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Friday, February 17, 2006

An Inside Look at the KCBS Assignment Desk



The latest blog at the KCBS/KCAL website comes from assignment editor Mark Liu (above), who has started sharing a pretty interesting take on his job -- one where he serves as a kind of newsroom air traffic controller.

Here's how Liu introduces himself:

Assignment Editors are the folks in the newsroom that hunt for breaking news and dispatch our reporters and photographers to stories as they happen. We also surf the internet and drink a LOT of coffee. This blog should (hopefully) provide a little insight into the inner workings of a major metropolitan TV news assignment desk, and maybe give everyone out there a better idea of *how* and *why* we do the stories that we do.


Liu has been pretty candid so far, even excerpting odd exchanges with his exec producer Jeff:

Jeff walks up to the assignment desk)
Jeff: "Liu! What have you got for me? I want breaking news."
Me: "Stolen jeans."
Jeff: "I know about stolen jeans already. I'm bored with stolen jeans. Stolen jeans is old. What else do we have?"
Me: "You're bored of stolen........Jeff, we JUST ASSIGNED a reporter to the stolen jeans story 10 minutes ago and you're already bored with the story?"
Jeff: "I've moved on. We need something else. Is anything on fire?"
Me: "I saw someone running around here with their hair on fire earlier."
Jeff: "Oh, that was just someone on deadline."
Me: "Ah. Right."

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