Surprise! Fill-in anchoring trial coverage

File this one under “the best laid plans.”

After three weeks, our theater shooting trial coverage is going well — but that means something has to go wrong, right?

It wasn’t the technology. It wasn’t an unexpected court procedure. It is a swirling pool of schedule conflicts.

I am still wrestling to get those under control, making a little bit of progress each day.

By working our butts off, we kept the train on the tracks. But as a manager, I will not feel like this project is a success if the team is burnt out by working on an unsustainable plan.

Making progress toward a sustainable schedule requires a bit of compromise, and that means someone from my digital staff occasionally needs to sit in the reporter’s chair to carry the coverage through a court recess — especially if the recess occurs at a time we aren’t expecting it.

On short notice, it is better to have someone who knows the subject but is uncomfortable in front of the camera than someone who is good on camera but uncomfortable with the subject.

Since the rotation has me on the assignment full-time right now, the role of short-notice anchoring fell to me a few times during the second half of the third week.

Here are some embedded samples of that work anchoring the trial coverage. I’m not saying they are good samples, I’m collecting those for another post (maybe for next week?). I just want to save these for posterity.

Interviewing our legal analyst:

Showing how purchases fit into the timeline:

First time up, with very little warning:

Interview goes awry when audio signal goes down: