On April 13, some of the nation’s leading news directors and industry executives participated in an insightful look into the world of directing network television news at the Game-Changers: Making the News event, held at the DGA’s New York Theater.
The three-part discussion explored the role of television news directors in shaping the coverage of the world’s events with panels that featured directors and producers from the three major networks who discussed the technological changes that have occurred since the debut of television news and the impact that had on news direction; and shared their front row seat accounts of history-in-the-making events.
The evening kicked off with an introduction by CBS News Director/DGA Second Vice President William M. Brady, who noted that of the more than 150 hours that make up a week in a local television station, 70 of those hours are dedicated to news.
Brady turned the podium over to the evening’s moderator and producer, 2010 DGA Lifetime Achievement in News Direction Award recipient Roger Goodman. Goodman recalled being thrust into the world of news while working for ABC Sports during the 1972 Munich Olympics when the Israeli athletes were taken hostage and sporting event suddenly became a news event.
After a video montage of some of the seminal moments in television news, Goodman began the first panel discussion, Directors Breaking New Ground: The Dawn of Television News. This conversation was a look at early pioneers of television news directing and how the genre developed with a panel that featured former NBC News Director/1996 DGA Lifetime Achievement Award in News Direction recipient Max Schindler, CBS Evening News Director and CBS News Special Events Producer-Director Eric Shapiro, former NBC News President and current Columbia Journalism School Fred Friendly Professor of Media and Society Richard Wald, and former Senior VP ABC News Program Development and former CBS News Executive Producer-Director Av Westin.
The second discussion, Directors Using Technology: Enhancing the Story, explored how news directors pushed for technological development to better enhance the viewing experience and combined invention with imagination by use of advances such as satellites, fiber optics, computer-generated graphics, mobile trucks, over-the-shoulder boxes and split screens. The panel featured former CBS Evening News and Good Morning America Executive Producer Jim Murphy, NBC Nightly News Director Brett Holey, former ABC News Director Ann Benjamin, Eric Shapiro and a taped appearance by retired ABC World News Tonight Director Charlie Heinz.
The evening’s final dialogue Directors as Witness: Reacting to History in the Making, took a look at history through the eyes of the news director who must react, take charge and tell the story as critical events unfold before them such as the assassination of JFK and 9/11. The panel conducting this class from the other side of history included ABC News Special Events Executive Producer Marc Burstein, NBC News Senior Director John Libretto, current Saturday Night Live and former Good Morning America and The Early Show Director Don Roy King, The Today Show Director Joe Michaels, and ABC World News Director Eric Siegel.
