News reality show idea
David Johnson August 23rd, 2007
All the ‘Anchorwoman’ comments and reactions have got my creative energy flowing. No, I haven’t even watched the program, which I expect to be another shallow trainwreck that will leave me angry for stealing 30 minutes of my precious life that could have been better spent giving a cat a manicure. But I am reminded of some past discussions about how a news-meets-reality-show mashup may actually have some potential to inform audiences as it entertains them, and not simply cash in and cheaply appall them. So, just as Kramer stumbles over to stalk Fred Willard at the coffee shop, dear Lost Remoters, allow me to present my ‘treatment’ for a new nightly news program: a reality show shot on location at a major newspaper that follows the cycle to deadline. Working title: A1.
Essentially, we follow the drama and high energy that goes into producing the news every day, and as we follow the drama, the viewers get the major stories of the day. Not as news packages, but they get the news embedded in the show’s narrative as the stories unfold before the reporters. We see the pitches, the shouting fests and fights and the back-and-forth in crafting the news into product. The rush when news breaks, the crash when it falls through. Use the reality format to deliver the news and show what goes into it with true transparency.
The show has to be shot and cut each day, ideally aired on a cable news net at 11 or 11:30. The last scene might even be live as the final decisions are made, the front page is composed and the paper is put to bed.
Ok, so maybe you say the newspaper is a dinosaur, but the news cycle of a daily fits and feeds a daily news wrap show. You’d want to read that paper the next morning. It would have serious marketing and expansion reach that would really only benefit a paper that wanted to be national in scope, that had a massive web presence already, and was putting talent out over tv and radio already. Although, I do think you could do it very successfully locally.
Ok, studio heads, the elevator ride is ending. What do you think of the pitch?
9 Comments Add your own
1. D T Nelson | August 23rd, 2007 at 11:52 am
Sounds like “Tabloid Wars” only in almost-real-time. “Tabloid Wars” was good.
The only problem I see is, in “the back-and-forth in crafting the news into product,” a lot of stuff that isn’t true, and would ultimately not be included in the printed paper, would be put out on the air. In “Tabloid Wars,” the stories were months old, and anyone who cared already knew how the stories turned out, and the chasing of the false leads was part of the drama of the show. I suppose on “A1,” discussions of such false early reports could be captioned with “This is not true.”
2. Safran | August 23rd, 2007 at 11:54 am
Absolutely. I’ve had a similar idea. Take yours and put it in a local TV newsroom every day.
I’ve always thought the best show in town is the one that happens behind the scenes in the newsroom. People love the behind the scenes stuff and it is cheap and easy to produce.
My only change to yours: the video is posted online as it is collected all day. Come on Johnson, this is LR for crying out loud!
Great post.
3. Terry Heaton | August 23rd, 2007 at 11:56 am
Have you not seen “Making News, Texas Style” on the TV Guide channel? I’d include a link, but it’s against the law.
4. HMMM..... | August 23rd, 2007 at 1:05 pm
CANCELLED.
5. Joe | August 23rd, 2007 at 1:29 pm
Straight from FOX:
“will run back-to-back episodes of ‘TIL DEATH on Wednesdays for the next three weeks, and the remaining episodes of ANCHORWOMAN will not air.”
6. Rick | August 23rd, 2007 at 1:44 pm
Well, FWIW, there’s a recent review of the ‘Making News, Texas Style’ over on my site (click on my name for the link).
I like the show, but it’s only watchable if you record it, then do a lot of fast-forwarding.
This type of reality show seems like a natural for MSNBC’s ‘Doc-Bloc.’
7. Rob | August 23rd, 2007 at 2:11 pm
A TV newsroom would work better than a newspaper newsroom as TV is by nature of the business a much more visual medium. I liked ‘Tabloid Wars’, but I thought that the 5-part series ‘Inside Local News’ was just as compelling, if not more visual.
Hey if you’re going to do it in real time (and there’s no budget attached), I would turn the whole news organization into a fishbowl with remote cameras (microphones included) in live trucks, news cars, news conference rooms, production control, edit bays, everything. And make sure you can get at least one audio side channel that features local scanner traffic.
The whole show streams live on the web from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. (Morning meeting to end of early evening newscast).
8. Marc Rullo | August 23rd, 2007 at 2:32 pm
Some things most people prefer not to see. By its very nature news is ugly enough already. We could do without the forced public strip tease of an already scantily clad messanger of mostly doom and gloom. To be perectly blunt, the idea of exposing the exposition of the festering sores of humanity like war and scandal for the sake of entertainment is repulsive. Maybe I’ve taken your idea to an extreme that it would never reach in practice but it seems to me that this is a continuous slumping of all things media. We need more decency and dignity in reporting not less.
9. Robert | August 24th, 2007 at 7:20 am
I think the problem with this idea in general is the news people *need* to see is generally boring as hell. The things they tune-in for (car wrecks, murders, wonton self-promotion (ok, maybe not that)), gets their attention but does nothing to really “inform” them. If you want people to see the reality behind news-gathering, screw the newsroom and take them to the sales meetings.
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