Saturday, April 24, 2010

Brian's White Board

From Brian Williams's April 21 Daily Nightly blog: "So we have this white board in our conference room...The white board is a place for story ideas—not the big stuff to which we have correspondents assigned (volcanoes, presidents, and the like) but the smaller, more optional items—that many nights are my favorite elements of the broadcast, and certainly the most fun to write and deliver."

I get it. White board stories are stories that have absolutely no news value and don't belong on a news broadcast but are put on the air in order to pander to viewers by offering them warm and fuzzy items--stuff that's fun to watch and easy to digest (like "America's Funniest Home Videos"). So the viewers keep tuning in night after night to see skateboarding bulldogs, pink dolphins and clips from Leno's monologue. That way, more people watch the broadcast, the ratings go up and ultimately you get to charge higher ad rates. White board stories. I totally get it.

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