Posted by chicagomedia.org on August 09, 2009 at 09:59:46:
WMAQ finds new ways to get word out
VP says changing times demand innovative approach
August 7, 2009
LEWIS LAZARE | Sun-Times Marketing & Media columnist
Upheaval has been a given in the local television business recently. But one of the biggest changes has happened behind-the-scenes at WMAQ-Channel 5.
While Anna Davlantes was grabbing the headlines with her departure, WMAQ also was implementing a new structure after months of strategizing, hiring, firing, rehiring and retraining its new staff.
In this new world, news will go out on traditional newscasts and new platforms -- from the obvious, such as the Web, to more far-flung and exotic outlets including video screens at gas pumps and zillions of mobile phone devices.
WMAQ Vice President of News Frank Whittaker said the station has broken down and consolidated various job duties -- news producers, video editors and writers in particular -- that for decades were part and parcel of every TV newsroom. Now almost everyone, with the exception of news anchors and reporters, has a different title and must be proficient in multiple skills.
The change was radical not only in the change-of-job responsibilities among staffers, but in the entire personnel. The newsroom kept one-third of its original full-time staff (outside anchors and reporters) and brought in new full-timers and day hires (similar to free-lancers or contract workers).
Whittaker insists his station is leading a charge in developing news content from which there is no turning back.
"We've seen declines in viewership of traditional newscasts," he said, "so while those are still our core business, we need to find other places to deliver our content."
Right now, Whittaker and his team in the WMAQ news department are out there on this new limb all by themselves, at least as far as local television news departments are concerned. So far, no other local television news operation has signaled it will follow WMAQ's lead, though WMAQ's counterpart in New York, WNBC-Channel 4, actually was first to go with this radical rearrangement in the fall of last year. NBC's outlet in Los Angeles made the switch a week before Chicago, and NBC stations in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., are quickly following suit.
So what is this new design all about? At the top of WMAQ's reworked newsroom structure are day-part managers, who have wide-ranging responsibility for the overall daily news operations. Below them are platform managers who, as the title suggests, are concerned with how the news goes out on specific platforms, such as the TV newscast or WMAQ's Web site.
But a new entity known as a content producer really shoulders a lot of the hands-on responsibility for developing news content under the new arrangement. The content editor does jobs previously handled by at least three staffers: producer, writer and video editor.
The content producer assigns the story to a reporter and works with that reporter as the story is gathered in the field. Then the content producer must take the raw digital footage, edit it and write the copy appropriate for whatever the platform on which the finished new package will appear -- be that the Web, a traditional newscast or somewhere else.
It's a demanding task, as content producer Zach Christman will attest. Until the restructuring, Christman had been managing editor of WMAQ's Web site, but now he's got many new responsibilities. "Putting a news package together from scratch for a TV newscast is a big challenge for me," said Christman, "and I and a lot of us here now find ourselves out of our comfort zone."
Still, Whittaker believes this massive revamp ultimately will allow WMAQ to take advantage of the changing TV news business and reap more revenue as the station's news department grows more proficient working across multiple platforms. But Whittaker admits there have been -- and will continue to be -- glitches in the early going. Some newscasts have experienced minor lapses in sound or other problems.
"There's a big learning curve here, and we're still getting our rhythm," said the WMAQ news chief.
WLS SPORTS ANCHOR LETS HIS HAIR DOWN
Talk about your good sports. WLS-Channel 7 sports anchor Mark Giangreco has to rank up there with the best of them.
When WLS promotions producer Danny Tag asked Giangreco to dress in drag for a cameo role in a TV spot touting an open-audition Tuesday for a female announcer for WLS's "The Chicago Huddle," Giangreco consented.
His appearance makes for a hilarious -- and surprising -- finale to a wonderfully amusing commercial.