This is a post that a few people – one in particular – have been asking me to make for a while now. It isn’t the reason I left television, but it is a good reason many do. And others should.
On TV? Your managers are making your life miserable. On purpose. They are all trained to do so.
Seriously.
Watch TV news? The people on the air are critiqued and held to a higher standard than you realize and would think is reasonable. And it is such a high, convoluted bar, that no on-air talent can reach it. It leaves many frustrated. Some hopeless. Others discouraged.
It is on purpose. Though, it isn’t with malice (in most cases). It just is.
And if you are on TV, on-air, and struggling with a supervisor just know you aren’t alone. And it is set up this way to make sure you fail.
Too much weight on viewer emails/calls
With news audiences shrinking as people turn to streaming services and online-only consumption, Ratings (and clicks) have become even more King. And because there is increased weight put on Ratings and Clicks, it means that every newscast has to get the most viewers possible, at all times, every time. And in order to do this, TV goes to great lengths to get viewers’ attention (that is for another post).
And it is good to have goals. But, perhaps, not like this. And the consequence is that every single hiccup is magnified.
And too many times the hiccups aren’t even hiccups. The “problems” are just a one-person problem stemming from an old-man-yells-at-cloud caller.
Too many times over the years I heard that “viewers are saying…” something about me. Or a coworker. A shirt had a wrinkle, a dress was too short, a tie was too bright, someone as too tall, or a shade of red lipstick wasn’t appropriate for the story that was covered (literal complaint to a friend of mine).
Instead of management hearing these complaints and ignoring them or laughing them off, they turn around and let on-air talent know there is a “problem” with their on-air performance.
But there isn’t a problem with the on-air talent. The problem is a cranky person called the newsroom and someone took said cranky person seriously. Why? Because so much weight is put on viewers. And those individual phone calls turn from a mole hill into a mountain.
Why?
Because viewers and clicks are King.
The problem is that most newsroom managers have never been on-air talent. And if so, not since before 2005. You know, before social media started and every person had a bullhorn to tell everyone else that “you suck!”
On-air talent is constantly beat over the head by viewer complaints on social media. In their email. At the grocery store. Most learn how to navigate which critiques are worthwhile and which are just dummies with too much to say (hint: most of the people who have something to critique about on-air talent’s appearance are dummies).
It leaves many people who are on-air numb to most calls, emails and tweets with critiques on their look, and performance.
But moving up in the television news world without being introduced to that kind of constant critique doesn’t afford someone the ability to ignore a single critique. And because so much weight is put on making sure every person is watching every newscast. All the time. While having a 100-percent positive experience.
That’s not life. That’s not reality. But that is the world management is trained to navigate.
Consultants
Oy. So, if you don’t know what a television consultant is, I’ll give you a short rundown. And then an example of one Consultant that I had the pleasure of meeting.
Television Consultants are paid by the TV station to professionally critique on-air talent on looks, personality, news coverage, word choice, story ideas, etc. Most Consultants watch TV stations in Atlanta, New York, Dallas, Chicago, and Seattle to pick up good ideas to sell to stations in Kalamazoo, Des Moines, Albuquerque, Lake Charles, and Utica.
There is some disparity there, though. The big one is probably obvious. One set of stations have an arsenal of seasoned news reporting talent. The other is an over-worked, underpaid group of recent college graduates. One set of stations have aircraft. The other set of stations can’t even afford a drone.
My favorite story to tell is about a Consultant that I met with twice. The first time he critiqued how I spoke, told me to wear tighter clothing, change my glasses, and – like every Consultant I ever met – that I needed to stop talking about Science.
The second time I met I walked into the room and, unprompted, he said, “Well, I’m glad you got rid of that green suit.”
I asked, “what green suit?”
He said, “The green suit you had on last time I was here.”
I said, “I don’t own a green suit, you must be thinking of someone else.”
He said, “No it was you. You must’ve borrowed it that day.”
I smiled and said, “I’ve never borrowed a suit in my life, I don’t own a green suit. I promise, you’re just getting me confused with someone else. It’s no big deal.”
He said, earnestly with no sarcasm, “I’m just glad you got rid of it.”
I said, “Why would I have a green suit? I work on a green screen. It would key out.”
He said, again with no sarcasm, “I don’t know what to tell you, but you were wearing a green suit. But you’re not wearing it today, so that’s good.”
These people are paid to find a problem and offer a solution. If there is no problem, they will simply make one up – like my green suit. They will literally look at you and tell you the sky is green and try to make you feel stupid for saying it is blue.
Different guy showed me a story done by an Atlanta meteorologist. It was a Special Report done for “Sweeps” (when Ratings are taken, four times per year). It was shot with an extra photographer (two different photogs and one reporter), using a helicopter, a news graphics program we didn’t have at the station, and a different software package for weather than we had.
And said, “You should be doing things like this once per month.”
Atlanta is churning out this kind of thing four times per year, but I’m suppose to do this once per month? Bet. When I tried to explain that doing a report like that wouldn’t be physically possible given the schedule I was assigned, the staff at my station, and the software package that we didn’t have, he accused me of not wanting to work hard enough to “win” and tried to make me feel guilty for not holding up my part of the “team” in the newsroom.
Forget that we didn’t have a helicopter at our station in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
Do more with less
This is a constant everywhere in 2021. But in the news industry, it has been this way since, about, 1998. The problem is that newsrooms are so stretched thin in many places it should be called “do more with nothing.”
Because most management in news has never had to turn a news story in their own market, they rarely understand the time it takes to put together a story for the evening news. And that’s not their fault. How could they know? They’ve never had to.
The problem is that without any second thought for the physics of time and space, they often try to hold reporters accountable to things that are literally physically impossible.
If you’re reading this and you’re not familiar with creating a news story for TV, here is a brief rundown of events…
- Get the assignment
- Identify major figures involved with the story
- Contact those major figures by phone
- Wait for those major figures to return the phone call.
- Make calls for covering a completely separate second story
- Receive a call from a major figure on first story and schedule an interview
- Drive to the first interview – often between 15 and 90 minutes away
- Receive a call for the second story, schedule an interview for later that day
- Conduct the interview of the first major figure and grab B-roll
- Receive a call from the second major figure and schedule an interview
- Drive to the second interview – often another 15 and 90 minutes
- Conduct a second interview on first story of major figure and grab B-roll
- Drive back to the station – often another 15 to 90 minutes
- Write the script
- Edit the interview snippets you want to use
- Drive to the second news story to conduct an interview – often another 15 to 90 minutes away
- Conduct the second interview and grab B-roll
- Drive back to the station – often another 15 to 90 minutes
- Create the news package for the first story and export
- Write the script for the second news story
- Edit the interview snippets you want to use for the second news story
- Create the news package for the second story and export
Yes. Up to 6 hours of a reporters day may be driving. So, doing “more” isn’t really an option at this point. Since most reporters are now solo’ing the job with no photographer. So they are literally driving and unable to do work.
If you are a viewer and you’ve ever wondered how spelling mistakes, factual errors, or misplaced graphics make it into a news story, this is why. It often isn’t a lack of talent, it is a lack of support.
It is a lack of time.
When reporters come up short, miss deadline, have a spelling error, or only cover one story in a day – despite spending 4 hours in the car and getting only one person to return a phone call – it is often used as ammunition by management to question the dedication and skill of the journalist.
Other times it is a meteorologist doing this job. Someone with no scholastic training in journalism, nor the equipment being used, is asked to cover news stories like a veteran reporter. And when they ask to do the job they were hired to perform (the weather), the meteorologist is often chided for making such a reasonable request.
I once laid out my schedule to some regional management within the company. I explained that my workday was slammed full. Too full. And even on the most boring days, with no weather but sunshine and 80 degrees for the next two weeks, only left me 5 free minutes, no lunch, no bathroom breaks, and not even a hiccup.
I was told, no sarcasm, that “Looks like you have five minutes to do some more work.”
When I said, that isn’t how I see it, the room full of people questioned my integrity.
Manager training
Questioning someone’s skill or dedication for a job is a fair metric but only when the person being questioned is given the tools to succeed.
Instead, news organizations – not news stations, but the companies that own these stations – ignore the staffing shortages.
They don’t make changes to lighten workloads and refocus on manageable tasks and coverage, these organizations ask these news managers during training sessions to motivate their news staff to “do more with less” and promise the stations Consultants will find areas the staff can improve.
Managers are sent and trained at large symposiums about how the newsroom should look and can look. How stories can be told. How to attract more viewers!
Then sent back home to share this with the newsroom. And then they, the managers, are held accountable to use that knowledge to increase Ratings, Clicks, Viewers, etc.
But none of it works. Because there is no One-Size-Fits-All for news reporting. Some communities like local stories on city government, others like school board meetings, others are rural, some are big city.
But local news management is being pushed to get numbers up. They are told to ‘Remember that training,’ to lead them to success.
Training, though, can’t solve the personnel and time problem. There is literally not enough time in the day for the few reporters on staff to do the things news managers want the reporters, anchors, or weather people to do.
And news management doesn’t have the time to solve the problem either. So, often times it turns into a ‘do it or leave’ attitude, because, as many tell their staff, ‘you’re replaceable.’
It is a assembly line of ‘You Aren’t Good Enough.’ If it isn’t ‘do more with less’ then it is ‘if you don’t *do* then you’re a failure.’ Consultants are coming in to tell you that you need to speak differently. Or management is forwarding a rude viewer email to you and saying, “fix this.”
If you are an on-air talent, at this point, you are getting pecked to death.
Piece after piece. Peck after peck. And then when contract time comes around, the station picks up on every reason they can to say, “we like you, but we would like to see X, Y, and Z more from you if you want to re-sign.”
I’ve worked outside of the business. That isn’t normal.
Ever-changing metrics
The only constant is change. That is life. But the metrics that keep you employed should not be something that is constantly changing. Evolving? Sure. But evolution doesn’t happen overnight. Or in two weeks.
But this gets back to changing landscape of television news. As viewers leave, news outlets are going whatever they can to keep viewers engaged. They are throwing things against the wall to see what sticks.
Things like, instead of anchors saying, “we’ll be right back with the weather” they just read a story and then it cuts to commercial. Because then people won’t know if they can change the channel or not.
Literally that is an idea a Consultant suggested: ‘Cut to commercial, people won’t know when the news will be back so they won’t change the channel’
So, we did it. Then, a few months later, talent was condescendingly asked by management in a meeting – in front of the entire staff – why we didn’t tease the weather going into the commercial break.
Or instead of reporters doing a special story four times per year, being given a day or two to produce said stories, the reporters will do one of these reports once per month. And said reporters will have to work these stories into their schedules without missing deadline and while still producing two stories per day.
Then management asks why the special reports are not as thorough and vetted. And reassigning quarterly reports to be done, on top of the now month special reports, on top of the two-stories per day.
Or, in order to make sure talent is engaging with viewers, news stations track talent facebook pages. Not just things like, “how many people like your page?” but “how often do you post?” and “how many people engage with what you post?” and “how can we increase the number of likes you get on a post?”
For an embarrassingly long period of time while I was in television I was sent weekly updates about how I stacked up against other people in my own newsroom on facebook. I was encouraged to post pictures of my kids, my dog, my wife, veterans, and sunsets. Anything for engagement.
There were competitions between on-air talent. This happens at many TV stations across the country.
Not because it meant more people were watching on TV. But because it meant we could report to the higher ups that one person’s numbers were better relative to other broadcasters.
Then that ended. It turns out “friendly” competition between people in the same newsroom isn’t as friendly when paychecks and contracts are riding on the number of likes someone gets on a post.
Think of it like working in Sales. But your ability to earn a higher commission percentage is defined by the number of kids you have, dogs you own, or the willingness of your spouse to be used for clickbait. And not by your skills as a salesperson.
The Bottom Line: It is semi-organized chaos
That is what it all boils down to. Television news is hemorrhaging money relative to the 80s and 90s. So these companies will do anything and everything to make as much money as they can before they ‘leave the casino’ as it were.
Look at Newspapers. Look at Radio. Television is next. The heads of these companies know it and they are squeezing the turnip as hard as they can until they can’t anymore.
To do so, they push people willing to dedicate their lives to informing others to ever-expanded limits. They set-up a system that purposefully puts newsrooms at odds. Where the people tasked with delivering the news are the most experienced. But they are often reading stories written by people with the least experience, managed by those who have never done either job.
I would really encourage everyone to read that last paragraph again.
It is literally designed to cause conflict. It is designed to keep people at odds with each other instead stepping outside of the ‘fish bowl’ to see what is really happening.
And you may be thinking, ‘Sure, Nick, it’s bad. But what’s your point?’
Two reasons I post this.
For the current on-air folks, I say to you: You are not alone. This happens everywhere. But it should not be considered normal.
For viewers, I say to you: This is how your news is made. This happens everywhere. But it should not be considered notmal.
This isn’t just a television person complaining about a job. This is peek behind the curtain for everyone who watches TV news. To hopefully help some people have some compassion for the people they see on TV.
I know it often looks like they are having a great time, dressed snazzy, and looking good. But there are a lot of things that go into producing the evening news that are really ugly. And a lot of times the people dealing with this think it is normal because they don’t know anything different. My hope is by putting it in writing, those same people can look around and think, no, this isn’t normal.
And it needs to change.
