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With stark financial realities taking shape for TV newsrooms in 2025, they must purge some bad habits. Staffing cuts are making daily headlines, and more cuts are projected in the first quarter of 2025. Newsroom leaders are concerned that there are already too few information gatherers.
As organizations retrench over the holidays and reset for next year, consider a few potential solutions to help improve workflow and content, even with few resources, beginning with the starting line for most stories: the editorial meeting.
Two nearly constant struggles exist in TV newsrooms: There’s too much repetition (as in the same story, often with almost the exact wording, airing for 24 hours or more) and a lack of story ideas pitched by newsgatherers. When I analyze newsroom workflow, it is often apparent that more planning is needed. Leaving same-day content selection mainly up to chance has watered down the newsgathering process.
Editorial meetings are the primary source of these issues. These meetings set the tone for expectations and the bar for the quality of content in newscasts and on digital. How they are conducted showcases how cohesive a team is and whether the staff understands brand expectations.
When I work with managers or stations, time and again, I find editorial meetings are disorganized. It’s unclear who is responsible for finding what information. The room tends to defer to one person, and many questions go unanswered. Staff members commonly tell me that expectations often need clarification, and the meetings tend to drag out.
Newscast producers, especially inexperienced ones,