Why Does Your Morning News Run So Well? Tech, and Khristine Arnold
CHATTANOOGA, TN – Have you ever watched a news show and wondered how it all works so seamlessly and runs so smoothly? Have you ever had a moment at your business or been in the community and wondered “why isn’t the news live covering this right now?” My guest today is the WDEF Morning Producer Khristine Arnold and she’s going to explain all these things.
“I come in at 2 a.m., with coffee ready in hand. I go through all the stories that have happened and all the stories that are currently happening. I look for anything that’s new. So there could be, like, car wrecks or could’ve been a shooting, any sort of new press releases. I update all of our new stories and we pull stories from the day before that were more interesting or impacted people the most. Then I gather them all together, make some little clever like teases. Puns. We love puns here, and I just kind of make my magic, take a puzzle and put it into one full image, and then I send it off to our production department,” says Khristine.
As both an account executive and a TV personality, we always get asked “can you just send the news cameras out on Thursday?” There’s always a ribbon cutting, grand opening, or special event that of course we’d love to cover, but is it just as easy as pushing a button and deploying our incredible field reporters? According to Khristine “It’s not quite that easy. We always have to focus on prioritizing our reporters and our equipment and our stories and our time, especially our time. So, I mean, as much as we love to go to your grand opening at 9 a.m., there’s a car chase happening right now that we need to go and cover because some people may be in danger.”
What about in times of crisis? Recently in Los Angeles, local broadcast news had billions of minutes of viewing because people trust their local broadcast news to tell them the latest in weather and important things happening in the community. “Depending on the severity,” says Arnold. “If it is something really bad, like evacuations, we will actually drop everything and head off for that. Grand openings are important to us, but unfortunately bigger things can take priority and we have to use our time wisely.”
With all of these, Khristine works very hard behind the scenes to make sure our news is relevant to the Tennessee Valley. “We focus on timeliness. If there is a fire currently happening, that is a story we cover first in the morning because it’s happening right now. Then we just continue going down by like what’s the most recent what’s the oldest,” says Arnold. “Sometimes we go by what’s more important and what’s more impactful. So sometimes we always typically do, local news down to the national. Lately we’re having to swap it to national news. To local news. Because there’s, you know, what’s happening right now with our economy. It’s affecting people’s wallets, significantly.”
