Categories: OLD Media Moves

Putting together business news show on TV like running marathon

Peter Schacknow, the senior producer on CNBC‘s breaking news desk, writes that putting together a business news show for TV when a lot of news is breaking is like running a marathon.

Schacknow wrote, “When BNP Paribas suspended redemptions from two funds and global markets plunged as a result, we pretty much knew the show, as planned, was going to be ripped to shreds.

“It’s all a drill we’ve done many times. Our segment producers scramble to get guests (and somhow always do), while we closely monitor the news and plan the next block of news, sometimes only minutes — or even seconds — before the fact.

“That part is what we’re trained to do, and being able to do it is a real accomplishment. I have to admit a soft spot, though, for our guests who eagerly show up and wait for their turn in the spotlight, only to be told that we have to bump them. I always feel bad for them, even though I know it’s necessary.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.

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John Demmer says:
August 10, 2007 at 1:25 pm
The real accomplishment is how CNBC gets journalists and others to serve as "experts" and "insiders" without paying them a nickel or signing them as consultants. Those times they are a-changing, with Fox News on the scene.