What do you think are the criteria that make for a good newscast? For me, it's not so much the news as it is how it's presented (by that I mean talent, graphics, music, and studio design are the main building blocks of an outstanding newscast). KTRK (ABC-13 in Houston, Texas) is one that I believe consistently meets all of these criteria, and has done so in every single clip that I've seen of its newscasts or parts thereof, from YouTube or from the station's website. Where it really shines, however, IMO, is talent, especially main anchors Dave Ward and Gina Gaston (Shara Fryer also stood out in my opinion when she was there).
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Criteria of a good newscast...
- Thread starter bmasters1981
- Start date
And when they save "Breaking News" for when the news is actually happening, not two days after the fact. And when they do live shots at the scene when it happens, not several hours after or (in the case of scheduled events) before, and definitely not right outside the studio, unless there's a deadly car accident happening at the time outside the studios.
The building blocks of a good newscast are :
1) Reporting the right stories
2) Producing the newscast well (get the right B-roll with the right stories, camera cuts, prompter...)
3) Hiring good talent
If three of your top four stories were grabbed from CBS Newspath or the AP wire, and your competitor has four real local stories, you lose. Viewers also have limited tolerance for any single class of stories (politics, human interest, crime, ...)
Viewers will not stand for regular technical difficulties unless your content is really stellar.
Bad talent can chase viewers away very quickly. "Good enough" talent is what you're looking for, mostly good writers who research stories well and who look and sound confident in front of a camera.
1) Reporting the right stories
2) Producing the newscast well (get the right B-roll with the right stories, camera cuts, prompter...)
3) Hiring good talent
If three of your top four stories were grabbed from CBS Newspath or the AP wire, and your competitor has four real local stories, you lose. Viewers also have limited tolerance for any single class of stories (politics, human interest, crime, ...)
Viewers will not stand for regular technical difficulties unless your content is really stellar.
Bad talent can chase viewers away very quickly. "Good enough" talent is what you're looking for, mostly good writers who research stories well and who look and sound confident in front of a camera.
bmasters1981 said:
I disagree completely and further, think your criteria is exactly what has negatively affected the news in recent decades.
Technical excellence, as someone above mentioned. is obviously a basic requirement no matter what medium is used. Nothing detracts faster from a story than the anchor stumbling over the story, tapes mismatched with the story or misspellings on graphics. But that aside.....
The story must be of concern to the majority of the listener/viewer. Feature stories which deal with the proper use of infant seats do not fit that category. Nor does a human interest story in China or the opening of a new restaurant.
Second, remember the foremost facets of proper journalism: where, who, when and how. An incomplete story is extremely aggravating.
Third, cover the IMPORTANT stories. Not opinion. Not speculation. Official malfeasance in our elected or appointed officials is rampant. Get those stories so the public can be informed and take appropriate action. Forget about coverage of the candidates pancake breakfast.
DO NOT TEASE! Giving a 10 second tease at the 5 and 6 newscasts to try to drive viewers to the late night news (which is always a virtual copy of earlier broadcasts) is extremely aggravating and very unprofessional.
And I have this for anyone in the TV news business.....why is it necessary to put the Talking Head on location in front of the city jail to report on someone being indicted for a crime? Spend the money on a reporter's salary instead of a remote truck and gas.
In the old days we had one talking head and limited graphics. I'm not suggesting we go back to the sparse sets and technology of those times but current news coverage has forgotten its roots and now considers the presentation more important than the actual news. Shameful!
If a story is written and produced well enough, they can "make you care", even if you're long past the age of needing safety seats, even if you won't be traveling to the Far East, or even if you're sure the new eatery has nothing but edible allergens and hypertension spikers on its menu. (At the very least, you won't feel your time was so wasted being informed about them.)landtuna said:
To your actual point, however--stations can certainly try your patience. WKRG 'News 5' in Mobile, AL (please DON'T like them on Facebook) has proven pretty shameless about doing filler packages that do nothing but self-promote. Take their recent contest where they drawings to give away five Apple iPads: Each week, we got a reporter calling a winner on camera, with actual trips to that individual's house to 'interview' them about their luck in winning. Compelling television, it was not.
If it were legitimate news that people should or would want to hear, no news department worth its salt would actually make us wait. In the past few years, look at how CBS' 60 Minutes has released a juicy tidbit or revelation from an interview or an investigation several days before that story's actual premiere. You see other news organizations, the 24-hour cable nets, and the internet/the blogosphere chew on the subject for a few days building interest in it, not decreasing it. If its not a longform investigation or feature, you shouldn't be using it as your 'hook' for 10/11 o'clock.landtuna said:
Speaking of which, note to all local news producers: Stop using weather forecasts or sports news as hooks for the late news--stop it all, right this very minute. You can't beat 24/7 access to ESPN or Accuweather. Several times, our Montgomery, AL CBS affiliate has done one of those 5-10 second promos (during breaks in primetime programming) with copy that was nothing more than "Will it rain tomorrow? Find out tonight at ten!" No, child--how about I look up the appropriate weather report on my smartphone/tablet/computer and not watch your c-level news program?
I'm not so young that I don't remember field reporters being given a special placement behind the anchor desk to introduce their stories. Even now, they'll do 'in-studio stand ups' by a TV monitor with appropriate graphics to do the same thing.landtuna said:
There is nothing more useless than a live shot in front of a closed city jail (or city hall, school, 99-cent store, wherever), especially when the story was bound to feature footage of something actually happening there.
Thanks for the responses! The reason why I said that presentation was the most important thing in a good newscast is because I am a very visual type of person who pays a lot of attention to such things, I should admit. I don't know why I do, but I do.
Television is a visual medium, so the visual elements are important. Shade the cameras properly, white balance, make sure the talent is in the right spot for optimum lighting... pray Overdrive or Ignite don't do anything weird. 
Input one incorrect piece of code and the camera leaps out the window.
We could run in circles discussing content. Viewers tell you they hate crime stories, yet the station leading a newscast with eight consecutive crime stories wins the time slot. Go figure. : In a market with millions of potential viewers, it is impossible to please everyone at once. This week we did two stories in one suburb about a substation built much, much larger than planned, and planned without alerting some of the neighbors. It's an important issue to this suburb, but probably not to anyone on the opposite side of the market. Perspective is vital. Don't just tell the facts, but why it matters. Storytelling is important. If you don't capture a viewer's attention in the first sentence, they're probably gone.
Weather, at least in our market, is among the top interests of potential viewers. Viewers want to know the weather for tomorrow, and the weather for the upcoming weekend. In an hour-long newscast, that is also why meteorologists wait until the last weather segment (xx:45) to reveal the long range forecast. Sometimes a sound effect accompanies the long range forecast to grab any distracted viewers. They're trying to maximize viewership for that hour. If it rains, my competition will make weather the lead story, which irritates me. But it works.
Newscasts are longer, and there are more of them. We try our best to generate original content for each one, even though we have fewer employees than four years ago. To keep a viewer interested for a full hour, teases are necessary. When I produced 9:00 p.m. shows, I treated each block like a miniature newscast. But a top story is a top story. No station would wait 45 minutes to tell you every loaf of bread in the city is contaminated with strychnine.
Those ten-second teases you see during prime time are called topicals. Don't ask the viewer a question he or she can't answer (i.e., will it rain tomorrow?). Considering the brief time allocated, stations need a talented writer to avoid looking foolish during those teases.
Lead-ins are important. Ask NBC affiliates. Know your lead-in audience. Learn whether it is mostly male or mostly female and consider your stories armed with that information.
Sadly, though, I've learned viewer habits are hard to change. The market leader has been the market leader since the early 1990s. People who watched that station pass those habits to their kids. I could lead my newscast with a story about the Governor personally murdering his political enemies on the statehouse floor; the market leader could put a watermelon on the set and do nothing... and more people would watch the watermelon.
Input one incorrect piece of code and the camera leaps out the window.We could run in circles discussing content. Viewers tell you they hate crime stories, yet the station leading a newscast with eight consecutive crime stories wins the time slot. Go figure. :
In a market with millions of potential viewers, it is impossible to please everyone at once. This week we did two stories in one suburb about a substation built much, much larger than planned, and planned without alerting some of the neighbors. It's an important issue to this suburb, but probably not to anyone on the opposite side of the market. Perspective is vital. Don't just tell the facts, but why it matters. Storytelling is important. If you don't capture a viewer's attention in the first sentence, they're probably gone. Weather, at least in our market, is among the top interests of potential viewers. Viewers want to know the weather for tomorrow, and the weather for the upcoming weekend. In an hour-long newscast, that is also why meteorologists wait until the last weather segment (xx:45) to reveal the long range forecast. Sometimes a sound effect accompanies the long range forecast to grab any distracted viewers. They're trying to maximize viewership for that hour. If it rains, my competition will make weather the lead story, which irritates me. But it works.
Newscasts are longer, and there are more of them. We try our best to generate original content for each one, even though we have fewer employees than four years ago. To keep a viewer interested for a full hour, teases are necessary. When I produced 9:00 p.m. shows, I treated each block like a miniature newscast. But a top story is a top story. No station would wait 45 minutes to tell you every loaf of bread in the city is contaminated with strychnine.
Those ten-second teases you see during prime time are called topicals. Don't ask the viewer a question he or she can't answer (i.e., will it rain tomorrow?). Considering the brief time allocated, stations need a talented writer to avoid looking foolish during those teases.
Lead-ins are important. Ask NBC affiliates. Know your lead-in audience. Learn whether it is mostly male or mostly female and consider your stories armed with that information.
Sadly, though, I've learned viewer habits are hard to change. The market leader has been the market leader since the early 1990s. People who watched that station pass those habits to their kids. I could lead my newscast with a story about the Governor personally murdering his political enemies on the statehouse floor; the market leader could put a watermelon on the set and do nothing... and more people would watch the watermelon.
landtuna said:
Amen! Too many news departments today have gotten distracted with their "toys". In turn, it takes away from the message. Which in Joe Friday's words are "just the facts". Save the punditry for the cable talking heads.
You forgot "at night when you can't even see the jail with the small camera top light". Can't tell you the number of live shots I see at night when you can't even see the freaking background! And let's not forget about the live shots done on "ozone action days"....using a big satellite truck...in the middle of town!
I am. News sets today look like something out of a Moroccan disco. Technology is great, but when every other station in town has a chopper, satellite truck, super HD weather radar, etc, your continued promotion of it seems rather silly and inane.
Also, I would recommend this 57-minute piece from Quinnipiac about the state of television news.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAFpGCKl3Mg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAFpGCKl3Mg
I think they should use the "Dragnet" aproach. "Just the facts, maam" Stop trying to make a "story" out of every news report. Just because they teach you to use irony or conflict in your writing doesn't mean you have to use it in every report. Newpapers especially are guilty of this even reporting on a ribbon cutting at the mall or the latest symphony concert. A good example. The choir I used to sing with was doing Handels "Messiah" on Christmas with the local symphany. The paper wrote a story about it and interviewed the Symphony director and the choir director seperately, who gave slightly different answers to questions. When the story was published it was written in a manner that had one side against the other and appeared as if they were having an argument about the topic even though the two had never really discussed it. Very similar to the editing on reality shows. create a feud by selective editing when there was none in the first place.
I've never though news should be made dramatic or made into a "story" news is new. Its boring most of the time. Leave the exciting stuff to the Harry Potter novels. Just tell me when It happened, how it happend and have they caught the guy that did it.
I've never though news should be made dramatic or made into a "story" news is new. Its boring most of the time. Leave the exciting stuff to the Harry Potter novels. Just tell me when It happened, how it happend and have they caught the guy that did it.
Have there been Local TV stations that ever been accused of doing Propaganda News? I know I heard of Local TV stations that have been accused of doing Tabloid News
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Td_qGilgtdQ
Check this 1974 60 Minutes episode with Mike Wallace. Wallace examines why KGO ABC7 in San Francisco did Tabloid News over Cronkite style news that CBS Network and local O&O's did in the 1970's. Russ Coughlin the KGO News Director and GM in the 1970's said to attract ratings.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Td_qGilgtdQ
Check this 1974 60 Minutes episode with Mike Wallace. Wallace examines why KGO ABC7 in San Francisco did Tabloid News over Cronkite style news that CBS Network and local O&O's did in the 1970's. Russ Coughlin the KGO News Director and GM in the 1970's said to attract ratings.
The types of stories I hate most are the consumer stories like "7 On Your Side". They will usually highlight some old couple that made a purchase and then never received the item and after 4 months of phone calls they could not get their money back....until channel 7 stepped in of course
It's the same old thing over and over. I can't really understand why anyone would care since only that particular customer was affected. These types of things happen all the time with any business and the stories they highlight on the news are usually just some aberration of the norm that they are trying to pass as a public service story and make the station look like they are helping the public.
It's the same old thing over and over. I can't really understand why anyone would care since only that particular customer was affected. These types of things happen all the time with any business and the stories they highlight on the news are usually just some aberration of the norm that they are trying to pass as a public service story and make the station look like they are helping the public.
Let's be realistic here, stations have to produce newscasts that get good ratings so they can afford to do the news.
Some have snobbishly said on these boards in the past that stations should ignore ratings and do the news because they're supposed to serve the community and it shouldn't matter if it makes money. The fact is that with increasing competition, stations rely on local news for a huge percentage of their overall revenue. If the ratings suffer, the entire station suffers. If the station loses money, it will go out of business.
So just keep ratings in mind as an important factor in determining what makes for a good newscast.
That said, I think the best way to get good ratings is to do a consistent job of covering the stories the viewers need and want to hear about. Competent production values with few technical mistakes is very important. Getting the stories right is important. You can have a great newscast with wonderful information, but if there's lots of dead air and apologies for technical mistakes, the viewers will know they can't trust you to get it on the air the right way. If you have a flawlessly produced newscast with pretty graphics, great anchors, beautifully shot video, ..but have to apologize for factual errors.. the viewers will know they can't trust you to get it right. If you run around calling pretty much everything BREAKING NEWS! to get the viewers to LOOK! at your newscast, they'll ultimately tire of feeling like they're being fooled and they'll tune away.
In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter whether the reporter is standing live in front of a dark jail to tell a story that happened 12 hours ago or standing in the newsroom.... what matters is whether the reporter can deliver the information in a compelling manner. If being out of the building helps the reporter, great. If not, stay inside. If it's best left to be pre-recorded, so be it. There is no set rule here. It depends on the story, the reporter and the setting.
Someone earlier said station shouldn't "tease" stories coming up at 10 in their 6pm newscast. I think this is a preposterous notion. Of course you should.. but.. make sure the story lives up to the tease. One local station here is fond of promoting some new beauty secret or health story all night long during prime time.. only to have it be a 25 second story buried deep in the newscast. That does nothing but anger the viewer. It may help boost the ratings for that night, but ultimately people no longer trust that what they're teasing is worth sticking around for. On the other hand, if you have some good investigative piece that's important to the community, promote the daylights out of it... then deliver the goods.
As for what stations should cover.. that will vary widely by market. Crime is covered a lot because it's easy to cover. You report what happened, get emotional sound, flashing lights on video and do a live shot from the scene saying this is where it happened. The stories can have some viewer interest, but they are generally not all that important to many people in the audience. The city council voting to boost water rates is not easy to cover, but impacts more people in the audience than your run-of-the-mill shooting.
My belief is that stations would do well to cut about half the crime stories out of their shows and do a lot more with local government, community development, education, etc. Find good reporters who can develop good sources in all those places and let them come up with the best story ideas. Then make sure they are good storytellers who have the time and resources to tell those stories in a visually compelling manner. Do that day in and day out. Build trust and connect with the audience through your storytelling and it won't matter who gets to the next fire first.. those viewers will be watching you anyway.
Some have snobbishly said on these boards in the past that stations should ignore ratings and do the news because they're supposed to serve the community and it shouldn't matter if it makes money. The fact is that with increasing competition, stations rely on local news for a huge percentage of their overall revenue. If the ratings suffer, the entire station suffers. If the station loses money, it will go out of business.
So just keep ratings in mind as an important factor in determining what makes for a good newscast.
That said, I think the best way to get good ratings is to do a consistent job of covering the stories the viewers need and want to hear about. Competent production values with few technical mistakes is very important. Getting the stories right is important. You can have a great newscast with wonderful information, but if there's lots of dead air and apologies for technical mistakes, the viewers will know they can't trust you to get it on the air the right way. If you have a flawlessly produced newscast with pretty graphics, great anchors, beautifully shot video, ..but have to apologize for factual errors.. the viewers will know they can't trust you to get it right. If you run around calling pretty much everything BREAKING NEWS! to get the viewers to LOOK! at your newscast, they'll ultimately tire of feeling like they're being fooled and they'll tune away.
In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter whether the reporter is standing live in front of a dark jail to tell a story that happened 12 hours ago or standing in the newsroom.... what matters is whether the reporter can deliver the information in a compelling manner. If being out of the building helps the reporter, great. If not, stay inside. If it's best left to be pre-recorded, so be it. There is no set rule here. It depends on the story, the reporter and the setting.
Someone earlier said station shouldn't "tease" stories coming up at 10 in their 6pm newscast. I think this is a preposterous notion. Of course you should.. but.. make sure the story lives up to the tease. One local station here is fond of promoting some new beauty secret or health story all night long during prime time.. only to have it be a 25 second story buried deep in the newscast. That does nothing but anger the viewer. It may help boost the ratings for that night, but ultimately people no longer trust that what they're teasing is worth sticking around for. On the other hand, if you have some good investigative piece that's important to the community, promote the daylights out of it... then deliver the goods.
As for what stations should cover.. that will vary widely by market. Crime is covered a lot because it's easy to cover. You report what happened, get emotional sound, flashing lights on video and do a live shot from the scene saying this is where it happened. The stories can have some viewer interest, but they are generally not all that important to many people in the audience. The city council voting to boost water rates is not easy to cover, but impacts more people in the audience than your run-of-the-mill shooting.
My belief is that stations would do well to cut about half the crime stories out of their shows and do a lot more with local government, community development, education, etc. Find good reporters who can develop good sources in all those places and let them come up with the best story ideas. Then make sure they are good storytellers who have the time and resources to tell those stories in a visually compelling manner. Do that day in and day out. Build trust and connect with the audience through your storytelling and it won't matter who gets to the next fire first.. those viewers will be watching you anyway.
recto101 said:
KGO was also known for its star anchor, Van Amberg, who anchored the newscast from the late-1960s until his abrupt firing in December 1986. Since then, he practically just disappeared. Word has it that, as of January 2011, he's still around...
http://richliebermanreport.blogspot.com/2011/01/what-ever-happened-to-van-amburg-kgo-tv.html
azumanga said:
More on Van Amberg:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050913062005/http://www.moderntv.com/modtvweb/media/van2.htm
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azumanga said:
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