By Nikki Burdine, WHAG-NBC25

Some might see it as being a little narcissistic, but I think of it as an opportunity to connect with the viewers. What, three studio cameras on me isn’t enough? Nope.

About a month ago, one of our photographers started streaming his daily activities on LiveStream. He’s hilarious, so most everyone at the station found watching his daily routine comical.

While not everyone would enjoy watching the daily ins and outs of one of my friends, I found it interesting. What a great way to connect with your friends, and let them into even more of your life, by streaming?

After watching our photographer’s humorous escapades, I decided to set up a LiveStream account myself. While my standard day isn’t particularly exciting, there is one part of my day that some people find unique: The fact that I’m a television news anchor. So I decided to bring our loyal viewers in a little bit more, by streaming behind the scenes of a newscast.

It was very simple, I set up an account, had someone hold their iPhone up during the show, and voila! We were streaming. I teased viewers and friends via Facebook and Twitter, telling them to tune into our behind-the-scenes broadcast of the 5 o’clock news.

The stream was very casual, informal and candid. There were several viewers who tuned in and were able to comment during the show. We started streaming from right before show time, explaining to viewers what we were doing, introducing them to production assistants and just talking casually about what to expect. We streamed throughout the first block of the show, and then commercial breaks, where I interacted with viewers via a chat-like setting on LiveStream. We even had a few random people from different countries!

It was a simple and easy way to let the viewers in on a little piece of the news that they don’t normally get…the long-time weather man who everyone in our market adores, what the studio really looks like, and how it all works.

I did find a couple of downsides to streaming. One, there was a bit of a delay between our voices and the video. Hopefully that’s something that will get better with time. Streaming also drains the battery on your phone, so keep a charger close by. My suggestion would be to have a laptop on the desk that has a camera built-in, that way no one has to hold it, and the anchor has complete control of what is broadcast. Here's a link to LiveStream. There's also Ustream, which is very similar.

Since our first stream, I’ve had multiple emails asking when we will be doing it again. I hope to make it a once in a while deal, but not too much…We do like to keep an air of mystery about us. Wink, wink.

Nikki Burdine is the anchor and producer for the noon and 5 p.m. show at WHAG-NBC25 in Hagerstown, Maryland. Nikki is a southern belle, hailing from East Tennessee, who has a passion (and self-proclaimed obsession) for the news and social media. She is writing a bi-weekly blog for RTDNA. Follow her on Twitter: @NikkiBurdine
 

 

 

POST A COMMENT

We All Stream Article

Nikki,

Broadcast journalism should really be about covering and delivering news to our audience in a way that helps them understand the world around them.

Streaming really doesn’t do that…unless you are adding value to stories. But your description implies that you’re streaming personal tidbits that have nothing to do with important issues. Instead the content seems better suited for circulations among your circle of friends on Facebook.

What real news are you…and we…missing as you devote time to streaming instead of researching stories?

This is not a personal criticism, Nikki. You simply have described what many TV journalists are doing. Eventually we will find a good way to use these new media to inform our viewers. But we’re not there yet.

Thanks for the article. I hope it generates a much needed discussion.

Streaming Behind the Scenes

Steve Cook's portentous comments seem a bit narrow minded to me. One problem traditional news organizations face is the opaque character of their operations. We give viewers/readers little opportunity to understand who we are, how we practice our craft and what goes into the news decisions we make. Nikki Burdine's streaming won't solve our industry's problems. But pulling back the curtain a bit, as she has done, is not a bad thing at all, especially if it engages our audience and our newscasts.