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TV
News Reporting and Production MCM
516
VU
LESSON
28
STRUCTURE
OF NEWS DEPARTMENT
One
of the traditional mass communications is the
presence of a large number of
gatekeepers. This
fact
is
seen in gathering and reporting of
news for conventional print
and broadcast media.
Reporting
is a team effort and quite a
few members of the team
serve as gatekeepers. Online
reporting
in
contrast may have only one or a
few gatekeepers.
There
are two main sources of
news; staff
reports and the
wire
services.
Other less important
sources
include
feature
syndicates as
well as handouts
and
releases
from
various public and private
sources.
The
City
Editor is the
captain of the news reporting
team. He or she assigns
stories to the reporters and
supervises
their work.
There
are two types of reporters:
·
Beat
Reporters
Cover
some topics on regular basis,
such as crime beat or health
beat.
·
General
assignment reporters
Cover
what ever assignment is
given to them or come
up.
A
typical day for the general
assignment reporter might
consist of covering an auto accident, a
speech,
by
a visiting politician and a rock concert.
Stories from the reporters are passed
along to the city
editor,
where
they are approved and sent
to the copy desk for further
editing.
The
Managing
Editor and the
Assistant
Managing Editor are
also part of the news team.
They are
responsible
for the overall daily
preparation of news
bulletins.
The
city editor can decide not
to cover a story in the first place or
not to run a story even if the
event is
covered.
The
reporter has wide latitude
of judgment over what he or
she chooses to include in the
story.
The
Copy
Editor can
change the story as needed
and the Managing
Editor has
the power to emphasize
or
de-emphasize the story to fit the
needs of the day.
Organization
of a newspaper news
room
Managing
editor
City
editor
Wire
editor
City
editor
Photographers
Reporters
Beat
reporters
General
assignment reporters
The
sources of news for the
broadcast media are similar to
those for the news paper.
Special Wire
Services
cater
to television and radio stations and
local reporters are assigned to
cover nearby events.
In
addition
many broadcast and telecast
news rooms subscribe to
Syndicated
News Services or
if
affiliated
with a network have access to the
net's news feed.
The
telecast newsroom is organized along
different lines from its
print counterpart.
·
At
the Local
Stations,
News
Director is
in-charge of over all news
operation.
·
In
Large
Stations,
most News
Directors spend
their time on administrative
work, personnel,
budgets,
equipment and so on.
97
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TV
News Reporting and Production MCM
516
VU
·
In
Smaller
Stations most
news directors perform other
functions such as being
anchorperson as
well.
Next
in command is Executive
Producer who
supervises all the producers in the
news room. Typically
producers
are assigned to the early
morning,
morning,
noon,
evening,
night, and
late-night
newscast.
In
addition to looking after the
producer, executive producer might
also produce the evening
news,
typically
the stations most important
programme.
Organization
of a TV news room
News
director
Executive
producer
Assignment
editor
Producers
Reporters
Editors
Online
media
The
structure of an online news organization
may take several shapes. In some
operations, the online
division
may be separated and independent
entity, in others, the online
segment may be integrated
with
the
parent print or broadcast news
organizations.
The
news flow in an online news
department is similar to that in the
traditional media. Top executives
decide
how the site will be structured and
how many specialty area e.g.
sports,
financial, weather,
entertainment
it
will contain.
Editors
decide what content will be used on the
website, which stories will have
additional audio and
video
files, where the stories will be
places and how often they
will be updated. Staff members
skilled in
website
design take care of the technical
side.
Online
news department that are
affiliated with the broadcast or cable
networks, use the audio and
video
appeared
on the parent network, but may
edit it differently.
Other
stories may be rewritten
from wire copy or from
copy that has appeared in
print or on the air.
Not
all
but some online news
however is recycled. Most
online news staffs also
employ reporters who do
original
reporting for the website.
Organization
of an online newsroom
Executive
editor
Producer
Design
managers
Producer
Editors
Reporters
Design
managers
Multimedia
designers
Web
technicians
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