When There's "Breaking News", All Hands On Deck....

By Debbie Mitchell

It's Monday morning and the morning news shows continue to cover the horrible massacre in Colorado, where 24 year old James Holmes, went on a shooting rampage in a movie theatre during a midnight screening of the new Batman movie "Dark Knight Rises" early last Friday morning.   Holmes killed  12 people, the youngest, a 6 year old girl and wounded many other movie goers.  The movie theatre massacre story broke after midnight Thursday and I know news producers have been working non-stop to get viewers the latest information.

James Holmes, Alleged shooter in Colorado movie  massacre

As the story continues to unfold I am reminded of the professional and emotional "beat" of covering a breaking news story.  I've been away from producing hard news for a little over two years now, but when I saw the "BREAKING NEWS" banner on the morning programs on Friday, I immediately got an ache in my stomach as I  wondered what time did this story break?   The stomach ache was a phantom ache, similar to the feeling I used to get when news broke at CBS News The Early Show because I knew the next few hours were going to be adrenaline filled, intense and chaotic ones that could turn into days of coverage.  Since the shooting happened after midnight I imagined what the morning show producers were experiencing.  Here is a rough idea of how I imagined their night of show preparation played out.

Since news never sleeps, there is always a regular team of producers working through the night to monitor and produce stories that happen over night, fine tune the writing and editing of stories that have been produced by the day team for the morning show.  But, when the "BREAKING NEWS" is a major story like a shooting, all planned stories are off , the show rundown is thrown out and senior staff has to rebuild the show lineup. 

The show goes live at 7am, so there are about 5 hours to book guests, do research, edit tape, reserve trucks to go "live" from the shooting location, and get your anchors background packets with the new information.  So, its all hands on deck for this kind of late night coverage.  Senior staff, daytime producers, associate Producers, bookers, editors, writers are all notified by phone, blackberry, or email and asked to come back to the office. The newsroom is the main base of operation and energy is high.

A RUNDOWN OF A "BREAKING NEWS" NEWSROOM IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT

Executive Producer determines what segments and guests to pursue and feature for the show's  2 hour live and taped interviews. He or she also creates special show graphics, approves topics, oversees building the entire show line-up and assigns anchors their segments. 

Senior Producer, manages the producer bookings, works with producers and  associate producers to create anchor research packets.

Bookers are dispatched and put on flights to book guests on the ground. Freelance bookers in the region are contacted and hired to start the booking process on the ground. Read about network booking for "breaking news"  here. On day one of the shooting story, the main bookings to secure  are  victims or witnesses of the shooting and family and friends of the gunman.  Of course everyone wants to land the exclusive.

Producers, Associate Producers, Researchers and Bookers contact legal, crime experts, more family and friends to appear and discuss the story live in the studio, by satelite or SKYPE. They also contact survivors of past shooting massacres to recount how they lived thru a similar tragedy. Producers also pre-interview guests about the story, write segment questions and find appropriate photos and video to be used in the segment.   

Tape/Field Producers are also dispatched to the story with a camera crew or digital camera.  They are responsible for shooting and compiling the video background on the story, victims, survivors and a profile of the shooter. 

Editors are in place to receive video and cut tape packages as they are fed in.

Writers are responsible for the flow of the show by creating segment intro and outdo teases and writing the teleprompter copy for the anchors to read. To read one Broadcast Writers story click here. 

Five hours is not a lot of time to put a 2 hour broadcast together, so there is a good chance that as the show goes live, producers are continuing to book feverishly and anchors are being fed information "live" as the show is airing.  Since the Colorado shooting broke on a Friday, producers probably continued to book for the weekend shows.  Each hour the story unfolds, more detailed information is revealed. So by day two and three more victims and witnesses are being found and interviewed.  By day four, the 24 hour news shows have given viewers most of the news in "Breaking News."  The news programs are moving back into their normal programming mode and producers who have been working pretty much non-stop on getting the story on air  are probably ready to get a good night's sleep. For now, their work is done until the next call for "Breaking News."

Just so you know, in some cases, the "Breaking News" coverage cycle runs longer. A good example is the coverage of 9-11.  But I'll save that story for another day.


If any producers are reading this, let me know if you get that stomach ache too and if I've left out any part of the high anxiety coverage process.

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TV/Social Media Producer Debbie Mitchell is an Emmy nominated producer who is a member of the Producers Guild of America (PGA)  and  is currently a member of the James Beard Broadcast and New Media Awards Committee.  If you are a brand interested in blogger outreach campaigns, a blogger or personality interested in television placement follow Debbie Mitchell @TVProducerDeb or contact TheBloggerConnection.com.

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