10 Points to keep in mind when migrating from print to television.

1. Workflow Change -  Television requires far greater co-ordination, teamwork and adherence to very tight timelines by various news departments.  Reporters, newsdesk, assignment, production and technical departments  cannot work in isolation and need to be a very tightly knit team. A TV newsroom has hierarchies like print but in television they are more horizontal rather than vertical. Print journalists often find it hard to adjust to these complex workflows.

2. Communication - effective, fast and to-the-point, is the lifeline of a successful television newsroom. The importance of this cannot be overemphasised. Without proper training or setting up of a newsroom workflow, it can take years of  self-learning (the hard way) to fine tune news processes and have a well trained talent pool to efficiently cover any news event.

3. Think visuals - TV journalists have to think 'pictures' all the time. Even if its a 'sources'  story they have to think VISUALLY and add value to their stories with production elements like graphics, sound and music. Story visualization is one of the biggest challenges for print journalists, which only comes with intensive television training or prolonged exposure to TV news.

4. Journalism gets a face - A TV journalists own performance is up for as much scrutiny by viewers as is the subject's. Unlike the print media, the TV journalist tends to become the FACE of the channel and the credibility of the news organisation.

5. Tools you require - From delivering a powerful voice over, understanding video editing, handling microphones & camera to file transferring form laptops, the tv modern journalist needs to learn all these key skills. Television news is very technology intensive and plays a critical role in news, right from todays ING (IT based news gathering) cameras, to live production and on-air. The journalist needs to be effectively trained in all aspects of technology to perform effectively.

6. What the viewer remembers - is completely different in television. Here visuals are key. Studies show that in a news report, viewers recall pictures the most (over 75-80%), followed by 'nat' sound (about 10-15%) and finally the voice over (only 5%) which is basically the journalists script voiced!

7. Time to air - Is vital to a television channel's reputation and a journalist needs to be able to  quickly source key information and put it on air. The speed of getting information and putting it out well formatted, is extremely fast compared to print. The typical turnaround time from the time a story breaks till its goes on air is minutes  in television, while in print it can be hours.

8. The 'live nature of TV' - requires a very different mindset from print. If a story breaks viewers expect to see it on TV instantly. The entire structure of a television station is geared towards this fundamental deliverable to its viewers and hence works full strength almost round the clock.

9. Promos - With intense competition in the news space, a journalist migrating from print to television needs to learn the art of promotional campaigns on TV and the huge impact they make in viewership ratings. How to approach a big news story so it is easier to promo, when to promo a big scoop, how much to promo it by are all skills aquired by training and understanding promo department workflows.

10. Operational expenses - tend to be quite high in television due to the dependence on technology and news gathering infrastructure. Journalists, especially the leadership, need to have a firm understanding of news operations and be very conscious of this fact while planning and deploying news resources which need to be optimised

Contributions
Chetan Bhattacharji
Deepankar Majumdar