The Future Direction of Television News
Image credit: NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises
Television news has a long history of evolving—from the days when stories in the field were shot on film through electronic newsgathering to wireless network contribution of live and finished packages. Each of these workflow transitions was gradual, giving journalists and news organizations time to adapt and adopt. But when the COVID-19 pandemic struck in March 2020, newsrooms, like the rest of society, had to evolve immediately.
This white paper examines how broadcasters adapted their news workflows to the new reality and what they learned in the process that will affect how they gather and produce news in the future. It also looks at changing attitudes among news personnel with respect to new technologies like the cloud, virtualized news production tools, and long-held newsroom institutions, such as the daily editorial planning meeting.
Topics discussed include:
- Hyperlocal reporting
- Remote reporting and evolving skill sets
- The use of video conferencing apps for reporting and internal communications
- How broadcasters adapted existing technologies and workflows for remote operations
- The benefits of the cloud, including redundancy and disaster recovery
- Maintaining collaboration in the process of creating news
Contributors:
- Bob Ellis, Vice President and General Manager, WJXT and WCWJ (Graham Media)
- Jim DeChant, NP&G Director of Technical Operations, News-Press & Gazette
- Jeff Mayzurk, Executive Vice President, Operations & Technology, NBCU Telemundo Center
- Ruba Ibrahim, Director of Operations, Al Arabiya
- Bill Anderson, Director of Change Management—News, Sinclair Broadcast Group
- James Finch, Director, News Services, Gray Television
- Patrick McCreery, President, Meredith Corp. Local Media Group
- Robert Lydick, Vice President, Information Technology and Station Operations, TEGNA
- Scott Livingston, Vice President of News, Sinclair
- Mike Fass, Vice President of Broadcast Operations, Gray Television
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