News Producing Reel

KOMU 8 is an NBC-affiliate with the University of Missouri. As a student producer for KOMU, I work with production assistants, digital producers and executive producers at the station.

To prepare for a show I write stories based on anything from local news around our market area or the state of Missouri., as well as trying to localize bigger, national stories That could consist of breaking news or stories that we choose to pull from CNN and NBC, as well as any national news pieces that would impact audience members in our viewing area.

I organize the rundown of the show I am working on by deciding first the "why" or "what's new" in a piece. Why would this impact viewers and how? Writing to the viewer doesn't mean we cherry pick the content to fit them, just that we are choosing to cover content that will likely impact the community and giving them the tools to stay informed about the topic.

Full producer reel

Experience in the Booth

This is an example of a show where I led with weather because of the road conditions due to a couple of snow storms in the area. I decided to start off the top of the show straight to road conditions so that the audience would know exactly what to expect as soon as possible. This is also an example of my booth-ing tactics and a small portion of the cues I give to the metereologists/reporters/etc.

Full Show Examples

This is an example of a show with breaking news where we used a live traffic camera that can be accessed online in order to show a semi that was stalled on a major interstate. The stalled vehicle was blocking traffic, and causing a shift in lanes. We led with that and then transitioned into a reporter story that also could have been a lead story as well because of a well known case in the area.

This is an example of a show where I used camera and set movement to showcase several stories. I decided to move the anchor to another area of the set to demonstrate a tone shift in the story about the aftermath of a crash at Laguardia Airport in New York. We also had new video of the crash that we added to show an added element to the story.

This is an example of an A block from my 6 p.m. show on a Saturday. We had received news earlier in the day about joint strikes from the U.S. and Israel on Iran, but we got constant updates on the aftermath and the details throughout the day. I decided to build out the top of the show to reflect those new details, with a NATVO showing new video NBC posted showing the strikes, as well as moving my anchor to a different spot on set.

This is an example of a show I produced where breaking news dropped about an hour before the show. I collaborated with my executive producer and the assistant news director to send a reporter to the scene. Before the reporter went live, I talked with him about what I would ideally like for the show. We also used a live drone shot in this story.

A Block Examples

This is an example of an A block from my 9 p.m. show on primary election night in Columbia, Missouri. Others worked to pre-produce some of the results and tosses for the newscast. I worked to follow up with reporters, make explainer graphics and cue reporters (including a live interview), as well as manage the rundown. I was the producer in the control booth managing 6 different live shots throughout the A and B blocks, while communicating to the anchor if results were in live.

This is an example of an A block from a 6 p.m. show at KOMU where I led with weather for that day. I wanted to incorporate the storm mode bam to show that while we were not in a "first alert weather day" which anticipates more severe weather, the weather team was still on alert for storms.