Mailbag: You can observe a lot just by watching

Grapevine,

I'm a reporter paying my dues in a small market, and to be honest, there's really no one here to teach me very much. Everyone is a rookie and the ND doesn't offer any feedback. I'm just looking for advice as to how I can do better standups and packages if I don't see anyone in this market who really stands out. I watch the competition every night and I'm just not inspired.

-Willing to learn

Dear Willing,

Well, I used the classic Yogi Berra quote in the headline because, in reality, it speaks volumes.

To continue with the baseball analogy, a good player on a lousy team isn't as good a player when he's surrounded by other guys in the lineup who aren't very good. Trade him to a team with a solid lineup, and he'll get better just by picking up little things from his teammates.

So in your case, you're playing in the Rookie League and want to make it to The Show.

Your big problem is that you're trying to learn from people of your own talent level. Your solution is two-fold. Forget watching other entry level people and start watching the networks. In fact, start taping the networks and breaking down how successful reporters put packages together, do standups, use nat sound, write to video, write in and out of sound bites. Then listen to the packages without watching and pay close attention to the delivery and inflection.

The second thing you have to do is watch a lot of other people's resume tapes. (But Grape, I'm not a News Director, I don't have a stack of tapes to look at.) Ah, but there are all sorts of people who have posted their resume tapes online, on sites like tvjobs.com and many others. You can literally watch hundreds of tapes, but I want you to concentrate on the people who have a decent amount of experience... don't watch other rookies to begin with. Then, after you've watched all the vets, check out the people with the same level of experience as yourself. Now you're seeing the competition, and you know that you have to be a little bit better. So take all the things you've learned watching the network and the veteran reporters and start incorporating them into your own work.

And no excuses about being a one man band or having lousy equipment. A package is the same in New York as it is in market 200. It needs good writing, a great standup, nat sound, effective sound bites, and a solid delivery.