It's the first day of our second week here and already we have noticed a marked improvement in the 8 p.m. TV news, their main show. The first block rocked, with a package on the life sentence given to a Pakistani drug dealer, a live phoner with our correspondent who is traveling with the president, and voiceover or vo/sot stories on a variety of topics. The show moves much faster with these added elements and we no longer have the anchor reading for five minutes at a time without a break.
But the biggest changes are yet to come. The staff gathered for a meeting after the English newscast was over at 9:30 pm. Ali and Rameez announced the new anchor lineup. For the first time each of the major Sunday through Thursday newscasts will have a regular anchor and producer. To me this made perfect sense in terms of creating an identity for the show, achieving consistent quality and allowing the most experienced presenters to develop a following among viewers. However, the staff was not so sure.
The culture of this newsroom allowed a lot of people to be below average while a handful of people did the majority of the work. If everybody has a chance to do the 8 pm news once in a while, then no one feels compelled to work hard to earn the top job. But there was not exactly jubiliation when we announced that the weekday 8 p.m. anchor would be Heena. No one disagrees that she's earned the job, it's just that they all want to hang on to their own piece of the action. They don't see the importance of developing a morning show and there is some feeling that we have shortchanged Shifla. I just hope everyone will give it a chance so we can start developing the shows instead of starting over with different people every day. The meeting dragged on for over 90 minutes because of the all the questions. It's pretty hard to go from having a different anchor every couple of hours to having people that you hope will be your anchors for LIFE.
Now, with all of the top anchor slots filled and the staff assigned to specific shifts, we find we have a serious shortage of full time reporters and producers. Many of the news readers were part timers who came in a few minutes before the show and cold read the script. We will now try to use the weekends and midnight shows as a training ground for those who want to pay their dues and move up through the ranks. At the moment, we don't have any choice but to use some of the part timers while we look for people who actually want to be journalists.
The culture of this newsroom allowed a lot of people to be below average while a handful of people did the majority of the work. If everybody has a chance to do the 8 pm news once in a while, then no one feels compelled to work hard to earn the top job. But there was not exactly jubiliation when we announced that the weekday 8 p.m. anchor would be Heena. No one disagrees that she's earned the job, it's just that they all want to hang on to their own piece of the action. They don't see the importance of developing a morning show and there is some feeling that we have shortchanged Shifla. I just hope everyone will give it a chance so we can start developing the shows instead of starting over with different people every day. The meeting dragged on for over 90 minutes because of the all the questions. It's pretty hard to go from having a different anchor every couple of hours to having people that you hope will be your anchors for LIFE.
Now, with all of the top anchor slots filled and the staff assigned to specific shifts, we find we have a serious shortage of full time reporters and producers. Many of the news readers were part timers who came in a few minutes before the show and cold read the script. We will now try to use the weekends and midnight shows as a training ground for those who want to pay their dues and move up through the ranks. At the moment, we don't have any choice but to use some of the part timers while we look for people who actually want to be journalists.
The new schedule starts next week, when our afternoon anchor, Waseem, returns from traveling with President Gayoom. Oh yeah, rumor has it that he also wanted the 8 p.m. job.
2 comments:
Hey teryy,
this blog is sooo cool, we really like it that we see ur feedback,
I just wanted to leave a comment on this post.
I think its such a great change and a really professional one that we are finally gonna have news anchors.
Heena waseem and shifla are like the best tv anchors we have in maldives right now and the are like almost equally talented.
One thing thats being concernin us is that, we have got this three great anchors but not all of their bulletins are of the " equal status" or has its full glory.
We were just wondering that when this change is going to get implemented next week, is their any plans to change the structure of their respective bulletins?
what i mean here is that the prime time bulletin is soo glamorous the morning bulletin is like an ant statying next to an elephant?
but shilfa ain't no ant next to heena and neither is waseem (just our opinion)
It would be so great to have the structure of the bulletins also changed.:-)
Just wanted to say that we are totally behind this change and are willing to work with u all to make this the number one station, not the "presidents channel or nasheedh's mouthpice" anymore..
three cheers for "change" yippeee!!!!
Hey JD,
I really appreciate your comment and you raise some important questions. We are so fortunate to have three strong anchors for our front line team. The eventual goal is to have a real "breakfast news show" in the morning, which would be a half hour or more with Shifla, plus an afternoon news and current affairs program which would be more time with Waseem. It may seem like we are shoving them aside in favor of Heena, but I assure you this is NOT the case. Now I need all of the newsroom to step forward and surround each of these anchors with a strong team and fill the shows with great content. This means great producers and reporters are as important as the anchors. When we can produce great looking bulletins then, with permission of the management, we can expand the programs because we have the right people in place to make it a success. The prime time will improve quickly with a consistent team and show the way for the other two dayparts. Same for the education show at 7 pm with Nazleena. Does that answer your question? I look forward to more comments.
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