The morning assignment meeting at TVM got a lot more interesting today when I asked the news director to clean off the unused white board in the conference room and created a makeshift assignment board. This got the young TV journalists talking and laughing as we debated the merits of each story, instead of studiously scribbling everything down in their notebooks with little or no comment. Hamsy, in the foreground, is the sports desk editor.
We have to make calls to the 20 bureaus in the outlying atolls and find out what the one-person-bands are feeding in, and then decide what stories are worth covering the the capital and the nearby islands. With each story discussion the mood of the room began to change. Soon there was plenty of joking and laughter, friendly banter that you might hear in any US newsroom. They are learning that THEY have the editorial power to say yes or no. And, oh yes, this business can be fun!
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