Page 32 - Convergent Journalism an Introduction Writing and Producing Across Media

THE MULTIMEDIA ASSIGNMENT EDITOR AND PRODUCER

• Make beat calls to emergency and government officials. These
are typically phone calls to dispatchers or administrative
assistants who can release information about spot news in the
community.
• Coordinate photographers and reporters in the field. The
assignment desk is the primary contact with everyone who is
covering something.
• Make quick judgment calls about story coverage. Since the
assignment editor knows who is covering what, he or she knows
which resources are available.
• Stay in constant communication with producers about breaking
news and changes.
• Build contacts with newsmakers, including politicians,
emergency officials, and any source who has an intimate
knowledge of a subject.

In some medium and large market newsrooms (bigger than market
100), multiple assignment editors split the duties by responsibility and
22 time of day. Big newsrooms might have a planning editor and assign-
ment desk assistants, or there may be daytime, night, and weekend
assignment editors. However, in small newsrooms, one assignment
editor often fills every role, and the assignment editor may be on call
24/7.
The producer is the architect of the newscast. In the daily coverage
scheme, the assignment editor chooses what stories the station will
cover and assigns the reporters, photographers, and editors to cover
them. The producer decides how each story will look and sound. Here
are some of a producer’s duties in a traditional TV/radio newsroom:

• Decide which stories will be shown or heard in a newscast. The
producer is the “gatekeeper,” deciding what is shown on the
news and what isn’t.
• Determine what form a story will take. The story could be a
short voiceover, a copy story that the anchor reads, a reporter
package, or a live shot from the field.
• Build the newscast to the show’s time constraints, and commun-
icate those guidelines to reporters. The producer tells the
reporters how long their stories should be.
• Track progress of all reporters, photographers, and editors
working on a story.