A Lesson on Convergence

Well, we now have the mini-TV studio set up in the newsroom. Almost.

I need to describe what’s going on for the folks now familiar with the inner workings of the news industry. The latest craze to hit this profession is called convergence. It’s when a company integrates its newspaper, television and Internet properties and promotes them as a brand. This can be done when the company owns one of each type of these properties in the same market. For Media General, in this market, they own the Bristol Herald Courier, WJHL Newschannel 11 out of Johnson City (20 miles away) and Tricities.com. This is not their first convergence effort. They also have a successful one going on in Tampa, Fla. (www.TBO.com)

So, what they’re going to do is the BHC and JHL promote each other on their various mediums. In addition to this, Media General decided to conduct a mini-TV set in the Herald Courier newsroom so that two reporters stationed out of here will do live broadcasts from the newsroom. Behind them will be the newsroom in all its glory, reporters scurrying about (actually scurring off camera...Mike Still will probably have a sign up reading, “Hi, Mom!”) . Sounds nifty, right?

They came in here back in December and decided that the best angle of the newsroom was right behind me. This means I’ll be in the middle of all the action, but you most likely won’t see me on camera. This is how it works:

To the left of me, there is a camera and a teleprompter mounted on the wall. There is also a huge clock that is coordinated with all the other CBS stations around the country. It’s set by satellite out of Denver. This is timed with CBS down to the second so they will not overlap with the CBS Evening News, the morning shows or the primetime shows. Therefore, this clock is about the only one in the newsroom that is completely right. The teleprompter runs all the time and it has taken some getting used to. It’s positioned so that I can see it out the corner of my eye and certain times of the day, I’ll catch that white text scrolling. Everything on the teleprompter in Johnson City can also be seen here, which is another part of the coordination. This is all done through a fiber-optic wire that runs between the Herald Courier and WJHL in Johnson City, about 25 miles from here. The camera can also be controlled from Johnson City using the fiber-optic connection. With a flick of the switch, at any time of day, they can turn it on and be watching what’s going on in the newsroom. It’s a bit scary, almost Big Brother-ish. It’s also provided some endless source of amusement in the two days it’s been here. Yesterday the guy who does their Sunday morning religious service was in there taping his show and everything going on the teleprompter at JHL in Johnson City can be seen here. So we all stood and snickered as the preacher went on about Hell, fire and damnation and how we’re all doomed.

Behind me is where the TV set is located. There are currently two bar stool-style chairs sitting there and we’re just waiting for a low table to join it. Under the low table will be a monitor and a control box. The box will controls three large TV lights and the camera on the wall. A clear plexi-glass screen will be behind the chairs that have the logos of the Herald Courier and WJHL on it. There are three big lights suspended from the ceiling, and one of those is directly over my head! Everyone who’s passed by my desk in the past two days have commented about the lights breaking free and falling on my head. Our city government reporter suggested that I operate a tanning booth at my desk and charge $5 per 10 minutes. When the lights are on, everything turns very bright and pinkish.

There will be two reporters stationed out of here and they will conduct broadcasts almost every day. Since I’m located to the camera’s left, you won’t be able to see me unless I accidentally push back from my desk and go too far. Most of the action will go over the rest of the newsroom, spotlighting metro, sports and copy desk. Our furniture is currently 1950s rejects, but as part of this entire TV deal, we’re getting our newsroom completely redone with new furniture and everything.

I will also get to be on TV. Starting in March, I will be going on once or twice a month to promote the stories going on the Thursday or Sunday features page. I’ll be in the newsroom here and the anchorman for the morning news show will be in Johnson City interviewing me about my own story. They’re going to give us lessons about how to act on camera, makeup, etc. I’ve been brushing up on my broadcast writing skills so I’ll be able to handle this when it happens. I’ll probably wind up rewriting parts of my feature into broadcast form so I won’t have to scramble when asked certain questions. The bad part about this is that I have to be here at 5:45 a.m. on the days when they do this feature spotlight, which will be every Thursday. I will rotate this out with the other two features writers, but geez, that’s still too early for me!

Andre Teague, one of our photographers, shot a bunch of pictures of them installing the camera and the lights and I think he even got some of me attempting to work at my desk during this madness. At one point, I was designing pages and a guy was standing next to me on top of my desk. If I can grab some of those pictures from Andre, I’ll post them to better visualize what I’m talking about.

And that’s our lesson in the news media for the day! ::beams::