The Focal Point Report: The Show 3 & 4 double-whammy

[Adam Greenfield]

This Friday, November 21st, the third ("The Changing Landscape of the News Industry") and fourth ("Web Television") Focal Point shows were taped back-to-back in Studio 1. Could we really do two great shows at once? Read on to find out...

Why do 2 shows?
My memory fails me in remembering why we decided to shoot two Focal Point shows on one day. Certainly, we wanted to maximize the output of our shooting sessions. But the decision was surely hardened by guest Joe Tuman's bailing out of our previous show, a show which thus never got produced, losing us a precious taping session.

The Focal Point team had only taped one show at a time and there was no precedent for knowing how well we'd do with two shows. From a production point of view, two shows only involved rolling the cameras for another 30 minutes. From the content perspective, however, we would need double the guests, double the preparation, and double the talent energy on the day. But Focal Point has always been about pushing the envelope; why not give it a go?

Our show pre-production gets better all the time
Our success with booking guests was much better this time. We had plenty of time to produce both shows but, as usual, it took us a few weeks to get going. But we really started to make progress when I decided to sit down for a solid session and focus on results. Instead of just sending emails to general inboxes, I telephoned individuals and backed up with emails to those individuals. This got results much more efficiently. Contacting guests weeks before the show makes life so much easier. Guests are more likely to say yes and to say yes quicker. I suspect that another reason for our good response rate was that we had online links to show guests previous episodes. Guests accepted, having seen that Focal Point is a quality, professionally-produced show. This suspicion gave the Focal Point production team a big happy kick. Finally, we contacted many more guests than the number we needed, ensuring that we still had a good chance of filling guest slots.

The Focal Point content team's workflow was also a big improvement. The way we arrived at the show topics was irregular and organic but it worked. Travis had wanted to do a web TV show because (a) it's very relevant to the media; and (b) this might provide Focal Point with some good contacts. The journalism show was decided on via a conversation between me and Travis on the drive to LA when Travis mentioned a contact via a friend. It seemed interesting so we went with that. Ideas really can come from anywhere, and so they should. A show topic can arise because of reading about or discussing a topic, or it can arise because we have a contact to an individual who could talk about an interesting topic. This time, both routes were used.

Once guests started to confirm and we had read some articles and guests' bios, we had a content meeting to refine the issues. We've gotten into a good pattern with this section. I read articles found by me or other team members (remembering only to read enough to identify issues, but not too much so that the topics become stale) and come up with a list of issues and questions. I present this information at content meetings for the team to comment and critique my ideas. Then I go back and refine my content further, call guests for pre-interviews, and then refine my questions once more. This feedback process is efficient and effective.

Thus, even though we were doing two shows at once, we were better prepared and the pre-production process was much smoother.

The Pre-Interview
My pre-interview technique is also steadily improving. Some journalists advise me, during the pre-interview, to ask the questions I'll ask on the show; other journalists tell me not to ask the same questions but to say "Tell me what you know about subject X". I still debate with myself on which course to take but I generally go for the first option because guests often don't know answers to particular questions and so I can prepare them for the show. I don't find that asking the same questions on the show elicits stale responses.

However, if on the phone a guest is stronger, I might use more "tell me about" questions because I expect the guest to be able to answer almost anything I ask in the studio. But if a guest is less confident I'll ask more specific questions on the phone so that the guest is better prepared and I know what to and what not to ask. Whatever questions I ask, pre-interview responses always give me material I'd not anticipated, resulting in new questions for the show. And I always finish pre-interviews with "Is there anything else interesting that I've not yet covered?"

The Questions I Bring to the Table
Finally, Friday 21st November had arrived and it was time to shoot. As usual, despite the long pre-production period, I still found myself scrambling on Friday morning. I had to pre-interview a final guest, come up with a final list of questions for both shows, and organize the questions into sections. Then I had to print up the questions onto paper.

To give you an idea of what questions I bring to the Focal Point table, here's what I took on show 3, the journalism show (note: the letters followed by colons are the first initial of the guest to whom I'm putting the question):

1. The situation

A: What is going on in the news industry and what companies are being affected?
A: Why is this happening?
A: To what extent are media companies responding with cost-cutting as opposed to changing?
L: Why didn't the journalist bodies warn the industry sooner about the current situation?

2. What's happening to the journalists

L: What is happening to the journalists in newsrooms?
L: What new demands are being placed on journalists today?
L: How much work are journalists finding when they leave their old employers?
L: How much progress had the industry made with integrating more diverse journalists?
L: What effect are current changes having on the diversity of voices in journalism?

3. New journalism models

D: Tell me about Spot.us.
D: To what extent is Spot.us a response to the industry's current situation?
D: What kind of stories can independent journalism cover that the industry would miss?
A: What role might citizen journalism play in the future?
D: What future do you see in terms of the types of media entities operating?
L: How confident are you that a model like Spot.us's can support the nurturing of journalists like in the older large media entities?
D: Will we pay for news in the future?

4. Final thoughts

A: If you could go back in time 10 years, what would you tell the media industry?
L: What's the future going to look like?

As you can see, I break up the show into 3-5 sections, with no more than 7 questions in any section, and no more than 20-25 questions overall. I put the questions onto 3 or 4 1/2 A4-sized cards.

In practice, I usually keep faithful to the show's structure but leave out or modify many questions, based on what's happening at the time. I never have the time to ask all of the questions.

The Shoot
At 2:30pm, I dashed upstairs, having pulled my questions out of the printer as fast as possible. I felt rushed and uncertain. I'd be dealing with two topics and six guests in short succession. Would I be sharp enough for this double-act? Let's find out.

Firstly, here's a summary of the shows:

First show
Topic: The demise of the news industry and possible new paths forward.
Guests: Alan Mutter (industry veteran, writer of blog "Reflections of a Newsosaur"), Linda Jue (director of New Voices in Independent Journalism), and David Cohn (founder of Spot.Us, a micro-financing website for independent journalists).

Second show
Topic: The rise of Internet television and what will separate the winners from the losers.
Guests: Jim Louderback (Revision3, a web tv company), Damon Campolo (Purple Truck Media, a web tv developer), and Justin Morrison (Break a Leg, a web tv show)

Would the shows be the best yet? I'll answer up-front: From a content perspective, yes. By far. Here's why:

A. We booked the right guests: This time we went outside BECA, into the industry for our talent for a greater variety of views. We had more guests per show (3 instead of 2), meaning busier conversation. Our guests complimented each other well. For instance, in the second show, Justin was much more junior and closer to the audience in experience and the other two guests were more business-orientated.

B. Our choice of subjects were great: This time, we chose cutting-edge subjects. Our guests brought ideas that are on the edge of the current discussions, so these episodes really gave the audience something new and timely.

C. My performance was far better: For weeks before the show, I visualized myself breaking the stuckness of oncamera self-consciousness and becoming myself. On these shows, I finally broke this barrier. I became capable of any level of performance that I do in normal life. This was great. I laughed and joked with guests, probed them, got them arguing with each other, and stopped them rambling. This freed me from looking at my question cards as much because, being more relaxed, I could better remember the show's structure.

Reflections
I'm extremely happy with these two episodes. Our team's pre-production process was efficient. On the taping day, I believe the standard of conversation was broadcast-quality and my own performance was what I was finally satisfied with. Whilst I understand that the production team did experience some challenges, I'll leave that to them to discuss if they choose.

All said and done, I can't wait for these shows to emerge on television and online. I believe they are truly valuable contributions to the public discourse about the media, something we always wanted Focal Point to be. I hope you enjoy them.

Cheers, Adam