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One of the first emails I got working in a TV newsroom was a “discrepancy report.”
It was the first in a countless series of form emails filled out by show producers to document mistakes during their newscast. “Typo in chyron,” “audio issues during live shot,” “batteries died in anchor mic” – that sort of stuff. Most of the emails read: “Clean show.”
I found the “discrep reports” odd. First, as far as I could tell, no one read them. Second, if you watched the show and read the report, they rarely reported actual mistakes. They certainly never crossed into the digital world, where a reporter would promise “more information” in their tag without ever providing more information for the web copy.
Finally, the reports were sent to everyone, like a public shaming. There was no equivalent “wins report” documenting the many things that went right or people did well. Just this email inbox-stuffing record of minor errors that fell well within the fallibility of human beings.
Going through the Table Stakes for Broadcast program at Arizona State, I explained this to program lead Doug Smith. A brilliant guy, he knew immediately what was happening. He called it “managing to perfection.” It doesn’t sound so bad, right? It’s an absolute innovation killer, and we need to stop now if we have any hope of solving 2025.
Managing to perfection seems like the path of a true professional. We’ll wring every flaw out of our work until we’re left with the Platonic ideal of the newscast: