by Nathan Higgins, producer for U_News
It's true anything can happen on live television. Of course sometimes anything can refer to an unwanted expletive from a college sports announcer, a streaker running across the tennis match, or maybe even something more profound like watching a revolution live in Egypt or mass amounts of Americans celebrating the death of a hated enemy. This all can happen and has happened on TV in the past year. But something that hasn't happened is molding all four of these random events into one conversation, and I'm not talking about one random conversation with a close friend.
I'm talking about creating a live interactive conversation about all four of these events and turning them around for a fully-involved look at you and today's news. That's essentially what U_News @4 is. A live, interactive conversation mixing television, social media, news, humor, sports, and entertainment.
This is by all accounts a very broad explanation but it does get to U_News' core. We're not looking to just broadcast a newscast now and tell you what today's news is. Talking at you isn't an option for U_News. The focus now is with you.
While more stations and newscasts across the country struggle with this concept, we take the concept and run with it. That doesn't mean it's working 100%, but we're still experimenting. We don't have an exact formula for success, but we're still trying. It's this trying that sets the show apart.
KOMU is one of the most unique newsrooms in the country. Largely run by students, this real-world laboratory allows us to experiment. And what better way than with U_News? We can experiment with how we use students, from monitoring and reporting on social media, to live shots from an iPhone or backpack. This newscast isn't typical because of the content, the concept, and the technology.
One of the biggest features is our use of Google+ Hangouts. This allows us to talk with anyone around the globe and get inside information on happenings anywhere, from a student's perspective on riots at Penn State to a Turkish journalist covering the devastating effects of a destructive earthquake. This technology gives us the opportunity to get exclusive interviews on live television that previously only networks had the resources to access. Plus, we can do it for free.
Hangouts also give us another look at our community from Mid-Missourians all over the viewing area. We can put Mid-Missourians on what we call our Cyber Couch (the daily Hangout) to talk about anything that's news to them or anything that's happening in their area.
The use of Hangouts alone makes U_News unique. But this along with the incorporation of social media in every block of news, online buzz segments, different feature segments, viral videos, and your traditional news staples make the show one of the most atypical on live TV right now. But, that's a good thing. We want to break the norm.
Including all these segments into one show and trying to make one newscast a continuous conversation makes my day interesting. I'm always looking for stories that will create flow from story to story and even block to block if possible. Some days that's easier than others.
The key to the show is interaction. I'm constantly looking for something that people are already talking about or a conversation that we can develop and drive. Throughout the day, I look for what we call "talkable topics." That can range from local to international, political to humorous, bizarre to nonsensical, and fluff to controversial.
When producing the show, I look at content that will please people across the board. It's too early to say exactly who our biggest target audience is. Because of that, we try to include news or segments that will cater to almost any viewer. This includes the latest national and international news, a daily viral video, a laid back sports segment, and online social media chatter. That makes the show interesting to produce. We'll have news from all different areas. Most shows have a target audience and know how to pinpoint that audience. We're still establishing that identity, another reason U_News is unique.
On a day to day basis, I go the KOMU's daily assignment meetings, talk with the reporters about what stories they're covering, and start putting the bare bones of the show together. I start building the show, but the skeleton outline of the show at 10:00 a.m. is nothing like what you would eventually see on air at 4:00. From there, I scour social media and other news sites, looking for talkable topics and buzz online.
The next couple hours of the day (usually mid-afternoon) I manage KOMU's Facebook page by posting topics and coordinating with our social media anchors which stories we'll cover and where. I then stack the show, finish writing, and head back to the booth for final preparations. Behind the scenes is always frantic when we get close to deadline. There's usually a lot of last minute tweaks to make sure the show looks the best possible and to make sure we have all the pieces in place.
On a bigger scale, one of the biggest focuses is reaching more people. Another thing different about this show is that we don't just want our viewers to tune in and watch. We urge them to join the conversation and contribute. In terms of long-term success, we want people to talk with us all day even after U_News @4. We want people to continue the conversation online as part of the continuous news. We want to post new information throughout the day that people can keep talking about.
Ideally, we want this show to become even more of a conversation and more interactive. More voices, more eyes, more co-hosts all across Mid-Missouri. The best way we can do that is to make it easier for people to interact and find stories that matter to them. We eventually want our viewers to drive the conversation. We want them to give us story ideas, talk about what matters to them, and further reduce the transparency and the separation between viewers and journalists. We truly want to make this a living, breathing conversation on live television.
Because remember folks, anything can happen on live television.
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