APRIL 13, 2023

The “Always On” Newsroom

Rebecca Moore, CNN International’s director of technical resources, in a news control room

Communicating constantly. Collaborating collectively across the globe. Delivering 24-hour news in the most cost-effective way possible. And widening the net to recruit a more diverse staff. Just some of the challenges facing one of the best known news brands in the business.

In the latest episode of season three of the Making the Media Podcast, host Craig Wilson discusses all of these issues with Rebecca Moore, director of technical operations with CNN International, based in their London bureau.

In the episode, Rebecca outlines her role overseeing the control room, studio, lighting, and makeup teams, and describes the work involved to upgrade studio facilities in London and, most recently, Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.

Rebecca talks of the challenges around the need to deliver high-quality journalism with equally high production values, but that there is a reality to the costs around the production of that output.

“We are all incredibly aware of the budgetary restraints around creating news and broadcasting the news, and it's an incredibly expensive offering to give people to watch. It's the travel, it's the time, it's the equipment. It is incredibly expensive to produce. So anything we can do to be more fiscally responsible around that. I mean, let's be honest, there are a lot of people who don’t want to pay for it either. People would like their news for free. So we have to pay a lot of attention to our budgets and anything we can do that is streamlined, efficient, still keeps the production values high, and still means that we can deliver on deadlines we should be looking at.” Rebecca highlights her passion to make the industry more inclusive, outlining her work to enhance the diversity, equity, and inclusion of the media business. She feels that this will deliver new voices and different opinions to the news business, resulting in better content overall which can appeal to a wide audience.

She also describes the work they had to do to handle the pandemic (and the recent launches) and saw her team demonstrate new levels of resilience and innovation. She says she is incredibly proud of their work and that communication lies at the heart of it.

She says, “We are 24/7, right? So you can't really just say ‘I'm only working nine to five.’ We're constantly talking. There are three or four news gathering editorial meetings a day. I have regular weekly meetings with my counterparts in Atlanta and Hong Kong. And oftentimes, if we're implementing a new piece of equipment, we're implementing it across all bureaus. So we're all part of that project team.”

Find out more on the next episode of the Making the Media Podcast, available on all major podcast platforms on Friday, April 14.

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    Craig Wilson is a newsroom specialist with over thirty years of experience in the broadcast industry. Craig has held various roles with Avid and is now the Global Media and Cloud Product Evangelist and host of the Making the Media podcast.

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