newscasts, I still had to produce and prepare for the remaining portions of the shows.
It was my first time really dealing with a rapid situation like this since I started at WDTV. I've had breaking news situations develop while I was producing shows before, but nothing at that magnitude or that close to the start of the shows.
Amist all the chaos, I realized something important in our industry. We were first, we were fast, and we were right. We reported what we could confirm and what we knew; we left out the speculation and the rumors, even if they turned out to be true. It's journalism 101. Gather, authenticate, organize, report. There's no time to think about the process. The process thinks for you, once you know how to manage it and fight through the noise.
We beat every local media outlet to the story, including our competing television station. I later learned that their news director was not happy at all that we had the story so quickly and had the information that we did when we did.
A college professor told of the horrors of days when you walk into the newsroom the day after getting beat on a major story. We were also told of the joy and adrenaline rush that comes with winning that battle. That time, we had the upper hand. We have a lot in the last few months, and our numbers are starting to reflect that fact.
Facebook commenters command their own post, but they'll get this sidebar after last night. Some of them said on our posts that the story shouldn't be updated as it unfolded. We also went one hour between updates as police negotiated with the armed suspect, to which other commenters complained of our lack of updates. Meanwhile, we were the only media outlet covering the situation.
Police switched frequencies on their radios so local scanners couldn't hear their communication, as is standard for these situations. Without that initial phone call tip, we would have been later to the scene. Eventually, the dispatchers alerted police units that several media outlets were calling for information. We weren't because we were there.
The industry isn't what it used to be - people don't wait for news to end before they report it anymore, and that can sometimes be dangerous. It's the job of journalists - as was ours Monday night - to only report the facts that we know ethically and efficiently.
Sure, being first is great.
Being first and being right is even better.
Especially when you anger the competition.
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