MY NIS4 NEWS EDITOR WORKFLOW

Each day I’m responsible for deciding which items of news identified by our researchers are to be worked on by our journalists and then possibly become part of our news programmes. To help me with this task I need a reliable and easy-to-use computer system that provides me the information and tools that I need to review the news research, place stories in programme time slots and assign journalists to develop. NIS4 more than meets all these requirements...

GETTING STARTED
Prior to our daily editorial meeting I log into NIS4, go to today’s Agenda and read through each of the Event Cards created by our researchers. I’m looking for the right news that will fill the scheduled slots in today’s new programmes. Some Events are clearly news that should be aired today, others though could be delayed to another day, and some simply are not going to be of enough interest or importance to go to air at all. Just before the editorial meeting I print out copies of all the Event Cards—I could work direct from the NIS4 screen in the meeting, but there’s something about having the paper copies to review that I prefer.

THE EDITORIAL MEETING
My team comes together each day in the editorial meeting. We review each Event Card printout and make decisions what to do with the story. With NIS4 open, I can easily drag and drop Event Cards from today to another day, or if they are simply assessed as not required at all I can just change their status from “Research” to “Cancelled”. Those stories that it is decided will be on today’s programme I assign to Live Program slots by typing the news title into the slot in the Rundown. I can also bind the researchers Event Cards to the Rundown or to the journalist TV Scripts using the NIS4 Project functionality, keeping all the information on each story together.

ISSUING JOURNALIST ASSIGNMENTS
At the end of our editorial meeting all the Live Program slots in the Rundown have been filled with stories. Additional stories can be placed on a “shelf” - these can be worked on by journalists, and if the Playout Director decides they taken to air by a simple cut-n-paste into the Rundown. I now assign each story in the Rundown to a journalist, create a TV Script (the document each journalist works on) and change the Event Card status from “Research” to “Production”. My editorial meeting work is done. No fuss. No confusion. Just action.

As you can see, NIS4 provides me with the easy-to-use tools I need to access the researchers’ work and action my decisions - whether this is to place stories in the Rundown and assign journalist sto work on them, move them to another day or cancel them. As a result, my editorial meetings are now more organised and efficient and the whole newsroom is clear who needs to do what to get the news to air.