Bob Steele, the Nelson Poynter Scholar for Journalism Values, once said to a class we taught: "To be ethical you must be excellent," and "You cannot be excellent unless you are ethical." He went on to ask this group of broadcasters how many times their newsroom practiced before they put a new set on the air. Everyone in the room agreed they would do rehearsals many times before trying out a new set.
Then Bob asked the group how many of them had practiced covering a disaster like a plane crash, a terrorist attack or a caller who dials a newsroom number threatening suicide. Not one hand went up. I have asked Bob's questions of hundreds of journalists since, and I almost never find a newsroom that holds an all-out disaster coverage drill.
Newsrooms practice when they install a new TV set, a new Web template or a new newsroom computer system, but we don't practice the core of what we do: report.
Why not? What would we learn if we did practice? Hospitals, fire and police departments practice managing disasters. If they didn't, we would accuse them of malpractice and write about it.
Shouldn't journalists practice preparing for the disaster, the school shooting, the tornado, the hurricane, the flood that you
know you will cover some day? Wouldn't it be a sort of journalistic malpractice not to?
When my friend Don Taylor, the assignments manager at the 24-hour Ohio News Network (ONN) told me a couple weeks ago he was going to manage a newsroom disaster drill, I asked him and Executive Producer Amy Rogan to tell us how it went and what the newsroom learned.
What were the scenarios that you practiced? 
Don: The scenarios were a plane crash in Cleveland and an evacuation of an Ohio State University football game due to a bomb threat (which expanded to more college stadiums across the Midwest as the scenario progressed). Each one started with a breaking news page and we then fed the desk and producers information -- some unconfirmed. We set up a live truck in the parking lot where we did our "live" shots and enlisted the help of several people around the station to do phone interviews as witnesses and officials.
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Ohio News Network
Ohio News Network newsroom |
For one of the scenarios you actually tried a role reversal -- reporters had to work as producers, and producers were out in the field. Why did you do that, and what lessons flowed from it?
Amy: We wanted to give each staff member a 360-degree view of their television world. So many times we get caught up putting in graphics, talking at reporters and anchors in the field or on the desk, and we forget there's someone else on the other side of the Interruptible Feedback (IFB).
For the producers who had to act as reporters in the field, we fed them mix/minus in their IFB so they could understand what it means when a reporter says they have mix/minus. We put a couple of producers on the anchor desk so they could try to ad lib and take in information in their IFB all while appearing calm and in control.
We also wanted the talent to understand what's going on in the control room. ONN is an automated wheel format with one person doing a lot of different things and using several different computers, as well as trying to communicate with talent and take in information from the desk. The control room can be an extremely confusing place. While anchors didn't have the technical background to actually produce, we had them act as associate producers and try to help us gather information, put name supers in, get mic checks, etc.
It was a lot of fun AND it was educational.
What were the instructions to the staff? Did the staff know this exercise was coming? Don: We had the staff come in for live shot and breaking news training, but we didn't tell them what that meant. I'm sure most of them thought it was going to be an easy walk-through of procedures. I don't think they expected to be moving through a full-speed drill at the top of the session.
So what happened? What did you and your staff learn from doing the exercise rather than juggling grenades live on the air? Amy: Right off the bat we found rookie mistakes. For example, no one in the control room had their headsets with them when we threw the first scenario at them.
I always say there are two kinds of producers: One kind thrives on chaos and deadlines and acts as if the world is crashing all the time. The second kind is very calm and concise and speaks with quietness and ease to the crew. I find the second kind makes breaking news less stressful, but the energy of the first kind has its place as well.
The first producer we put in the chair is pretty young and still working on turning the chaos into calmness, so there was all kinds of chaos. I think the crew was really unprepared for such an active exercise. I think they thought they were going to get to "coast" through a lecture or something.
By the time we switched in the second crew, everyone saw what the big mistakes were and started to take a little more control.
The big things we pointed out were:
- Any decision is better than no decision. Directors and Anchors MUST have some kind of guidance of where they�re going next.
- That decision must be communicated thoroughly before it can be executed. Producers cannot tell an anchor what they're doing next and not tell the director. Calm communication helps your crew stay calm and not knee-jerk react, and it cuts down on chaos.
Don: I think the exercise was valuable because we were also able to find a number of issues that needed to be standardized across all shifts. For example, some assignment editors fed producers information through top-line messages, while others would use the control room intercom ... just as some producers were expecting information in only one way.
In a "normal" day situation, we can overcome missing a message or having to repeat information. But in a big breaking news situation, that communication flow needs to be perfect. In the future, we will have examples from the scenario that we'll use to emphasize the importance of following procedures.
What would you say to newsrooms that might say they don't have time for this kind of dry-run? Don: Amy created a breaking news plan several years ago that we give to all employees, because we do a lot of live news on a daily basis. Unfortunately over time, I think we get into bad habits and fall away from the plan. It might not always affect the everyday, on-air product, but it frustrates employees and hurts their performance. A training exercise like we did helps update the plan to make it more relevant to employees. It can't be something shoved in the bottom of your desk drawer. I would encourage all stations to have a plan and review it as much as possible.
Amy: When I get done laughing? We are a 24 hour/seven-day-a-week news room. We MADE time. If you want to be a benefit to your staff and help them grow, if you want to find the problems and FIX them, if you want to continuously contribute to a better product, you MAKE the time.
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