My Media Vision — Revolutionize The Newscast
Today, I gave an interview to a journalist from the Middle East newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat about the role of women in newscasts.
My bottom line on the subject is that women are essential in absolutely everything, including the newscast. However, I am concerned that executives are only adding women to front newscasts, attract viewers and raise ratings. Women are needed in editorial meetings where stories are generated and in the field where stories are developed in addition to executive board rooms where the perspective and growth of a newscast is affected by women’s contributions to the business of news.
Octavia Nasr with Errol Barnett on the CNN Live set in 2010. Photo Courtesy Errol Barnett
This made me think (and speak) about some ideas I’ve been dreaming of for years but never found any serious listeners in the crowds of news business leaders I’ve worked with over the years in my most recent role as a media consultant. So, I’ll write here some of my thoughts and see where they go. I feel there is a need for a serious conversation about media today. There is a need for a revolution in how we gather news and how we present the news. So, I’ll start with what I ended the interview with.
The entire newscast format has remained the same over the decades since the inception of broadcast news. Faces change, technologies change, styles of hair, makeup, clothes and delivery change but the format is still the same.
Open
Intro
Report
Intro
Report
Tease to break
Break
Intro
Report
Tease to break
Intro report
Kicker
Close
For variety, you’ll find some voice-over pieces, some short reads or headlines for quick news stories with or without accompanying graphics, some natural sound and sound-bites and some live reports from the field or studio interviews.
Turn to any TV channel in any language around the world and that’s the format you’ll get. Those in charge of the TV News business are stuck with this format and unable to change it because they cannot change themselves. So, the newscasts are as old as the mentalities of those in charge of them. They will remain bound and held back from evolving until the current generation is out of the business. I hope this will be sooner rather than later.
If my daughters (21 and 19) and their peers do not consume the news that is costing millions of Dollars to produce, there is a very good reason for that. This antiquated format does not speak to them, the content does not appeal to them, the presenters for the most part do not represent them. Until a fresh new generation of professionals get to the positions of power to effect change, we are stuck with this tired, boring and ineffective format that has been breathing its last breath for years under our watchful eyes.
We witness every day desperate attempts to resuscitate it to no avail. In the meantime, the content is suffering and the story generation is weakening. It helps to look at the news business from afar to see the decay and the slow death the business of news is going through. While current executives are trying desperately to resuscitate their dying horse, maybe it is time to let it go peacefully and give a chance to something brand new to be born. This will require some people walking away from power. Will they? Or will they remain until they are forced out? How much are we hurting our society and the world by delaying this inevitable change?
These thoughts are simple, and there are examples of replacement formats all around us. I can only wonder why someone else hasn’t thought of them and effected change already in that direction. All it takes is ONE PERSON IN A POSITION OF POWER to take the leap for everyone else to follow. Start the revolution now, and before long the old format will be obsolete and we will wonder what took us so long!
